Who helped the US when we were fighting for independence from

[napi21]

England? Did they stay indefinately? Did THEY do all our fighting or did we do most of it? What made them finally leave us to do it all?

I hated history class in school. I suppose I should know all of this info, but I listened enough to pass the tests, and then I forgot most of it.

I'm asking because I really do believe if Iraq wanated to be out from under Saddam's rule, and want to govern their country themselves, isn't it really better to just let them do that? How did WE respond to foreigners who were helping us fight the British? Didn't we want them gone too?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. France.

But after awhile they decided to, er, "cut and run." :sarcasm:

[mcctatas]

8. yep...

and just like they fear will happein in Iraq, our democracy is now in shambles, strongmen are running the southern provinces, children are starving and religious zealots are threatening to take over!!! Stupid, stupid French, thanks alot! ;)

[cigsandcoffee]

2. The French

Mostly because they despised England. I'm not sure how long they hung around afterward.

[Selatius]

3. The French didn't position an army of 150,000 troops on US soil

The French armed us the same way the US armed the Afghani Mujahadeen in their jihad against the Soviet occupation. They left us to do the fighting precisely because it was the presence of a foreign army on US soil that was partly the reason for the Revolution in the first place.

When the British Empire was finally expelled, the French didn't fill in the power vacuum. They left that up to the American colonists to do themselves. They bid, "Adieu!" and went their own way. It should be noted that the French Revolution several years later was partly inspired by the successes of the Americans across the Atlantic.

[Brigid]

4. It was the French.

In fact, it was General Rochambeau (I hope I spelled it right), an expert in seige warfare, who organized the seige of Yorktown that finally spelled the end of the war. I don't think the French stuck around at all after the war, and by the time of the John Adams administration, we were almost at war with them. Fortunately, Adams, unlike a certain current Chief Executive, kept his head when the war hawks of his time started their saber-rattling routine.

[napi21]

5. Thanks everyone! I thought that was the case!

Why wouldn't Shrub and his boys realize that too? People don't like foreigners occupying their Country! I thought it was very telling that they were talking about granting amnesty to the prisoners who only shot Americans. Do I like to hear that? Hell NO! But I can understand why they would feel that way.

[I_Make_Mistakes]

6. Oh and if this isn't the funny part! Mel Gibson in The Patriot which

illustrated the French participation, at the end of the movie stated 'Vive Le France!".

That movie was run during the Freedom Fries era on one of the major networks!

So many Americans, were wrapped up in their flag, that they missed the point! I bet the RW wacko Gibson would buy every DVD of that stmt back!

[Art_from_Ark]

7. Some French(-Canadians) settled in places like Vermont

"Some French Canadians, who disliked their old enemy, sided with Vermonters during the Revolutionary War to fight against the British and stayed after the war. France sent ships, sailors, and money to the American rebels to help them beat the British. In memory of the French help during the Revolution, Vermont towns bear names such as Montpelier, Orleans, Calais, Vergennes (after the Comte de Vergennes), and St. Johnsbury (after Hector St. Jean de Crevecoeur, the French consul general to the United States at the time).

"As British immigrants continued to flow into Canada, French-speaking people became a minority in the Province of Quebec. The Patriote Rebellion (1837) against the British, discrimination, worn-out soil, and crop failures caused many French-Canadians to move south into Franklin and Orleans counties to farm. Later, many found work in Vermont's mills. Because of crop failures and unemployment in Quebec after the American Civil War, thousands more came to farm and work in the mills and factories. So many immigrated, they were sometimes pejoratively called the "Chinese of the Eastern States" and alleged to have "le mal des Etats-Unis" ."

http://www.flowofhistory.org/themes/movement_settlement/french.php

[Hekate]

9. Marquis de Lafayette used his personal fortune, fought beside Washington

... and was (until our current wave of ugly amnesia spawned by Bush) considered a hero here in the US as well as in France.

When General John "Black Jack" Pershing landed with American troops in France in WWI he said, "Lafayette, we have returned," in payment of a debt of honor to a friend. In other words, he did not sneer at the French for being unable to hold out forever against the Germans -- he came as a friend.

To French DUers: some of us still remember, and we are sorry about Bushco and Rove.

Hekate

[Generic Other]

10. The Brits brought Hessian mercenaries

George Washington attacked them after crossing the Delaware on xmas Day.

[pitohui]

11. france

we sure as crap didn't want them gone at the time, seem to recall we rebels would have liked their help in the civil war as well

[Viva_La_Revolution]

12. the Iroquois

and other Indian nations.

In a round-a-bout kind of way. :)

While the seventeenth century saw academic interest in the native democracies of North America through thinkers such as John Locke, the eighteenth century was a time when direct experience with American Indian leaders and their political systems became common on both sides of the Atlantic. The eighteenth century was a period of struggle between the empires of France and England, and the Iroquois and other native nations played a crucial role in this struggle. During King George's war, the colonists needed Iroquois support against the French. Ironically, many of the United States' founders got their initial exposure to Iroquois and other native leaders and the political systems within which they operated from diplomacy and other activities at the behest of Britain, beginning two generations before the Revolutionary War.

Beginning nearly two generations before the Revolutionary War, the circumstances of diplomacy arrayed themselves so that opinion leaders of the English colonies and the Iroquois Confederacy were able to meet together to discuss the politics of alliance -- and confederation. Beginning in the early 1740s, Iroquois leaders strongly urged the colonists to form a federation similar to their own. The Iroquois' immediate practical objective was unified management of the Indian trade and prevention of fraud. The Iroquois also stressed that the colonies should have to unify as a condition of alliance in the continuing "cold war" with France.

This set of circumstances brought Benjamin Franklin into the diplomatic equation. He first read the Iroquois' urgings to unite as a printer of Indian treaties. By the early 1750s, Franklin was more directly involved in diplomacy itself, at the same time that he became an early, forceful advocate of colonial union. All of these circumstantial strings were tied together in the summer of 1754, when colonial representatives, Franklin among them, met with Iroquois sachems at Albany to address issues of mutual concern, and to develop the Albany Plan of Union, a design that echoes both English and Iroquois precedents which would become a rough draft for the Articles of Confederation a generation later.

http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/EoL/chp6.html

[clyrc]

13. When my oldest daughter was in first grade,

she asked me about the Revolutionary War. I told her a little bit, putting in that the French helped us out. So she made up a song about America, to sing in front of her class. The most memorable line was "The French made us American, now it's time to do things for ourselves." She couldn't understand why that line made me laugh so much.

[Ravy]

14. If it wasn't for the French, Bush would probably ...

... be speaking English today.

[canetoad]

15. Aye, remember what happened

to the King of France who bankrupted his country (partly to assist America) and lived surrounded by rich friends and sycophants, oblivious to the fury of his subjects.

Clue: 14 July