How many of the founding fathers had parents born in the British Isles?

Answer 1

DetailsI believe the anti-British sentiment may have been at a political level only and hold the contention that this was closer to a civil war than one of pure independence from the mother-country (as colonials I don't see them in quite the same light as indigineous peoples wanting a return to a previous state). As a Brit I look at this and see a civil war with the convenience of being a great distance from the centre of power; in other words the British people themselves would probably have been quite split on the �representation� idea but would have been geographically hampered from expressing it--you know, more soldiers less money to arm themselves etc.

You are quite correct about the Revolutionary War being, in large measure, a civil war. It certainly started that way. The war had been going on for well over a year, with major battles fought from Quebec, Canada to Charleston, South Carolina, before we declared independence. Except for a few radicals nobody was even considering independence before early 1776. The publication of Tom Pain's pamphlet "Common Sense" sparked a radical change in public opinion on the matter. I would disagree with you on the matter of Americans wanting to return to a previous state. That was precisely what we did want. Beginning in the 1760's the British Parliament began attempting to exercise legislative authority over the colonies, particularly the power to tax, that it had never asserted before. The colonists argument was that Parliament had no such authority outside of Britain itself. They wanted to go back to the way things were before. It was only when this became obviously impossible and the king was clearly supporting the Parliamentary power that people decided to throw off the mother country. As for your question of how many, I did not read your details and thought you were referring to the framers of the constitution, i.e those who attended the constitutional convention. I posted that question on a couple of other forums I frequent and got back some interesting information. Roughly 86% of the population of the colonies at the time of the revolution were descended from people who had immigrated to America before 1700. However, based on the reply I received about 17 of the delegates to the constitutional convention had parents born in England which would be a much higher percentage than the general population.