Did the Whigs oppose independence from Britain?
No, the Whigs were on the front lines in fighting for independence. The Whig Party in England, which had historically opposed the English King on religious grounds gave birth to the Whig Party of the American colonies, which opposed the harsh and oppressive rule of King George. The Tories however were the colonists who remained dedicated to King George and the global interests of the British Monarchy. Subsequently, those who held positions of power authorized by British rule were mostly Tories. During the Revolutionary War, the Whigs fought for American independence from King George and Britain, while the Tories aided and even fought with the British army against their fellow colonists. Prominent Whig leaders were great American Revolutionary War patriots such as George Washington, Paul Revere, James Madison and John Adams. After the war ended, the Tories were no longer welcome in America for which many were quickly executed and/or had their land seized. Most of the Tories fled America and returned to England or took refuge in other British colonies such as Canada and the Bahamas. I hope you find this information useful and Best Wishes,
Were there British sympathizers to the Independence of America? What were their motivations?
Bermuda provided quite a bit of quiet aid. It was much closer to America than to Britain and relied heavily on American trade, so the motivation was partly profit and partly food. If Bermuda hadn’t been so isolated from America, it might even have joined the Revolution. Bermuda sold the rebels salt and their unique Bermuda sloops, and Bermudians helped orchestrate the theft of a hundred barrels of gunpowder. It took a few years, and the arrival of refugee loyalists, before Bermuda was willing to participate in the war on the British side.The same thing happened during the American Civil War; Bermuda had a boomtown atmosphere as a port for Confederate smugglers.
Johnny Tremain whigs and tories?
Whigs were the opposition in Parliament in those days, they included William Pitt, who was very popular in the Americas and George Fox, who was not so popular, particularly after the war as he opposed the slave trade. The Tories were as they are today, the supporters of the crown, usually conservative in politics. The independence people in the colonies tended to support Whig politicians, and in the 1820s, when the Democratic Republican party split two ways, Henry Clay (so he claimed) was the first to allude to their branch of the party as the Whigs, to associate themselves with the independence party of 1775-1783.
What are the differences between the Whig and Tory parties?
Is the question left over from 1720 Quora? Hadn’t realised it had been going that long. But reaching back into the past tense, back in late 17th and early 18th centuries, in what was first England and Wales and after 1707 the United Kingdom, political factions emerged which today might be termed Traditional (Tory) and Progressive (Whig). Tories were largely a faction of conservative country gentlemen (at a time when to travel 100 miles from London might take two full days) whereas Whigs were largely a metropolitan Court party composed of highly ambitious grandees—but a party, as might be expected among ambitious individuals and their circles in a highly charged urban environment, prone to splitting. Tories looked back fondly to the Stuart monarchs and an established state religion (“God, King and Country”); Whigs pressed for increasing powers over the monarch exerted through Parliament, while people who called themselves Whigs might actually oppose the monarchy altogether and live lives of libertinage outside conventional moral principles. Eventually, much (but very far from all) of British Whig thinking found a natural home in the Enlightenment.