legality of history

It would be good if you could rephrase your question -- I'm not clear exactly what you're asking about. But at least in the case of the American Revolution, there was mutual agreement in the end that granted independence to the colonies, thus making the legality of the rebellion irrelevant -- it was a fait accompli, and there ceased to be British claims for the American colonies.

Also, almost by definition, a rebellion is illegal -- but that's only with respect to the laws of the power against which the rebellion is directed. What is abundantly clear is that the British administration of the American colonies subjected the citizens to a different standard of law than what was granted to citizens within the British Isles, and this was particularly true for judicial appointments. So it can be equally argued that the British administration was illegal.

It did not have the consensus of the majority , what drove the rebellion was that those who occupied the land did not own it.

the colonialist that now occupy those lands should return them to the original occupants... I am forming a volunteer regiment of red coats and we intend talking back what the rebels so cruelly stole from us...

America however you look at its history has not been occupied by its rightful owners for more than two hundred years.

You can't be talking about the American revolution here, then. The revolution did not formally involve all the colonies until after the Declaration of Independence, which was signed more than a full year after the revolution had begun. It was originally a popular uprising of the people of Massachusetts against a virtual police state that the British had imposed in Boston. Volunteers started flooding into Boston from around the colonies after the uprising began. The Continental Congress, which composed and ratified the Declaration of Independence, was comprised of delegates chosen by popular gatherings or by local assemblies. So inasmuch as the majority could express itself, it WAS a majority consensus.

You're also mixing ownership with sovereignty.

And that the British, Spanish, and French colonists so cruelly stole from the original inhabitants of this continent.

And Britain, however you look at its history, has not been occupied by its rightful owners since 1066 when sovereignty was stolen from the Anglo-Saxons and Jutes.

So let me know as soon as you expel the Normans from Britain and end their illegal occupation.

Of course then the Britons and Celts can go expel the older illegal occupants back to Angles, Lower Saxony, and Jutland from whence they came...

It would be good if you could rephrase your question -- I'm not clear exactly what you're asking about.

The situation in the colonies was not so unevenly displayed as you would have us believe, many stayed loyal to England and it was only the benefit of Canada that allowed the rebels to maintain their hold.

The situation in the colonies was not so unevenly displayed as you would have us believe

it was only the benefit of Canada that allowed the rebels to maintain their hold.

To have a mandate the rebels must secure the majority or they are acting without consent.Minority rebellions are only significant if they succeed and i claim that this is what this was. After the success no one apart from those who decided to leave had no say in the outcome.It came at a time when England was fighting a major battle against France and had little reserves to aid the royal loyal citizens of the American colonies.Its citizens where no differently treated than the poor souls at home but had the distance from authority on their side. They cared little for freedom or the will of the peoples only their own greedy interests.It may be dressed up in finery but it was a rebellion with desire. The white house was sacked three times,i believe, by loyalists but the rebels never gave them credence only condemnation for not allowing them to secure crown lands sooner.It was a rebellion of a desire for land, not freedom or for self determination ,just greed..

No, it was not at all -- New York was full of loyalists, and in the Carolinas and Georgia there was nearly a civil war over the topic... But there was a plurality with very little dissent in the Continental Congress, and their positions were publicly mandated, so whatever, it was a divided society but majority did rule in the end -- at least to the extent that it could be ascertained. In fact despite the considerable setbacks of losing New York, losing Philadelphia, the rebellion only gained popularity with time, especially after the Battle of Trenton.

You're also forgetting the ragtag beginning of this war. Most of the initial rhetoric that led to the war came out of my former hometown of Boston, and this had been going on for years before the war began. The British turned Boston into effectively a police state, and the first battles at Lexington and Concord were not part of a general rebellion -- they were a popular uprising of an informal group of militias. The next battle, at Bunker / Breed's Hill, was more organized on the part of the rebels in response to a massive British offensive. THEN and only then did it begin to incite rebellious spirit among all the colonies, who began sending hoards of volunteers to besiege the British within Boston. And that was when the Continental Congress organized itself and took months to debate whether this should escalate into a formal rebellion or not.

This all happened real-time. There was no opportunity to take a step back in advance and have some kind of referendum, because the colonies were not a unified body at the beginning. Honestly, you think the people in New York cared about Sam Adams and his loudmouthed whiners in Boston??

The one rebel foray into Canada was soundly rebuffed, partly by Canadian loyalists, and the only rebel victory anywhere near Canada was the raid on Ticonderoga. Beyond the first year of the war, most of it happened in New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, nowhere near Canada.

