In 1774, twelve of the Thirteen Colonies sent delegates to theFirst Continental Congress; theProvince of Georgia joined in 1775. The First Continental Congress began coordinatingPatriot resistance through underground networks ofcommittees. Following the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the Continental Armysurrounded Boston, forcing the British to withdraw in March 1776, and leaving Patriots in control in every colony. In August 1775, King George IIIproclaimed Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion. In 1776, the Second Continental Congress began deliberating theArticles of Confederation, an effort to establish a self-governing rule of law. On July 2, they passed theLee Resolution, affirming their support for independence, and on July 4, 1776, they unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence, which famously proclaimed that "all men are created equal".
The Revolutionary War continued for another five years during whichFrance ultimately entered, supporting the colonial cause. On September 28, 1781, Washington led the Continental Army's most decisive victory at theSiege of Yorktown, leading to the collapse of King George's control of Parliament and consensus in Parliament that the war should be ended on American terms. On September 3, 1783, the British signed theTreaty of Paris, ceding to the new nation nearly all the territory east of theMississippi River and south of theGreat Lakes. The United States became the first large-scale modern nation to establish a federal constitutional republic based on a written constitution, extending the principles ofconsent of the governed and therule of law over a continental territory, albeit with significant democratic limitations compared to later views on the concept.
A 1775 map of Eastern North America, including theProvince of Quebec, theThirteen Colonies on the Atlantic Coast, and the Indian Reserve as defined by the Royal Proclamation of 1763. The border between the red and pink areas represents the 1763Proclamation line, and the orange area representsSpanish colonial claims.
After theGlorious Revolution in Great Britain and subsequent copycat revolts inMassachusetts,New York, andMaryland between 1688 and 1692, Great Britain unofficially adopted a policy of "salutary neglect," or leaving the colonies alone to govern themselves.[citation needed] As a result of this new policy, as well as the ideals ofliberty which had been borne out of the Glorious Revolution, new government systems (as exemplified byWilliam Penn'sFrame of Government of Pennsylvania and theMassachusetts Charter of 1691), religious institutions (as exemplified by the democratic nature ofCongregational Protestantism in New England and theFirst Great Awakening across the colonies), and, occasionally, attitudes towards slavery (as exemplified byMassachusetts and, at least initially,Georgiabanning the practice) emerged, though the latter of these three was less common. This British policy changed significantly after theFrench and Indian War, during which the British state had spent heavily to protect the colonies, prompting the Thirteen Colonies to seek greater autonomy from Britain. Partially out of existential fear that the colonies would one day eclipse Great Britain itself as the center of the British Empire, the British political establishment, especially after taking massive swaths of land from the former territories ofNew France, felt the need to assert their authority over colonial affairs.[1] After the Revolution, one colonist, Capt. Levi Preston, ofDanvers, Massachusetts, was asked why the Americans rebelled against England, responded, "…we always had governed ourselves, and we always meant to. They didn't mean we should."[2]
In the 1680s, Charles and his brother,James II, attempted to bring New England under direct English control.[6] The colonists fiercely opposed this, andthe Crown nullified theircolonial charters in response.[7] In 1686, James finalized these efforts by consolidating the separate New England colonies along withNew York andNew Jersey into theDominion of New England.Edmund Andros was appointed royal governor and tasked with governing the new Dominion under hisdirect rule. Colonial assemblies andtown meetings were restricted, new taxes were levied, and rights were abridged. Dominion rule triggered bitter resentment throughout New England.[8] When James tried to rule withoutParliament, the English aristocracy removed him from power in the Glorious Revolution of 1688.[9] This was followed by the1689 Boston revolt, which overthrew Dominion rule.[10][11] Colonial governments reasserted their control after the revolt. The new monarchs,William andMary, granted new charters to the individual New England colonies, and local democratic self-government was restored.[12][13]
With little industry except shipbuilding, the colonies exported agricultural products to Britain in return for manufactured goods. They also imported molasses, rum, and sugar from theBritish West Indies.[17] The British government pursued a policy ofmercantilism in order to grow its economic and political power. According to mercantilism, the colonies existed for the mother country's economic benefit, and the colonists' economic needs took second place.[18] In 1651, Parliament passed the first in a series ofNavigation Acts, which restricted colonial trade with foreign countries. The Thirteen Colonies could trade with the rest of the empire but only ship certain commodities like tobacco to Britain. Any European imports bound for British America had to first pass through an English port and pay customs duties.[19] Other laws regulated colonial industries, such as theWool Act 1698, theHat Act 1731, and theIron Act 1750.[20][21]
Colonial reactions to these policies were mixed. TheMolasses Act 1733 placed a duty of sixpence per gallon upon foreign molasses imported into the colonies. This act was particularly egregious to the New England colonists, who protested it as taxation without representation. The act increased the smuggling of foreign molasses, and the British government ceased enforcement efforts after the 1740s.[22] On the other hand, certain merchants and local industries benefitted from the restrictions on foreign competition. The limits on foreign-built ships greatly benefitted the colonial shipbuilding industry, particularly in New England.[23] Some argue that the economic impact was minimal on the colonists,[24][25] but the political friction that the acts triggered was more serious, as the merchants most directly affected were also the most politically active.[26]
The British government lacked the resources and information needed to control the colonies. Instead, British officials negotiated and compromised with colonial leaders to gain compliance with imperial policies. The colonies defended themselves withcolonial militias, and the British government rarely sent military forces to America before 1755.[27] According to historianRobert Middlekauff, "Americans had become almost completely self-governing" before the American Revolution, a practice that was consistent with the British monarchy's practice ofsalutary neglect.[28]
During theFrench and Indian War (1754–1763), the British government fielded 45,000 soldiers, halfBritish Regulars and half colonial volunteers. The colonies also contributed money to the war effort; however, two-fifths of this spending was reimbursed by the British government. Great Britain defeated France and acquiredthat nation's territory east of the Mississippi River.[29]
In early 1763, theBute ministry decided to permanently garrison 10,000 soldiers in North America.[30][31] The impetus behind this was to allow approximately 1,500 politically well-connectedBritish Army officers to remain on active duty with full pay in the colonies, since stationing a standing army in Great Britain during peacetime was politically unacceptable.[32] As the government found, American colonists also found a standing army in peacetime unacceptable, when the first of theQuartering Acts were imposed in 1765. The British government's stated reason for the decision for the standing army "was the threat posed by French troops being stationed in the West Indies"[33] and a standing army would supposedly provide defense against Native Americans in the west and foreign populations in newly acquired territories (the French inCanada and the Spanish inFlorida). In addition, British soldiers could help collect customs duties and prevent white colonists from instigating conflict with Native Americans.[34] Instead, it caused a major insurrection (i.e.,Pontiac's War, 1763–66) due to outrage at "the arrogance, cruelty, and stinginess of General Amherst", the British commander.[35] The situation in the west was complicated when white settlers migrated beyond theAppalachian Mountains, increased after the French threat was removed, and the Native Americans' uprising was a response. TheGrenville ministry issued theRoyal Proclamation of 1763, designating the territory between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River as anIndian Reserve closed to white settlement. The Proclamation angered settlers, fur traders, and land speculators and it failed to stop their westward migration.[36]
