Patriot esque church burning ARW

So in the 2004 movie The Patriot with Mel Gibson the antagonist british commander locks up a bunch of American colonists in a church and burns it to the ground killing them all.

What if this actually happened? How would it affect Anglo-American relations going forward? Support for the patriot cause and so on?
 
There were critical opinions about that scene-that such event couldn't happen during ARW because otherwise Americans would still remember it-much, much more than Alamo.
 

Raunchel

Banned
I don't know how the British public would see such an action. I mean, it would be seen as a very bad kind of mass murder, and anyone involved might get into a lot of trouble.
 
Well seeing as the war was not universally popular in Britain and those who did support the war rested it on the legal authority of the Crown to protect its subjects, well throwing in a Church burning really would not enhance an officer's career prospects.

It needs to be remembered that the British did not see themselves as a occupying army and that loyalists could live right next door to rebels and it was not unusual for families to have relations both sides of the political divide. In addition a large body of the population of the colonies had not made their minds up either way and so were very open to being swayed.
 
In event of biblical irony the only time that anything close to this occurred during the ARW it was carried out by the Patriots!
The Gnadenhutten massacre, also known as the Moravian massacre, on March 8, 1782. In Ohio, Colonial Militia murdered nearly 100 Neutral, Christian Indians and burned the bodies in the Mission building.
Its even more ironic when you learn that the British had earlier arrested the Missionaries and accused them of spying for the nearby American Garrison, they were acquitted.

(I suppose we can add projection to the list of the offensive and erroneous things about The Patriot?)
 
In event of biblical irony the only time that anything close to this occurred during the ARW it was carried out by the Patriots!
The Gnadenhutten massacre, also known as the Moravian massacre, on March 8, 1782. In Ohio, Colonial Militia murdered nearly 100 Neutral, Christian Indians and burned the bodies in the Mission building.
Its even more ironic when you learn that the British had earlier arrested the Missionaries and accused them of spying for the nearby American Garrison, they were acquitted.

(I suppose we can add projection to the list of the offensive and erroneous things about The Patriot?)

Pretty intresting thing when, if I recall correctly, Mel Gibson's character based to real person who was total racist asshole, hated speciality natives. This scene could has been possible if movie wouldn't has directed by total American patriot.
 
Pretty intresting thing when, if I recall correctly, Mel Gibson's character based to real person who was total racist asshole, hated speciality natives. This scene could has been possible if movie wouldn't has directed by total American patriot.
It was directed by a German and starred an Australian...
 

Saphroneth

Banned
I don't know. We forget about the British army raping women on Long Island.
Probably because that's one of the things which was just standard for armies of the time - it happened a lot, and was hard to stamp out, and (more importantly) was done by individuals to individuals instead of being an act done by a commanding officer with the authority of his actual unit (which the church-burning would have to be).

(I've seen accusations that it was done by Washington's army to the Loyalists of Princeton.)
 
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