LOL we don’t learn anything about colonisation at school in the UK. I’m a Brit that goes to Grad school in the USA and in the 9 months I’ve lived here I have learnt more about my own country’s colonisation history than I had in the previous 26 years of my life.
Honestly I had no clue what it was until Americans brought it up in any online argument (like I cared about a war a few hundred years ago). Theres lots of winning and losing places non stop in Britsh history (there was about 170 something countries at one point I have no clue how).
I dont think anyone actually cares basically because there is much more interesting points in history and anything that happened over a hundred years ago is irrelevant to everybody alive now.
Most of the time, you won’t end up covering this sort of thing unless you choose to do history for GCSE (exams you take at 16); when I did my GCSEs, we specialised in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (25% of final grade, along with Weimar Germany, Crime and Punishment in Britain from c1000 to the present day, and The Cold War) and at the very end of that module we covered the “discovery” of America and the New World. Most of the time, Walter Raleigh and Francis Drake are lauded entirely as heroes. When we covered Drake, it was mentioned that he was a slave trader, but this was quickly washed over in favour of “famous explorer!!!!!” They even insisted that we use “privateer” instead of “pirate”, and I imagine not only because it sounded better in an essay.
Virginia was mentioned in passing, due to it being named after Elizabeth, but nothing was mentioned about the effect this had on America – everything is taught purely to the extent that it benefits Britain. Even the disappearance of the Roanoke colony got a look-in in the textbook, but not a mention of the tensions the colonisation would cause.
We learned nothing about the Revolutionary War at school throughout the years, simply because it could probably paint Britain in a bad light and would make us question whether Britain as a colonising power was ever really a good thing. Even when we studied the trans-Atlantic slave trade in Year Eight (ages 12-13), we had to do lessons on how much it benefitted Britain. This really isn’t unique though.
The British education system cannot fathom criticising anything Britain or the British Empire did.
First time I learnt about the American Revolution was at uni by an American lecturer.
I can see it from 2 perspectives. One one hand we probably should have given you representation. On the other hand. we spent a sh*t tonne of money trying to protect you and you didnt pay us back…