George Grenville becameprime minister in 1763, and "the need for money played a part in every important decision made by Grenville regarding the colonies—and for that matter by the ministries that followed up to 1776."[37] The national debt had grown to £133 million with annual debt payments of £5 million (out of an £8 million annual budget). Stationing troops in North America on a permanent basis would cost another £360,000 a year. On aper capita basis, Americans only paid 1shilling in taxes to the empire compared to 26 shillings paid by the English.[31] Grenville believed that the colonies should help pay the troop costs.[38]
In 1764 Parliament passed theSugar Act, decreasing the existing customs duties on sugar and molasses but providing stricter measures of enforcement and collection. That same year, Grenville proposed direct taxes on the colonies to raise revenue, but he delayed action to see whether the colonies would propose some way to raise the revenue themselves.[39]
Parliament passed theStamp Act in March 1765, which imposeddirect taxes on the colonies for the first time. All official documents, newspapers, almanacs, and pamphlets were required to have the stamps—even decks of playing cards. The colonists did not object that the taxes were high; they were actually low.[a][40] They objected to their lack of representation in the Parliament, which gave them no voice concerning legislation that affected them, such as the tax, violatingthe unwritten English constitution. This grievance was summarized in the slogan "No taxation without representation". Shortly following adoption of the Stamp Act, theSons of Liberty formed, and began using public demonstrations, boycotts, and threats of violence to ensure that the British tax laws became unenforceable. InBoston, the Sons of Liberty burned the records of the vice admiralty court and looted the home of chief justiceThomas Hutchinson. Several legislatures called for united action, and nine colonies sent delegates to theStamp Act Congress in New York City in October. Moderates led byJohn Dickinson drew up aDeclaration of Rights and Grievances stating that the colonists were equal to all other British citizens and that taxes passed without representation violated theirrights as Englishmen, and Congress emphasized their determination by organizinga boycott on imports of all British merchandise.[41] American spokesmen such as Samuel Adams, James Otis, John Hancock, John Dickinson, Thomas Paine, and many others, rejected aristocracy and propounded "republicanism" as the political philosophy that was best suited to American conditions.[42][43]
The Parliament at Westminster saw itself as the supreme lawmaking authority throughoutthe Empire and thus entitled to levy any tax without colonial approval or even consultation.[44] They argued that the colonies were legallyBritish corporations subordinate to the British Parliament.[45] Parliament insisted that the colonists effectively enjoyed a "virtual representation", as most British people did, since only a small minority of the British population were eligible to elect representatives to Parliament.[46] However, Americans such asJames Otis maintained that there was no one in Parliament responsible specifically to any colonial constituency, so they were not "virtually represented" by anyone in Parliament.[47]
TheRockingham government came to power in July 1765, and Parliament debated whether to repeal the stamp tax or to send an army to enforce it. Benjamin Franklin appeared before them to make the case for repeal, explaining that the colonies had spent heavily in manpower, money, and blood defending the empire, and that further taxes to pay for those wars were unjust and might bring about a rebellion. Parliament agreed and repealed the tax on February 21, 1766, but they insisted in theDeclaratory Act of March 1766 that they retained full power to make laws for the colonies "in all cases whatsoever".[48][49] The repeal nonetheless caused widespread celebrations in the colonies.
In 1767, theBritish Parliament passed theTownshend Acts, which placed duties on several staple goods, including paper, glass, and tea, and established a Board of Customs inBoston to more rigorously execute trade regulations. Parliament's goal was not so much to collect revenue but to assert its authority over the colonies. The new taxes were enacted on the belief that Americans only objected to internal taxes and not to external taxes such as custom duties. However, in his widely read pamphlet,Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania,John Dickinson argued against the constitutionality of the acts because their purpose was to raise revenue and not to regulate trade.[50] Colonists responded to the taxes by organizing new boycotts of British goods. These boycotts were less effective, however, as the goods taxed by the Townshend Acts were widely used.
In February 1768, the Assembly ofMassachusetts Bay Colonyissued a circular letter to the other colonies urging them to coordinate resistance. The governor dissolved the assembly when it refused to rescind the letter. Meanwhile, a riot broke out in Boston in June 1768 over the seizure of the sloopLiberty, owned byJohn Hancock, for alleged smuggling. Customs officials were forced to flee, prompting the British to deploy troops to Boston. A Boston town meeting declared that no obedience was due to parliamentary laws and called for the convening of a convention. A convention assembled but only issued a mild protest before dissolving itself. In January 1769, Parliament responded to the unrest by reactivating theTreason Act 1543 which called for subjects outside the realm to face trials for treason in England. The governor of Massachusetts was instructed to collect evidence of said treason, and the threat caused widespread outrage, though it was not carried out.
On March 5, 1770, a large crowd gathered around a group of British soldiers on a Boston street. The crowd grew threatening, throwing snowballs, rocks, and debris at them. One soldier was clubbed and fell.[51] There was no order to fire, but the soldiers panicked and fired into the crowd. They hit 11 people; three civilians died of wounds at the scene of the shooting, and two died shortly after. The event quickly came to be called theBoston Massacre. The soldiers were tried and acquitted (defended byJohn Adams), but the widespread descriptions soon began to turn colonial sentiment against the British. This accelerated the downward spiral in the relationship between Britain and the province of Massachusetts.[51]
A new ministry underLord North came to power in 1770,[52] and Parliament repealed most of the Townshend duties, except the tax on tea.[53] This temporarily resolved the crisis, and the boycott of British goods largely ceased, with only the more radical patriots such asSamuel Adams continuing to agitate.[54][55]
In June 1772, American patriots, includingJohn Brown, burned a British warship that had been vigorously enforcing unpopular trade regulations, in what became known as theGaspee Affair. The affair was investigated for possible treason, but no action was taken.
In 1773,private letters were published in which Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson claimed that the colonists could not enjoy all English liberties, and in which Lieutenant GovernorAndrew Oliver called for the direct payment of colonial officials, which had been paid by local authorities. This would have reduced the influence of colonial representatives over their government. The letters' contents were used as evidence of a systematic plot against American rights, and discredited Hutchinson in the eyes of the people; the colonial Assembly petitioned for his recall. Benjamin Franklin,postmaster general for the colonies, acknowledged that he leaked the letters, which led to him being removed from his position.
In Boston, Samuel Adams set about creating newCommittees of Correspondence, which linked Patriots in all 13 colonies and eventually provided the framework for a rebel government. Virginia, the largest colony, set up its Committee of Correspondence in early 1773, on which Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson served.[56] A total of about 7,000 to 8,000 Patriots served on these Committees; Loyalists were excluded. The committees became the leaders of the American resistance to British actions, and later largely determined the war effort at the state and local level. When the First Continental Congress decided to boycott British products, the colonial and local Committees took charge, examining merchant records and publishing the names of merchants who attempted to defy the boycott by importing British goods.[57]
Meanwhile, Parliament passed theTea Act lowering the price of taxed tea exported to the colonies, to help the BritishEast India Company undersell smuggled untaxed Dutch tea. Special consignees were appointed to sell the tea to bypass colonial merchants. The act was opposed by those who resisted the taxes and also by smugglers who stood to lose business.[58][59] In every colony demonstrators warned merchants not to bring in tea that included the hated new tax. In most instances, the consignees were forced by the Americans to resign and the tea was turned back, but Massachusetts governor Hutchinson refused to allow Boston merchants to give in to pressure.
