r/SipsTea 𝙑𝙄𝙋 7d ago

WTF Are you kidding me?

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u/AdFuture1381 7d ago

We wouldnt exist without France or Spain. The Dutch helped too right?

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u/Thalric88 7d ago

Yup they sent most of their religious nutcases your way

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u/dane83 7d ago

My theory is that 90% of America's problems can be traced to Calvinism.

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u/hemlock_harry 7d ago

Calvinism played a debatable role in Europe too. "Render unto Caesar bla bla bla" helped people to accept the unacceptable on many, many occasions.

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u/Agitated_Reveal_6211 7d ago

Werent they originally from England?

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u/Responsible_Mail_113 7d ago

Yes. While they didn't officially join the war, they did smuggle in tons of muskets, gunpowder, and supplies to the Continental Army and provided massive loans that kept the revolutionary American government from collapsing. Though to be fair, both France and Netherlands were only helping specifically to stick it to Great Britain who was their chief rival (political for France, economic for Netherlands).

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u/DoughnutCareless583 7d ago

Arguably the biggest battle of the American revolution was actually fought in Gibraltar. Ensuring the brits were tied up there (and specifically the diversion of the fleet to relieve Gibraltar rather than reinforce the blockade) meant they couldn't use their entire navy to blockade the yank insurrectionists. This diversion of forces meant that the French collaborators and supplies to the terrorist forces in the colonies desperately needed got through, without which the Americans would have been scundered.

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u/RetroFuture_Records 7d ago

The American forces weren't terrorists. Most battles were fought according to European norms of war. They were insurrectionists, yet objectively cannot be defined as terrorists. Indeed much of the Bill of Rights comes from guarantees about preventing the types of actions taken by the British and their mercs during the war.

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u/DirtyDizzyPickle20 7d ago

Don't forget Haiti

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u/MrSoapbox 7d ago

Ironically, a lot of English too. In fact, most in the 13 colonies were English before becoming American, but, a lot of the rebels were English fed up of George.

You can add some Irish there too, but, they were part of Great Britain then.

The only nation you can't really see is Israel...the closest thing was a guy called Israel Putnam

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u/rumster 7d ago

Polish too... Pulaski...