Why American Revolutionaries Admired the Rebels of Mysore (2016) | Hacker News Reader

Why American Revolutionaries Admired the Rebels of Mysore (2016)

aeon.co

51 pointsdiodorus7 comments

In 1799, Tipu Sultan ruler of Mysore was killed in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore war. During the war the British had faced a new military weapon, the Mysore rocket, developed by Tipu's army.

By 1804, the British had copied and refined this weapon into a long range solid fuel rocket called the Congreve rocket.

In the War of 1812 the British entered Washington DC and burned down the White House. The Royal Navy fired Congreve rockets at Fort McHenry which lit up the sky, illuminating the American flag flying over the fort.

Later Francis Scott Key memorializing the event in a poem that became the national anthem of the U.S.A : "The Star-Spangled Banner"

   ...
   And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
   Gave proof through the night that our flag was still 
   there;
   ...

Next time you hear the U.S national anthem - remember that those rockets trace their origin to Tipu Sultan :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysorean_rockets

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congreve_rocket

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_1812#Chesapeake_campaig...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star-Spangled_Banner#Lyric...

Love learning little facts like this!

HN has such high quality in the comments.

Clickbait. There is no connection between hyder ali and American revolutionaries. The revolutionaries wanted to freedom and created a democracy based on constitution. Hyder Ali betrayed his own country and fighting for himself.

The connection is that they were both fighting against the British Empire at around the same time, and both had support from the French. Quote from the article:

> Allied with France, however, Haider held off the British advance for another two decades, dying in 1782, just a year before the US triumphed in its own rebellion against Britain.

> Haider and Washington never communicated directly with one another, but they fought against a common enemy, and shared a common ally. Like the Mysoreans, the American rebels were members of a global coalition funded by the French government, which saw both uprisings as a chance to humble Britain.

"There is no connection between hyder ali and American revolutionaries."

I am curious why you say this despite all the evidence they shared in the article. I focus on just one of the items, the ship, Hyder Ally. https://historyofmysuru.blogspot.com/2017/11/when-america-ce... "a single mast ship named Hyder Ally gave the fledgling navy of United States of America one of its greatest victories". Seems like there was enough a connection if people were naming warships after the guy.

Let me explain where parent poster is coming from. Hyder and Tipu were muslim rulers. Thanks to the patronage of the religious right leaning government, there is a concerted effort going on to remove traces of islam in india's history. Diminishing Tipu and Hyder Ali's role is just a part of the package

Do not forget that the main difference between the two groups of revolutionaries was that the Indian insurgents were native peoples to their country, whereas American colonists were Europeans who had travelled to North America to take over from the actual American native peoples. The American dispute was largely about taxation, and the ability of New England merchants to trade with Bengal, and the overreaching control of tbe East India Company in its main goal of supplying England. These are not indigenous peoples looking to throw off tbe yoke of racist imperial power, but colonists themselves, irked by not being treated commercially as well as those back home in Europe.

This is imho a fine and nuanced article and I have learned lots I didn't know about this era.

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