A town meeting in Boston determined that the tea would not be landed, and ignored a demand from the governor to disperse. On December 16, 1773, a group of men, led by Samuel Adams and dressed to evoke the appearance of Indigenous people, boarded the ships of the East India Company and dumped £10,000 worth of tea from their holds (approximately £636,000 in 2008) intoBoston Harbor. Decades later, this event became known as theBoston Tea Party and remains a significant part of American patriotic lore.[60]
The British government responded by passing four laws that came to be known as theIntolerable Acts, further darkening colonial opinion towards England.[61] The first was theMassachusetts Government Act which altered the Massachusetts charter and restricted town meetings. The second was theAdministration of Justice Act which ordered that all British soldiers to be tried were to be arraigned in Britain, not in the colonies. The third was theBoston Port Act, which closed the port of Boston until the British had been compensated for the tea lost in the Boston Tea Party. The fourth was theQuartering Act of 1774, which allowed royal governors to house British troops in the homes of citizens without permission of the owner.[62]
In response, Massachusetts patriots issued theSuffolk Resolves and formed an alternative shadow government known as the Provincial Congress, which began training militia outside British-occupied Boston.[63] In September 1774, theFirst Continental Congress convened, consisting of representatives from each colony, to serve as a vehicle for deliberation and collective action. During secret debates, conservativeJoseph Galloway proposed the creation of a colonial Parliament that would be able to approve or disapprove acts of the British Parliament, but his idea was tabled in a vote of 6 to 5 and was subsequently removed from the record.[citation needed]Congress called for a boycott beginning on December 1, 1774, of all British goods; it was enforced by new local committees authorized by the Congress.[64]It also began coordinatingPatriot resistance by militias which existed in every colony and which had gained military experience in the French and Indian War. For the first time, the Patriots were armed and unified against Parliament.
King George declared Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion in February 1775[65] and the British garrison received orders to seize the rebels' weapons and arrest their leaders, leading to theBattles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. The Patriots assembled a militia 15,000 strong and laid siege to Boston, occupied by 6500 British soldiers. TheSecond Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia on June 14, 1775. The congress was divided on the best course of action. They authorized formation of theContinental Army and appointed George Washington as its commander-in-chief, and produced theOlive Branch Petition in which they attempted to come to an accord with King George. The king, however, issued aProclamation of Rebellion which declared that the states were "in rebellion" and the members of Congress were traitors. TheBattle of Bunker Hill followed on June 17, 1775. It was a British victory—but at a great cost: about 1,000 British casualties from a garrison of about 6,000, as compared to 500 American casualties from a much larger force.[66][67]
Britain, at the expense of three millions, has killed 150 Yankees this campaign, which is £20,000 a head ... During the same time, 60,000 children have been born in America. From these data his mathematical head will easily calculate the time and expense necessary to kill us all.[68]
In the winter of 1775, the Americansinvaded northeastern Quebec under generalsBenedict Arnold andRichard Montgomery, expecting to rally sympathetic colonists there. The attack was a failure; many Americans were killed, captured, or died of smallpox.
In March 1776, aided by thefortification of Dorchester Heights with cannons recentlycaptured at Fort Ticonderoga, the Continental Army led by George Washington forced the British toevacuate Boston. The revolutionaries now fully controlled all thirteen colonies and were ready to declare independence. There still were many Loyalists, but they were no longer in control anywhere by July 1776, and all of the Royal officials had fled.[69]
Following theBattle of Bunker Hill in June 1775, the Patriots had control ofMassachusetts outsideBoston's city limits, and the Loyalists suddenly found themselves on the defensive with no protection from the British army. In each of the Thirteen Colonies, American patriots overthrew their existing governments, closed courts, and drove out British colonial officials. They held elected conventions and establishedtheir own legislatures, which existed outside any legal parameters established by the British. New constitutions were drawn up in each state to supersede royal charters. They proclaimed that they were nowstates, no longercolonies.[70]
On January 5, 1776,New Hampshire ratified the first state constitution. In May 1776, Congress voted to suppress all forms of crown authority, to be replaced by locally created authority.New Jersey,South Carolina, andVirginia created their constitutions before July 4.Rhode Island andConnecticut simply took their existingroyal charters and deleted all references to the crown.[71] The new states were all committed to republicanism, with no inherited offices. On May 26, 1776,John Adams wrote James Sullivan fromPhiladelphia warning against extendingthe franchise too far:
Depend upon it, sir, it is dangerous to open so fruitful a source of controversy and altercation, as would be opened by attempting to alter the qualifications of voters. There will be no end of it. New claims will arise. Women will demand a vote. Lads from twelve to twenty one will think their rights not enough attended to, and every man, who has not a farthing, will demand an equal voice with any other in all acts of state. It tends to confound and destroy all distinctions, and prostrate all ranks, to one common level[.][72][73]
Property qualifications for voting and even more substantial requirements for elected positions (though New York and Maryland lowered property qualifications)[70]
universal manhood suffrage, or minimal property requirements for voting or holding office (New Jersey enfranchised some property-owning widows, a step that it retracted 25 years later)
relatively weak governors without veto powers, and with little appointing authority
prohibition against individuals holding multiple government posts
The radical provisions ofPennsylvania's constitution lasted 14 years. In 1790, conservatives gained power in the state legislature, called a new constitutional convention, and rewrote the constitution. The new constitution substantially reduced universal male suffrage, gave the governor veto power and patronage appointment authority, and added an upper house with substantial wealth qualifications to the unicameral legislature.Thomas Paine called it a constitution unworthy of America.[74]
Pulling Down the Statue of King George III, N.Y.C., depicting American patriots tearing down a statue of KingGeorge III in New York City on July 9, 1776, five days after the adoption of theDeclaration of Independence.
In April 1776, theNorth Carolina Provincial Congress issued theHalifax Resolves explicitly authorizing its delegates to vote for independence.[75] By June, nine Provincial Congresses supported independence from Britain, and Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and New York followed.Richard Henry Lee was instructed by the Virginia legislature to propose independence, and he did so on June 7, 1776.
On November 5, 1777, the Congress approved theArticles of Confederation and Perpetual Union and sent it to each state for ratification. The Congress immediately began operating under the Articles' terms, providing a structure ofshared sovereignty during prosecution of theRevolutionary War and facilitating international relations and alliances. The Articles were fully ratified on March 1, 1781. At that point, the Continental Congress was dissolved and a new government of theUnited States in Congress Assembled took its place the following day, on March 2, 1782, withSamuel Huntington leading the Congress as presiding officer.[79][80]
According to British historianJeremy Black, the British had significant advantages, including a highly trained army, the world's largest navy, and an efficient system of public finance that could easily fund the war. However, they seriously misunderstood the depth of support for the American Patriot position, misinterpreting the situation as merely a large-scale riot. The British government believed that they could overawe the Americans by sending a large military and naval force:
Convinced that the Revolution was the work of a full few miscreants who had rallied an armed rabble to their cause, they expected that the revolutionaries would be intimidated .... Then the vast majority of Americans, who were loyal but cowed by the terroristic tactics ... would rise up, kick out the rebels, and restore loyal government in each colony.[81]
In theSiege of Boston, Washington forced the British out of the city in the spring of 1776, and neither the British nor the Loyalists controlled any significant areas. The British, however, were amassing forces at their naval base atHalifax, Nova Scotia. They returned in force in July 1776, landing in New York and defeating Washington's Continental Army in August at theBattle of Brooklyn. This gave the British control of New York City and its strategicharbor. Following that victory, they requested a meeting with representatives from Congress to negotiate an end to hostilities.[82][83]
The British also took New Jersey, pushing the Continental Army into Pennsylvania. Washingtoncrossed the Delaware River back into New Jersey in a surprise attack in late December 1776 and defeated theHessian and British armies atTrenton andPrinceton, thereby regaining control of most of New Jersey. The victories gave an important boost to Patriots at a time when morale was flagging, and they have become iconic events of the war.
