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Hrm. This isn't so much of a WI as an observation....

I'm reading "Rough Crossings," Simon Schama's work about the Black loyalist exodus from America after the Revolution, and it's an interesting read. He touches on a surprising amoung of social mixing between blacks and white (Britons and Hessians) in the American south; "Ethiopian Balls," where black women and men would dance with British soldiers, that kind of thing, poor whites marrying blacks in 1780s London (to many people's horrors).

I wonder how much of this relates to the difference in how Britons and Americans viewed slaves, especially American ones. Although Clinton was no abolitionist, he felt like the Empire owed the slaves obligations for their services in the war; it's an odd paternalism.

So whereas to Americans, blacks were a servile underclass living alongside them, to Britons they were just another subject people in the Empire; not as good as Englishmen, but not subhuman. (Although there was a whiff of that from many Britons...)

Thoughts?
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