In fact the greatest foreign influence on the outcome of the war was the British need to pacify their Caribbean colonies, which were more valuable than the American colonies.

Sorry, but this sounds niave. Yes, elementary school history often simplifies a complex situation, whitewashing the rebels and making them look like a monolithic group of profound thinkers and proponents of freedom. They were not. But neither were they unified by greed and land grabbing. It was a mixed bag, each person having his own motivation for joining the rebellion. I could give you a long list of books to help round out your view of some of the issues. For example, "Inventing America" by Garry Wills and "The Perils of Peace" by Thomas Flemming. Some biographies might be good as well to help you understand the individuals, such as the one on John Adams by McCullough.

And whats this about burning the White House? It hadn't even been built at the time. Are you getting confused between the Revolution of the 1770's and the War of 1812? The White House was burned by the British in the War of 1812, and there was a bit of chicanery among the American leaders to use the war as an excuse to grab Canada. There's a fascinating book about the perspective of the British regarding 1812 by Jon Latimer. I might be a bit biased because I had a few chats with the author, and am distantly related to one of the primary American generals from that war, but anyway ...

If your saying greed did not take part in the rebellion then the books you recommend dont take human nature into this historic event... I am no expert in the details of the american history but i do know that most of what is written about this period is coloured with romantic nonsense.

do you think they had a legal right to claim america by rebellion and not by a consensus of the colonialists?

No one thought of taking a vote in this land of the free.

Who claimed the royal lands after the rebellion was it the rebels? How did the new elite obtain their lands by purchase or by right of war?

Oh boy, where to begin, aside from the fact that you've cited a website called "redcoat.me.uk" that does not cite a single source or method. It's easy to dismiss a point of view that doesn't even claim to be based on evidence.

Secondly, you say the Americans had no right to steal land from the British.

They didn't. The land had already been theirs. The revolution ended British sovereignty, it did not (for the most part) alter occupancy or ownership. This is by stark contrast to the colonial activities that expelled Native Americans.

Third, British law did not make any allowance for popular sovereignty among the peoples in the colonies. It doesn't matter what the proportion of loyalists versus rebels were, because the British had no mechanism to honor or support popular sovereignty.

Fourth, the rebels had plenty of reason to claim the moral high ground, when you look at the number of laws imposed upon them by the British to establish British trade monopolies, to raise tax revenue, to squash free speech, and to prevent the colonial citizens from having the type of representation in government that citizens of the British Isles had.

Fifth, you say "land taken by force is not a legal act". You say this ignoring the blatant fact that it was the British who sent an army to "pacify" Lexington and Concord, it was the British who launched the invasion of the Charlestown peninsula (up Bunker Hill and Breed's Hill), it was the British who sent an occupying army into Boston, it was the British who sent a naval armada and an army to occupy New York. The rebels did not undertake a significant offensive until the invasion of Canada several months after the war had begun, and their next major offensive wasn't until Trenton more than 18 months after the start of the war.

The rebellion was mainly civil disobedience until Georgie sent Gage and Howe to go and pacify it. And the British military activities turned it into a defensive war at first. So ask yourself what the legal and moral basis was for the British actions.

Ah so your source is bona fide and mine is contemptible.

Did you read it and what part do you decide was propaganda without reason.

If you read it the taxes where to assist in defence of the colony

and dont say the british had no right morally or legally, it was rebellion against the crown

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

we still see america as our closest friend and ally.

im not bitter its too long ago for me to bear any animosity.I dont worry about our influence or our loss of international influence.

It was an academic debate on the one sided view many have on the war fought by traitors to the realm against our brave red coats or by courageous sons of liberty against a tyrannous imperialist homeland.We,the british, are never taught the details of american wars and we too readily accept the hollywood images.The legality of historical events are not as well defined as would like them to be.

We did not loose we just failed to take it seriously enough, till it was too late.

You can't be talking about the American revolution here, then. The revolution did not formally involve all the colonies until after the Declaration of Independence, which was signed more than a full year after the revolution had begun. It was originally a popular uprising of the people of Massachusetts against a virtual police state that the British had imposed in Boston. Volunteers started flooding into Boston from around the colonies after the uprising began. The Continental Congress, which composed and ratified the Declaration of Independence, was comprised of delegates chosen by popular gatherings or by local assemblies. So inasmuch as the majority could express itself, it WAS a majority consensus.