In September 1777, in anticipation of acoordinated attack by the British Army on the revolutionary capital of Philadelphia, the Continental Congress was forced to depart Philadelphia temporarily forBaltimore, where they continued deliberations.
In 1777, the British sent Burgoyne's invasion force from Canada south to New York to seal off New England. Their aim was to isolate New England, which the British perceived as the primary source of agitation. Rather than move north to support Burgoyne, the British army in New York City went to Philadelphia in a major case of mis-coordination, capturing it from Washington. The invasion army underBurgoyne was much too slow and became trapped in northern New York state. It surrendered after theBattles of Saratoga in October 1777. From early October 1777 until November 15, a siege distracted British troops atFort Mifflin, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and allowed Washington time to preserve the Continental Army by safely leading his troops to harsh winter quarters atValley Forge.
On August 23, 1775, George III declared Americans to be traitors to the Crown if they took up arms against royal authority. There were thousands of British and Hessian soldiers in American hands following their surrender at the Battles of Saratoga. Lord Germain took a hard line, but the British generals on American soil never held treason trials, and instead treated captured American soldiers as prisoners of war.[84] The dilemma was that tens of thousands of Loyalists were under American control and American retaliation would have been easy. The British built much of their strategy around using these Loyalists.[85] The British maltreated the prisoners whom they held, resulting in more deaths to American prisoners of war than from combat operations.[85] At the end of the war, both sides released their surviving prisoners.[86]
Hessian troops hired out to the British by theirGerman sovereigns
The capture of a British army at Saratoga encouraged the French to formally enter the war in support of Congress, and Benjamin Franklin negotiated a permanent military alliance in early 1778; France thus became the first foreign nation to officially recognize the Declaration of Independence. On February 6, 1778, the United States and France signed theTreaty of Amity and Commerce and theTreaty of Alliance.[87]William Pitt spoke out in Parliament urging Britain to make peace in America and to unite with America against France, while British politicians who had sympathized with colonial grievances now turned against the Americans for allying with Britain's rival and enemy.[88]
The Spanish and the Dutch became allies of the French in 1779 and 1780 respectively, forcing the British to fight a global war without major allies, and requiring it to slip through a combined blockade of the Atlantic. Britain began to view the American war for independence as merely one front in a wider war,[89] and the British chose to withdraw troops from America to reinforce the British colonies in the Caribbean, which were under threat of Spanish or French invasion. British commander SirHenry Clinton evacuated Philadelphia and returned to New York City. Washington intercepted him in theBattle of Monmouth Court House, the last major battle fought in the north. After an inconclusive engagement, the British retreated to New York City. The northern war subsequently became a stalemate, as the focus of attention shifted to the smaller southern theater.[90]
TheBritish Royal Navy blockaded ports and held New York City for the duration of the war, and other cities for brief periods, but failed in their effort to destroy Washington's forces. The British strategy now concentrated on a campaign in thesouthern states. Due to a lack of regular troops at their disposal compared to the Americans, the British commanders saw the "southern strategy" as a more viable plan, as they perceived the southern colonies as strongly Loyalist, with a large population of recent immigrants and large numbers of slaves who might be tempted to run away from their masters to join the British and gain their freedom.[91]
Beginning in late December 1778, the British capturedSavannah and controlled theGeorgia coastline. In 1780, they launched a fresh invasion andtook Charleston. A significant victory at theBattle of Camden meant that royal forces soon controlled most of Georgia and South Carolina. The British set up a network of forts inland, hoping that the Loyalists would rally to the flag.[92] Not enough Loyalists turned out, however, and the British had to fight their way north into North Carolina and Virginia with a severely weakened army. Behind them, much of the territory that they had already captured dissolved into a chaoticguerrilla war, fought predominantly between bands of Loyalists and American militia, which negated many of the gains that the British had previously made.[92]
The 1781siege of Yorktown ended with the surrender of a second British army, marking effective British defeat.
The British army under Cornwallis marched toYorktown, Virginia, where they expected to be rescued by a British fleet.[93] The fleet did arrive, but so did a larger French fleet. The French were victorious in theBattle of the Chesapeake, and the British fleet returned to New York for reinforcements, leaving Cornwallis trapped. In October 1781, the British surrendered their second invading army of the war under a siege by the combined French and Continental armies commanded by Washington.[94]
End of the war
Washington did not know if or when the British might reopen hostilities after Yorktown. They still had 26,000 troops occupying New York City, Charleston, and Savannah, together with a powerful fleet. The French army and navy departed, so the Americans were on their own in 1782–83.[95] The American treasury was empty, and the unpaid soldiers were growing restive, almost to the point of mutiny or possiblecoup d'etat. Washington dispelled the unrest among officers of theNewburgh Conspiracy in 1783, and Congress subsequently created the promise of a five years bonus for all officers.[96]
Historians continue to debate whether the odds were long or short for American victory.John E. Ferling says that the odds were so long that the American victory was "almost a miracle".[97] On the other hand,Joseph Ellis says that the odds favored the Americans, and asks whether there ever was any realistic chance for the British to win. He argues that this opportunity came only once, in the summer of 1776, and Admiral Howe and his brother General Howe "missed several opportunities to destroy the Continental Army .... Chance, luck, and even the vagaries of the weather played crucial roles." Ellis's point is that the strategic and tactical decisions of the Howes were fatally flawed because they underestimated the challenges posed by the Patriots. Ellis concludes that, once the Howe brothers failed, the opportunity "would never come again" for a British victory.[98]
Support for the conflict had never been strong in Britain, where many sympathized with the Americans, but now it reached a new low.[99] King George wanted to fight on, but his supporters lost control of Parliament and they launched no further offensives in America on the eastern seaboard.[90][c]
During negotiations in Paris, the American delegation discovered that France supported American independence but no territorial gains, hoping to confine the new nation to the area east of the Appalachian Mountains. The Americans opened direct secret negotiations with London, cutting out the French. British Prime MinisterLord Shelburne was in charge of the British negotiations, and he saw a chance to make the United States a valuable economic partner, facilitating trade and investment opportunities.[101] The US obtained all the land east of the Mississippi River, includingsouthern Canada, but Spain took control of Florida from the British. It gained fishing rights off Canadian coasts, and agreed to allow British merchants and Loyalists to recover their property. Prime Minister Shelburne foresaw highly profitable two-way trade between Britain and the rapidly growing United States, which did come to pass. The blockade was lifted and American merchants were free to trade with any nation anywhere in the world.[102]
The British largely abandoned their Indigenous allies, who were not a party to this treaty and did not recognize it until they were defeated militarily by the United States. However, the British did sell them munitions and maintain forts in American territory until theJay Treaty of 1795.[103]
Losing the war and the Thirteen Colonies was a shock to Britain. The war revealed the limitations of Britain'sfiscal-military state when they discovered that they suddenly faced powerful enemies with no allies, and they were dependent on extended and vulnerable transatlantic lines of communication. The defeat heightened dissension and escalated political antagonism to the King's ministers. The King went so far as to draft letters of abdication, although they were never delivered.[104] Inside Parliament, the primary concern changed from fears of an over-mighty monarch to the issues of representation, parliamentary reform, and government retrenchment. Reformers sought to destroy what they saw as widespreadinstitutional corruption, and the result was a crisis from 1776 to 1783. The crisis ended after 1784 confidence in the British constitution was restored during the administration of Prime MinisterWilliam Pitt.[105][106][d]
