Since gaining independence nearly 250 years ago, the United States has maintained an enduring cultural and economic bond with Great Britain.
Turn on the radio in the U.K. and chances are you’ll hear the catchy yet mournful tones of English artist Kate Bush’s 1985 hit “Running Up That Hill,” which recently topped the U.K. singles chart more than 30 years after the song’s initial release , thanks to its use in the last season of the American TV show “Stranger Things”.
The song’s resurgence in popularity on both sides of the pond is just the latest reminder that while the US may have declared independence from Great Britain 246 years ago today, the two nations have managed to remain incredibly close — not just culturally, but economically and strategically as well, he says Troy Bickham, professor of history at Texas A&M University
According to Bickham, who specializes in early American history and the history of the British Empire, it is largely a history of shared interests, values and language that have created a close bond between the countries today.
From Revolution To Resolution
By the time the Declaration of Independence was signed in Philadelphia, Britain’s relationship with its North American colonies was already on the wall, Bickham said. News of growing resistance across the Atlantic circulated in the British press for more than a decade, and by 1775 King George III officially declared the colonies in a state of rebellion. To see also : Taylor Tannebaum, Tricia Whitaker on life as a female sports announcer. By the time the declaration reached his desk, he was already mobilizing troops to attack New York.
Although the resulting war is often seen as a conflict between the Americans and the British, according to Bickham, that is not exactly how people understood it at the time. Early on, it was not understood as a revolutionary war, but as a kind of civil war within the British Empire.
“The term ‘American’ to describe Americans was only then beginning to be applied to people who were not indigenous,” Bickham said. “George Washington would describe himself as an Englishman, as would Benjamin Franklin and everyone else. What they didn’t agree on was what it meant to be English.”
In Britain, large sections of the population were sympathetic to the cause of the rebel colonists, and the thought of waging war with them made many uneasy. Senior military officers resigned in protest, and others complained loudly in the press and in the House of Commons.
“It was a big, divisive issue,” Bickham said. “Until the 1930s, the biggest peace movement in British history was to stop war with the colonies. …One newspaper refused to distinguish between British and American dead, saying ‘they are all sons of Britain’.”
Arguments against the war were often framed in terms of practical and economic reasons — in part because expressing full support for American independence would be grounds for treason, Bickham said. And as the war progressed and became an increasingly expensive undertaking, these arguments only became more convincing.
Before becoming president, John Adams served as the first United States ambassador to Great Britain.
“They would say, ‘This makes no practical sense — we should be trading, not killing,'” Bickham said. “In the end, a bill came up to fund next year’s war and parliament said, ‘You know what, this is too expensive, we’re not winning, we’re done.'”
As British forces retreated, governors and other colonial officials were forced out of the new United States, and many others loyal to the crown left voluntarily, Bickham said. However, former loyalists who chose to stay found that they were mostly allowed to live their lives and go about their business unhindered.
In 1785, just two years after independence, the US opened formal diplomatic relations with Britain, sending John Adams across the Atlantic for an audience with King George.
“Adams leaves that meeting concluding that, to some extent, the United States and Britain have a lot of cultural similarities that allow them to do business,” Bickham said.
Ultimately, Bickham said, it did not take long for any lingering hostility between Britain and the US to subside in favor of a mutually beneficial economic partnership. After all, Britain still had a huge need for American agricultural products, and its former colonists were more than happy to secure them at the right price.
Similarly, because the US was still a largely agrarian society, Americans relied heavily on the more industrialized Britain for products they could not produce themselves.
“The United States was Britain’s largest overseas market for goods before the Revolution, and it remained so after the Revolution – that didn’t change until well into the 19th century,” Bickham said. “A lot of cotton from the south is milled in Britain. So they are very attached to each other.”
America On The Rise
One major disruption to this harmonious financial arrangement was the War of 1812, which was caused in part by British efforts to restrict American trade with France during the Napoleonic Wars. To see also : The 10 longest running video game franchises, ranked.
Wary of British attempts to reassert power, American political leaders retaliated strongly. When tensions finally boiled over, the US and Britain were once again at war, though this time not for long.
Illustration of British ships bombarding the community of Stonington, Connecticut during the War of 1812.
“They fought a little war that lasted a few years, and not much came of it except that the British recognized at the end of the war that the United States would be the dominant power in North America,” Bickham said. “The British kind of cut their losses, kept what became Canada, but basically realized that the US would do its thing and it was easier to make friends with them than to fight them.”
As the decades passed, the two nations maintained strong economic ties as well as a high degree of social and cultural cooperation, Bickham said. Abolitionists and members of various religious movements often corresponded with their colleagues across the Atlantic, and British literature remained a favorite of American readers.
“There was also a significant amount of social mixing,” Bickham said. “Surely the American elite still looked to the British for legitimacy and so on.”
Later in the 19th century, ties would continue to strengthen between the American and British upper classes, as the daughters of increasingly wealthy American elites would marry into noble but less affluent British families, creating a union of social status and financial resources that suited the goals of both families.
“Winston Churchill’s mother is American, the Vanderbilts also married into the aristocracy, so there were a lot of connections that way,” Bickham said.
The World Wars And ‘The Special Relationship’
Later in the 20th century, it was Churchill himself who described the growing connection between the US and Britain as a “special relationship”. Although that relationship would not blossom until World War II, Bickham said the seeds were planted during World War I. On the same subject : NBA free agency winners / losers: Zion Williamson scores, Rudy Gobert for Wolves a win for all, Warriors takes a hit.
When war broke out in Europe in 1914, the question was which side the US would end up on if it decided to enter the battle. German-Americans made up a larger portion of the US population than any other ethnic group at the time, but the common language of the US and Britain helped turn American sympathies towards the Entente powers.
“The advantage of the British over the Germans is that British propaganda does not have to be translated,” said Bickham.
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill discusses tactics with US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Malta, 1945.
After entering the war and helping Britain and its allies secure victory, the US returned for a time to a more isolationist stance, even in the early years of World War II. But in the end, the US will once again find itself backing its home nation, supplying the UK with massive shipments of military equipment before finally mobilizing its own troops to fight alongside British and other allied forces.
That’s when the “special relationship,” a term first used by Churchill in a speech in 1946, really began to crystallize, Bickham said.
“Certainly after World War II, it becomes very cemented, as the British and Americans work together to rebuild Europe as Western democracies and to jointly defeat the Soviet Union and communism during the Cold War,” he said.
Through it all, the British and Americans maintain a strong cultural affinity, as popular music, books, films and television shows from one nation are easily exported to the other. In fact, it was during the Cold War that “Running Up That Hill” was first released and found its way to American shores.
As Bickham notes, the fact that the song has now returned across the Atlantic almost 40 years later via a hit American TV show is just another example of the enduring connection between the two nations.
