Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
...For that matter, you pretty much needed to be landed to have rights. Even after the drafting of the Constitution in 1789 we still were not a "free" nation under Freedom House standards.

We reinterpret events to met the narrative that we prefer. Otherwise the colonists were simply a bunch of arrogant stingy tax evaders.
Many of the Colonists were indeed stingy tax evaders. As many or more had other causes. The Southern (and New Hampshire) Scotch Irish just didn't like the British (or the wealthy Virginians and they thought rather haughty New England Colonists -- but they disliked the British more).

Freedom House did not exist in 1775 or 1789. You cannot credibly judge events and mores of over 200 years ago by today's standards.

That is indeed reinterpreting events to meet a narrative one prefers...