Britain's war against the Americans, the French, and the Spanish cost about £100 million. The Treasury borrowed 40 percent of the money that it needed.[108] Britain had a sophisticated financial system based on the wealth of thousands of landowners who supported the government, together with banks and financiers in London. In London the British had relatively little difficulty financing their war, keeping their suppliers and soldiers paid, and hiring tens of thousands of German soldiers.[109]
In sharp contrast, Congress and the American states had no end of difficulty financing the war.[110] In 1775, there was at most 12 million dollars in gold in the colonies, not nearly enough to cover current transactions, let alone finance a major war. The British made the situation much worse by imposing a tight blockade on every American port, which cut off almost all trade. One partial solution was to rely on volunteer support from militiamen and donations from patriotic citizens.[111][112] Another was to delay actual payments, pay soldiers and suppliers in depreciated currency, and promise that it would be made good after the war. Indeed, the soldiers and officers were given land grants in 1783 to cover the wages that they had earned but had not been paid during the war. The national government did not have a strong leader in financial matters until 1781, whenRobert Morris was namedSuperintendent of Finance of the United States.[111] Morris used a French loan in 1782 to set up the privateBank of North America to finance the war. He reduced thecivil list, saved money by using competitive bidding for contracts, tightened accounting procedures, and demanded the national government's full share of money and supplies from the individual states.[111]
Congress used four main methods to cover the cost of the war, which cost about 66 million dollars in specie (gold and silver).[113] Congress made issues of paper money, known colloquially as "Continental Dollars", in 1775–1780 and in 1780–1781. The first issue amounted to 242 million dollars. This paper money would supposedly be redeemed for state taxes, but the holders were eventually paid off in 1791 at the rate of one cent on the dollar. By 1780, the paper money was so devalued that the phrase "not worth a Continental" became synonymous with worthlessness.[114] The skyrocketing inflation was a hardship on the few people who had fixed incomes, but 90 percent of the people were farmers and were not directly affected by it. Debtors benefited by paying off their debts with depreciated paper. The greatest burden was borne by the soldiers of the Continental Army whose wages were usually paid late and declined in value every month, weakening their morale and adding to the hardships of their families.[115]
Beginning in 1777, Congress repeatedly asked the states to provide money, but the states had no system of taxation and were of little help. By 1780, Congress was making requisitions for specific supplies of corn, beef, pork, and other necessities, an inefficient system which barely kept the army alive.[116][117] Starting in 1776, the Congress sought to raise money by loans from wealthy individuals, promising to redeem the bonds after the war. The bonds were redeemed in 1791 at face value, but the scheme raised little money because Americans had little specie, and many of the rich merchants were supporters of the Crown. The French secretly supplied the Americans with money, gunpowder, and munitions to weaken Great Britain; the subsidies continued when France entered the war in 1778, and the French government and Paris bankers lent large sums[quantify] to the American war effort. The Americans struggled to pay off the loans; they ceased making interest payments to France in 1785 and defaulted on installments due in 1787. In 1790, however, they resumed regular payments on their debts to the French,[118] and settled their accounts with the French government in 1795 when James Swan, an American banker, assumed responsibility for the balance of the debt in exchange for the right to refinance it at a profit.[119]
The war ended in 1783 and was followed by a period of prosperity. The national government was still operating under the Articles of Confederation andsettled the issue of the western territories, which the states ceded to Congress. American settlers moved rapidly into those areas, with Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee becoming states in the 1790s.[120]
However, the national government had no money either to pay the war debts owed to European nations and the private banks, or to pay Americans who had been given millions of dollars of promissory notes for supplies during the war. Nationalists led by Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and other veterans feared that the new nation was too fragile to withstand an international war, or even the repetition of internal revolts such as theShays's Rebellion of 1786 in Massachusetts. They convinced Congress to call thePhiladelphia Convention in 1787.[121] The Convention adopted a newConstitution which provided for arepublic with a much stronger national government in afederal framework, including an effective executive in acheck-and-balance system with the judiciary and legislature.[122] The Constitution was ratified in 1788, after a fierce debate in the states over the proposed new government. Thenew administration under President George Washington took office in New York in March 1789.[123]James Madison spearheaded Congressional legislation proposing amendments to the Constitution as assurances to those cautious about federal power, guaranteeing many of theinalienable rights that formed a foundation for the revolution. Rhode Island was the final state to ratify the Constitution in 1790, the first ten amendments were ratified in 1791 and became known as theUnited States Bill of Rights.
The national debt fell into three categories after the American Revolution. The first was the $12 million owed to foreigners, mostly money borrowed from France. There was general agreement to pay the foreign debts at full value. The national government owed $40 million and state governments owed $25 million to Americans who had sold food, horses, and supplies to the Patriot forces. There were also other debts which consisted ofpromissory notes issued during the war to soldiers, merchants, and farmers who accepted these payments on the premise that the new Constitution would create a government that would pay these debts eventually.
The war expenses of the individual states added up to $114 million, compared to $37 million by the central government.[124] In 1790, Congress combined the remaining state debts with the foreign and domestic debts into one national debt totaling $80 million at the recommendation of first Secretary of the TreasuryAlexander Hamilton. Everyone received face value for wartime certificates, so that the national honor would be sustained and the national credit established.[125]
Ideology and factions
The population of the Thirteen States was not homogeneous in political views and attitudes. Loyalties and allegiances varied widely within regions and communities and even within families, and sometimes shifted during the Revolution.
The American Enlightenment was a critical precursor of the American Revolution. Chief among the ideas of the American Enlightenment were the concepts of natural law, natural rights, consent of the governed, individualism, property rights, self-ownership, self-determination, liberalism, republicanism, and defense against corruption. A growing number of American colonists embraced these views and fostered an intellectual environment which led to a new sense of political and social identity.[126]
Radical Whig ideology profoundly influenced colonial American political philosophy with its love of liberty and opposition to tyrannical government.[127]
John Locke is often referred to as "the philosopher of the American Revolution" due to his work in theSocial Contract andNatural Rights theories that underpinned the Revolution's political ideology.[129] Locke'sTwo Treatises of Government published in 1689 was especially influential. He argued that all humans were created equally free, and governments therefore needed the "consent of the governed".[130] In late eighteenth-century America, belief was still widespread in "equality by creation" and "rights by creation".[131] Locke's ideas on liberty influenced the political thinking of English writers such asJohn Trenchard,Thomas Gordon, andBenjamin Hoadly, whose political ideas in turn also had a strong influence on the American Patriots.[132] His work also inspired symbols used in the American Revolution such as the "Appeal to Heaven" found on thePine Tree Flag, which alludes to Locke's concept of theright of revolution.[133]
The theory of the social contract influenced the belief among many of the Founders that theright of the people to overthrow their leaders, should those leaders betray the historicrights of Englishmen, was one of the "natural rights" of man.[134][135] The Americans heavily relied onMontesquieu's analysis of the wisdom of the "balanced" British Constitution (mixed government) in writing the state and national constitutions.
