When it comes to multiple loyalties we know about the issues which cropped up with Germans, Italians and Japanese during World War II, and the vociferous anti-German activism of World War I, the ambivalence which the Irish viewed intervention on the side of Britain during the World Wars. But of course there is one overarching bond of affinity and hostility which has characterized the American nation, and that is the relationship with the United Kingdom. During the War of 1812 the elites of New England did mull over secession from the United States. There was a clear commercial rationale for this, a rationale which was inverted during the Civil War when it was the Southern states who had ties of commerce with United Kingdom, but there was also an ethno-cultural valence. Even today Greater New England remains the most explicitly “English” of American regions. Though the elites of New England had clear material interests with the United Kingdom, bonds of culture and ethnicity were also prominent during the late 18th and early 19th century, which set off this region as particularly Anglophile. By contrast, in 1800 the South was dominated demographically by Scots-Irish, and ruled over by a planter elite with paradoxical Jacobin sympathies (Thomas Jefferson’s Francophilia was extreme, but illustrated the trend). During the Civil War the Southern elite were no longer so enamored of revolution, and styled themselves cavalier aristocrats from the English West Country. Much of the British aristocracy was sympathetic with the Confederacy, again, for material reasons foremost, but buttressed by imagined ties of culture and heritage.
The American affinity for Britain, and in particular England, is such an assumed background condition that many would never even consider it a foreign tie or loyalty. But all nations have histories, pasts, and relationships with other nations.
Well, as I’ve said before, a common language may represent the biggest tie two peoples separated by three thousand miles of ocean can have.
In terms of New England, it’s interesting that Phillips/Andover, the oldest American private school, was founded in the late eighteenth century on a meritocratic ideal. St. Paul’s School, founded in the nineteenth century, was founded on an aristocratic ideal (it was supposed to be the American Eton). Blood (as in blue) mattered far more to Saint Paul’s than brains and ability.
I take it Greater New England includes western New York, and has a breakaway colony in Utah (following the Prophet’s family history, from Vermont)…
But Michigan Territory prior to the Toledo War – now that I didn’t know.
I think it’s safe to assume that between lower (and eastern upper) Michigan and New York, the Ontario peninsula is English too. On the other side, ditto New Brunswick.
This essay examining American hostility towards Britain and how it has pretty much disappeared is worth a read. The cultural affinity between Britain and the USA has always existed but until the middle of the twentieth century there were a lot of countervailing forces too.
@Zimriel
The lower Hudson Valley was Dutch–the majority of the landed gentry had Dutch surnames, and saw themselves as the heirs to a feudal European tradition, at least until the break-up of the manorial system there in the nineteenth century.
the outlines of “greater new england” are subject to some debate, but, outside of the new england colonies:
1 eastern half of long island
2 north and western new york, beyond the penumbra of the dutch hudson valley
3 the northern fringe of pennsylvania
4 the northern 1/3 of ohio, in particular the connecticut western reserve (cleveland to ashtabula)
5 northern half of illinois, parts of iowa & kansas, and later much of the plains
6 michigan, wisconsin & minnesota
7 northern california, as well as the pacific northwest
8 mormons
in the case of #6, the subsequent migration of germans and scandinavians have erased the dominance of yankee-english ethnicity, but the cultural framework isn’t too different from what it was (in part because germans & scandinavians resembled the yankees in many ways, especially the protestants). much of the midwest and west was originally settled from the border south, but a mass migration of yankees swamped these out once the canal and railroad systems got good enough that the mississipi & new orleans weren’t as important for transit.
Much of the British aristocracy was sympathetic with the Confederacy, again, for material reasons foremost, but buttressed by imagined ties of culture and heritage.
I think this is true, but I think that part of the reason why the British and the French were more on the Confederacy’s side is that if the Confederacy had won, that would have weakened the United States. The British and French knew we were surpassing them, and the Civil War was a perfect opportunity. Of course WWI might have turned out very differently with the USA and CSA as enemies rather than a single nation supporting Britain and France. We can only speculate.
Unfortunately, I think the special relationship is dying. Britain has clearly decided to join Europe rather than keep more closely allied with the English speaking countries. It is a shame, but there’s nothing we can do about it.
I think this is true, but I think that part of the reason why the British and the French were more on the Confederacy’s side is that if the Confederacy had won, that would have weakened the United States.
yes.
The Education of Henry Adams, chapter 8, is an interesting look at the old attitude of New England to England, from the most New English of New Englanders. It’s eccentric in its topics, like the rest of that odd book, but I’ll bet you’ll enjoy reading it while researching all this. For a taste:
“For some reason partly connected with American sources, British society had begun with violent social prejudice against Lincoln, Seward, and all the Republican leaders except Sumner. Familiar as the whole tribe of Adamses had been for three generations with the impenetrable stupidity of the British mind, and weary of the long struggle to teach it its own interests, the fourth generation could still not quite persuade itself that this new British prejudice was natural. The private secretary suspected that Americans in New York and Boston had something to do with it. The Copperhead was at home in Pall Mall. Naturally the Englishman was a coarse animal and liked coarseness. Had Lincoln and Seward been the ruffians supposed, the average Englishman would have liked them the better. The exceedingly quiet manner and the unassailable social position of Minister Adams in no way conciliated them. They chose to ignore him, since they could not ridicule him.”
In the Midwest Anglophobia was pretty strong because of populist resentment of bankers, German-American and Scandinavian-American influence, and traditional American Anglophobia enhanced by the Civil War. In one case, Rep. Lemke of North Dakota bonded with a lesser politico because both were sons of Anglophobe German-born Union veterans.
When Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North Dakota broke from the Yankee influence, they went into third parties: the Progressives, Farmer-Labor, and Nonpartisan League respectively. The Repoublicans survived as a Yankee party, and the Democrats were a third party mostly representing Catholics.
“Knute Nelson: Norwegian Yankee” is the biography of the first Scandinavian to hold statewide office in Minnesota. Nelson assimilated aggressively and stayed aloof from Norwegianism.
I will add: the political shift in Minnesota was accompanied by some degree of demographic shift. The first generation of Yankee pioneers tended toward speculation and would often pull up stakes and move twice or more in the course of their lives, whereas the incoming Scandinavians, Yankees, and Slavs were mostly planning to settle. This can be seen in local history here — the founders of the town ca. 1850 have left very few descendants; most people trace back to immigrants ca. 1890-1910.
Per the Facts on File “Atlas of Contemporary America, in 1990 only one county in Minnessota, Wisconsis, or North Dakota had more than 20% British ancestry, and only 15 counties in Minnesota and North Dakota had as much as 10% British ancestry. Only NYC, some southwestern Hispanic, native American, and Cajun areas, and a patch of central Pennsylvania have proportions that low.
“Scandinavians, Germans, and Slavs”