The American interpretation ofrepublicanism was inspired by theWhig party in Great Britain which openly criticized the corruption within the British government.[136] Americans were increasingly embracing republican values, seeing Britain as corrupt and hostile to American interests.[137] The colonists associated political corruption with ostentatious luxury and inherited aristocracy.[138]
There must be a positive Passion for the public good, the public Interest, Honour, Power, and Glory, established in the Minds of the People, or there can be no Republican Government, nor any real Liberty. And this public Passion must be Superior to all private Passions. Men must be ready, they must pride themselves, and be happy to sacrifice their private Pleasures, Passions, and Interests, nay their private Friendships and dearest connections, when they Stand in Competition with the Rights of society.[140]
John Witherspoon, who was considered a "new light"Presbyterian, wrote widely circulated sermons linking the American Revolution to the teachings of theBible. Throughout the colonies, dissentingProtestant ministers from the Congregational,Baptist, and Presbyterian churches preached Revolutionary themes in their sermons while mostChurch of England clergymen preached loyalty to the king, thetitular head of the Englishstate church.[144] Religious motivation for fighting tyranny transcended socioeconomic lines.[141] The Declaration of Independence also referred to the "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" as justification for the Americans' separation from the British monarchy: the signers of the Declaration professed their "firm reliance on the Protection of divine Providence", and they appealed to "the Supreme Judge for the rectitude of our intentions".[145]
HistorianBernard Bailyn argues that the evangelicalism of the era challenged traditional notions of natural hierarchy by preaching that the Bible teaches that all men are equal, so that the true value of a man lies in his moral behavior, not in his class.[146] Kidd argues that religiousdisestablishment, belief in God as the source of human rights, and shared convictions about sin, virtue, and divine providence worked together to unite rationalists and evangelicals and thus encouraged a large proportion of Americans to fight for independence from the Empire. Bailyn, on the other hand, denies that religion played such a critical role.[147] Alan Heimert argues that New Light anti-authoritarianism was essential to furthering democracy in colonial American society, and set the stage for a confrontation with British monarchical and aristocratic rule.[148]
The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people .... This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution.[149]
In the mid-20th century, historianLeonard Woods Labaree identified eight characteristics of the Loyalists that made them essentially conservative, opposite to the characteristics of the Patriots.[150] Loyalists tended to feel that resistance to the Crown was morally wrong, while the Patriots thought that morality was on their side.[151][152] Loyalists were alienated when the Patriots resorted to violence, such as burning houses andtarring and feathering. Loyalists wanted to take a centrist position and resisted the Patriots' demand to declare their opposition to the Crown. Many Loyalists had maintained strong and long-standing relations with Britain, especially merchants in port cities such as New York and Boston.[151][152] Many Loyalists felt that independence was bound to come eventually, but they were fearful that revolution might lead to anarchy, tyranny, or mob rule. In contrast, the prevailing attitude among Patriots was a desire to seize the initiative.[151][152] Labaree also wrote that Loyalists were pessimists who lacked the confidence in the future displayed by the Patriots.[150]
Historians in the early 20th century such asJ. Franklin Jameson examined the class composition of the Patriot cause, looking for evidence of a class war inside the revolution.[153] More recent historians have largely abandoned that interpretation, emphasizing instead the high level of ideological unity.[154] Both Loyalists and Patriots were a "mixed lot",[155][156] but ideological demands always came first. The Patriots viewed independence as a means to gain freedom from British oppression and to reassert their basic rights. Most yeomen farmers, craftsmen, and small merchants joined the Patriot cause to demand more political equality. They were especially successful in Pennsylvania but less so in New England, where John Adams attacked Thomas Paine'sCommon Sense for the "absurd democratical notions" that it proposed.[155][156]
The revolution became a personal issue forthe king, fueled by his growing belief that British leniency would be taken as weakness by the Americans. He also sincerely believed that he was defendingBritain's constitution against usurpers, rather than opposing patriots fighting for their natural rights.[157]King George III is often accused of obstinately trying to keep Great Britain at war with the revolutionaries in America, despite the opinions of his own ministers.[158] In the words of the British historianGeorge Otto Trevelyan, the King was determined "never to acknowledge the independence of the Americans, and to punish their contumacy by the indefinite prolongation of a war which promised to be eternal."[159] The king wanted to "keep the rebels harassed, anxious, and poor, until the day when, by a natural and inevitable process, discontent and disappointment were converted into penitence and remorse".[160] Later historians defend George by saying in the context of the times no king would willingly surrender such a large territory,[161][162] and his conduct was far less ruthless than contemporary monarchs in Europe.[163] After the surrender of a British army at Saratoga, both Parliament and the British people were largely in favor of the war; recruitment ran at high levels and although political opponents were vocal, they remained a small minority.[161][164]
With the setbacks in America,Lord North asked to transfer power toLord Chatham, whom he thought more capable, but George refused to do so; he suggested instead that Chatham serve as a subordinate minister in North's administration, but Chatham refused. He died later in the same year.[165] Lord North was allied to the "King's Friends" in Parliament and believed George III had the right to exercise powers.[166] In early 1778,Britain's chief rival France signed atreaty of alliance with the United States, and the confrontation soon escalated from a "rebellion" to something that has been characterized as "world war".[167] The French fleet was able to outrun the British naval blockade of the Mediterranean and sailed to North America.[167] The conflict now affected North America, Europe andIndia.[167] The United States and France were joined bySpain in 1779 and theDutch Republic, while Britain had no major allies of its own, except for the Loyalist minority in America and German auxiliaries (i.e.Hessians).Lord Gower andLord Weymouth both resigned from the government. Lord North again requested that he also be allowed to resign, but he stayed in office at George III's insistence.[168] Opposition to the costly war was increasing, and in June 1780 contributed to disturbances in London known as theGordon riots.[168]
As late as theSiege of Charleston in 1780, Loyalists could still believe in their eventual victory, as British troops inflicted defeats on the Continental forces at theBattle of Camden and theBattle of Guilford Court House.[169] In late 1781, the news of Cornwallis's surrender at the siege of Yorktown reached London; Lord North's parliamentary support ebbed away and he resigned the following year. The king drafted an abdication notice, which was never delivered,[162][170] finally accepted the defeat in North America, and authorized peace negotiations. TheTreaties of Paris, by which Britain recognized the independence of the United States andreturned Florida to Spain, were signed in 1782 and 1783 respectively.[171] In early 1783, George III privately conceded "America is lost!" He reflected that the Northern colonies had developed into Britain's "successful rivals" in commercial trade and fishing.[172]
WhenJohn Adams was appointedAmerican Minister to London in 1785, George had become resigned to the new relationship between his country and the former colonies. He told Adams, "I was the last to consent to the separation; but the separation having been made and having become inevitable, I have always said, as I say now, that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power."[173]
Those who fought for independence were called "Revolutionaries", "Continentals", "Rebels", "Patriots", "Whigs", "Congress-men", or "Americans" during and after the war. They included a full range of social and economic classes but were unanimous regarding the need to defend the rights of Americans and uphold the principles of republicanism in rejecting monarchy and aristocracy, while emphasizing civic virtue by citizens. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were mostly—with definite exceptions—well-educated, of British stock, and of the Protestant faith.[174][175]Newspapers were strongholds of patriotism (although there were a few Loyalist papers) and printed many pamphlets, announcements, patriotic letters, and pronouncements.[176]
According to historian Robert Calhoon, 40 to 45 percent of the white population in the Thirteen Colonies supported the Patriots' cause, 15 to 20 percent supported the Loyalists, and the remainder were neutral or kept a low profile.[177] Mark Lender concludes that ordinary people became insurgents against the British because they held a sense of rights which the British were violating, rights that stressed local autonomy, fair dealing, and government by consent. They were highly sensitive to the issue of tyranny, which they saw manifested in the British response to the Boston Tea Party. The arrival in Boston of the British Army heightened their sense of violated rights, leading to rage and demands for revenge. They had faith that God was on their side.[178]
Thomas Paine published his pamphletCommon Sense in January 1776, after the Revolution had started. It was widely distributed and often read aloud in taverns, contributing significantly to concurrently spreading the ideas of republicanism and liberalism, bolstering enthusiasm for separation from Great Britain and encouraging recruitment for the Continental Army.[179] Paine presented the Revolution as the solution for Americans alarmed by the threat of tyranny.[179]
The consensus of scholars is that about 15 to 20 percent of the white population remained loyal to the British Crown.[180] Those who actively supported the king were known at the time as "Loyalists", "Tories", or "King's men". The Loyalists never controlled territory unless the British Army occupied it. They were typically older, less willing to break with old loyalties, and often connected to the Church of England; they included many established merchants with strong business connections throughout the Empire, as well as royal officials such as Thomas Hutchinson of Boston.[181]
There were 500 to 1,000Black Loyalists, enslaved African Americans who escaped to British lines and supported Britain's cause via several means. Many of them died from disease, but the survivors were evacuated by the British totheir remaining colonies in North America.[182]
The revolution could divide families, such asWilliam Franklin, son of Benjamin Franklin and royal governor of theProvince of New Jersey who remained loyal to the Crown throughout the war. He and his father never spoke again.[183] Recent immigrants who had not been fully Americanized were also inclined to support the King.[184]
After the war, the great majority of the half-million Loyalists remained in America and resumed normal lives. Some became prominent American leaders, such asSamuel Seabury. Approximately 46,000 Loyalists relocated to Canada; others moved to Britain (7,000), Florida, or the West Indies (9,000). The exiles represented approximately two percent of the total population of the colonies.[185] Nearly all Black Loyalists left for Nova Scotia, Florida, or England, where they could remain free.[186] Loyalists who left the South in 1783 took thousands of their slaves with them as they fled to theBritish West Indies.[185]
A minority of uncertain size tried to stay neutral in the war. Most kept a low profile, but the Quakers were the most important group to speak out for neutrality, especially in Pennsylvania. The Quakers continued to do business with the British even after the war began, and they were accused of supporting British rule, "contrivers and authors of seditious publications" critical of the revolutionary cause.[187][full citation needed] Most Quakers remained neutral, althougha sizeable number participated to some degree.
Mercy Otis Warren published poems and plays that attacked royal authority and urged colonists to resist British rule.
Women contributed to the American Revolution in many ways and were involved on both sides. Formal politics did not include women, but ordinary domestic behaviors became charged with political significance as Patriot women confronted a war which permeated all aspects of political, civil, and domestic life. They participated by boycotting British goods, spying on the British, following armies as they marched, washing, cooking, and mending for soldiers, delivering secret messages, and even fighting disguised as men in a few cases, such asDeborah Samson.Mercy Otis Warren held meetings in her house and cleverly attacked Loyalists with her creative plays and histories.[188] Many women also acted as nurses and helpers, tending to the soldiers' wounds and buying and selling goods for them. Some of thesecamp followers even participated in combat, such as Madam John Turchin who led her husband's regiment into battle.[189] Above all, women continued the agricultural work at home to feed their families and the armies. They maintained their families during their husbands' absences and sometimes after their deaths.[190]
American women were integral to the success of the boycott of British goods,[191] as the boycotted items were largely household articles such as tea and cloth. Women had to return to knitting goods and to spinning and weaving their own cloth—skills that had fallen into disuse. In 1769, the women of Boston produced 40,000 skeins of yarn, and 180 women inMiddletown, Massachusetts wove 20,522 yards (18,765 m) of cloth.[190] Many women gathered food, money, clothes, and other supplies during the war to help the soldiers.[192] A woman's loyalty to her husband could become an open political act, especially for women in America committed to men who remained loyal to the King. Legal divorce, usually rare, was granted to Patriot women whose husbands supported the King.[193][194]
In early 1776, France set up a major program of aid to the Americans, and the Spanish secretly added funds. Each country spent one million "livres tournaises" to buy munitions. Adummy corporation run byPierre Beaumarchais concealed their activities. American Patriots obtained some munitions from the Dutch Republic as well, through the French and Spanish ports in theWest Indies.[195] Heavy expenditures and a weak taxation system pushed France toward bankruptcy.[196]
In 1777,Charles François Adrien le Paulmier, Chevalier d'Annemours, acting as asecret agent for France, made sure GeneralGeorge Washington was privy to his mission. He followed Congress around for the next two years, reporting what he observed back to France.[197] TheTreaty of Alliance between the French and the Americans followed in 1778, which led to more French money,matériel and troops being sent to the United States.
Spain did not officially recognize the United States, but it was a French ally and it separately declared war on Britain on June 21, 1779.Bernardo de Gálvez, general of the Spanish forces inNew Spain, also served as governor of Louisiana. He led an expedition of colonial troops to capture Florida from the British and to keep open a vital conduit for supplies going to the Americans.[198]
AmericanPatriots tended to represent such troops asmercenaries in propaganda against the British Crown. Even American historians followed suit, in spite of Colonial-era jurists drawing a distinction between auxiliaries and mercenaries, with auxiliaries serving their prince when sent to the aid of another prince, and mercenaries serving a foreign prince as individuals.[199] By this distinction the troops which served in the American Revolution were auxiliaries.
Other German individuals came to assist the American revolutionaries, most notablyFriedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, who served as a general in the Continental Army and is credited with professionalizing that force, but most Germans who served were already colonists. Von Steuben's native Prussia joined theLeague of Armed Neutrality,[200] and KingFrederick II of Prussia was well appreciated in the United States for his support early in the war. He expressed interest in opening trade with the United States and bypassing English ports, and allowed an American agent to buy arms in Prussia.[201] Frederick predicted American success,[202] and promised to recognize the United States and American diplomats once France did the same.[203] Prussia also interfered in the recruiting efforts of Russia and neighboring German states when they raised armies to send to the Americas, and Frederick II forbade enlistment for the American war within Prussia.[204] All Prussian roads were denied to troops from Anhalt-Zerbst,[205] which delayed reinforcements that Howe had hoped to receive during the winter of 1777–1778.[206]
However, when theWar of the Bavarian Succession (1778–1779) erupted, Frederick II became much more cautious with Prussian/British relations. U.S. ships were denied access to Prussian ports, and Frederick refused to officially recognize the United States until they had signed theTreaty of Paris. Even after the war, Frederick II predicted that the United States was too large to operate as arepublic, and that it would soon rejoin the British Empire with representatives in Parliament.[207]
Thayendanegea, aMohawk military and political leader, was the most prominent indigenous leader opposing the Patriot forces.[208]
Most Indigenous people rejected pleas that they remain neutral and instead supported the British Crown. The great majority of the 200,000 Indigenous people east of the Mississippi distrusted the Americans and supported the British cause, hoping to forestall continued expansion of settlement into their territories.[209][210] Those tribes closely involved in trade tended to side with the Patriots, although political factors were important as well. Some tried to remain neutral, seeing little value in joining what they perceived to be a "white man's war", and fearing reprisals from whichever side they opposed.
The great majority of Indigenous people did not participate directly in the war, with the notable exceptions of warriors and bands associated with four of theIroquois tribes in New York and Pennsylvania which allied with the British,[210] and theOneida andTuscarora tribes among the Iroquois of central and western New York who supported the American cause.[211] The British did have other allies, particularly in theregions of southwest Quebec on the Patriot's frontier. The British provided arms to Indigenous people who were led by Loyalists in war parties to raid frontier settlements from theCarolinas to New York. These war parties managed to kill many settlers on the frontier, especially in Pennsylvania and New York's Mohawk Valley.[212]
In 1776,Cherokee war parties attacked American Colonists all along the southern Quebec frontier of the uplands throughout theWashington District, North Carolina (now Tennessee) and the Kentucky wilderness area.[213] TheChickamauga Cherokee underDragging Canoe allied themselves closely with the British, and fought on for an additional decade after the Treaty of Paris was signed. They launched raids with roughly 200 warriors, as seen in theCherokee–American wars; they could not mobilize enough forces to invade settler areas without the help of allies, most often theCreek.
Joseph Brant (also Thayendanegea) of the powerfulMohawk tribe in New York was the most prominent Indigenous leader against the Patriot forces.[208] In 1778 and 1780, he led 300 Iroquois warriors and 100 white Loyalists in multiple attacks on small frontier settlements in New York and Pennsylvania, killing many settlers and destroying villages, crops, and stores.[214]
In 1779, theContinental Army forced the hostile Indigenous people out of upstate New York when Washington sent an army underJohn Sullivan which destroyed 40 evacuated Iroquois villages in central and western New York. TheBattle of Newtown proved decisive, as the Patriots had an advantage of three-to-one, and it ended significant resistance; there was little combat otherwise. Facing starvation and homeless for the winter, the Iroquois fled to Canada.[215]
At the peace conference following the war, the British ceded lands which they did not really control, without consultation with their Indigenous allies. They transferred control to the United States of all the land south of the Great Lakes east of the Mississippi and north of Florida. Calloway concludes:
Burned villages and crops, murdered chiefs, divided councils and civil wars, migrations, towns and forts choked with refugees, economic disruption, breaking of ancient traditions, losses in battle and to disease and hunger, betrayal to their enemies, all made the American Revolution one of the darkest periods in American Indian history.[216]
The existence ofslavery in the American colonies had attracted criticism from both sides of the Atlantic as many could not reconcile the existence of the institution with the egalitarian ideals espoused by leaders of the Revolution. The English writerSamuel Johnson wrote "how is it we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of the Negroes?" in a text opposing the grievances of the colonists.[217] Referring to this contradiction, the English writer and abolitionistThomas Day wrote in a 1776 letter that
if there be an object truly ridiculous in nature, it is an American patriot, signing resolutions of independency with the one hand, and with the other brandishing a whip over his affrighted slaves.[218]
Crispus Attucks, of mixed racial heritage, was one of the five people killed in theBoston Massacre in 1770 and is considered the first American casualty for the cause of independence. Free Blacks in theNew England Colonies andMiddle Colonies in the North as well asSouthern Colonies fought on both sides of the War, but the majority fought for the Patriots. Gary Nash reports that there were about 9,000 Black veteran Patriots, counting the Continental Army and Navy, state militia units, privateers, wagoneers in the Army, servants to officers, and spies.[219] Ray Raphael notes that thousands did join the Loyalist cause, but "a far larger number, free as well as slave, tried to further their interests by siding with the patriots."[220]
The effects of the war were more dramatic in the South. Tens of thousands of slaves escaped to British lines throughout the South, causing dramatic losses to slaveholders and disrupting cultivation and harvesting of crops. For instance,South Carolina was estimated to have lost about 25,000 slaves to flight, migration, or death which amounted to a third of its slave population.[221] As noted by the historian Karen Cook Bell, during the Revolutionary War roughly one-third of all escaping slaves were women, even though prior to 1775 nearly 87% had been men.[222]
During the war, British commanders attempted to weaken the Patriots by issuing proclamations of freedom to their slaves.[223] In the November 1775 document known asDunmore's Proclamation Virginia royal governor,Lord Dunmore recruited Black men for British military service with the promise of freedom, protection for their families, and land grants. Hundreds of Black men responded and were formed into theRoyal Ethiopian Regiment. However, as noted by the historian James Corbett David, many Black people felt unable or unwilling to respond to these offers of freedom:
Under... discouraging circumstances, the vast majority of slaves were either unable or unwilling to take their chances with the British. Those who opted not to run (many never really had a choice) may have watched events unfold with a growing sense of vindication, for the slaves who did strike out for freedom, while exhibiting remarkable courage and ingenuity and courage in the process, had an exceptionally hard road ahead.[224]
Colonists, primarily Southern Patriots, were deeply angered by Dunmore's proclamation, which spread through all of the Thirteen Colonies and threatened to upturn the existing American racial hierarchy; it also played a major role in Southern support for American independence.[225] Accusations that the British were encouraging slave rebellions were prominent features of Patriot propaganda, with Jefferson accusing George III in the27 colonial grievances of having "excited domestic Insurrections among us". The historianSimon Schama argued that for Southern Patriots, "Theirs was a revolution, first and foremost, mobilized to protect slavery."[226]
The 1779Philipsburg Proclamation expanded the promise of freedom for Black men who enlisted in the British military to all the colonies in rebellion. British forces gave transportation to 10,000 slaves when they evacuatedSavannah andCharles Town, carrying through on their promise.[227] They evacuated and resettled more than 3,000Black Loyalists from New York toNova Scotia,Upper Canada, andLower Canada. Others sailed with the British to England or were resettled as freedmen in theWest Indies of the Caribbean. But slaves carried to the Caribbean under control of Loyalist masters generally remained slaves until British abolition of slavery in its colonies in 1833–1838.
More than 1,200 of the Black Loyalists of Nova Scotia later resettled in the British colony ofSierra Leone, where they became leaders of theKrio ethnic group ofFreetown and the later national government. Many of their descendants still live in Sierra Leone, as well as other African countries.[228][full citation needed] Despite the turmoil of the period, African-Americans contributed to the foundation of an American national identity during the Revolution.Phyllis Wheatley, an African-American poet, popularized the image ofColumbia to represent America.[229]
After the Revolution, genuinely democratic politics became possible in the former American colonies.[230] The rights of the people were incorporated into state constitutions. Concepts of liberty, individual rights, equality among men and hostility toward corruption became incorporated as core values of liberal republicanism. The new United States government was empowered to undertake its own project ofterritorial expansion andsettler colonialism. The greatest challenge to the old order in Europe was the challenge to inherited political power and the democratic idea that government rests on theconsent of the governed. The example of the first successful revolution against a European empire, and the first successful establishment of a republican form of democratically elected government without monarchy or any inherited political authority, provided a model for many other colonial peoples who realized that they too could break away and become self-governing nations with directly elected representative government.[231][page needed]
The U.S. mottoNovus ordo seclorum, meaning "A New Age Now Begins", is paraphrased fromThomas Paine'sCommon Sense, published January 10, 1776. "We have it in our power to begin the world over again," Paine wrote. The American Revolution ended an age—an age of monarchy. And, it began a new age—an age of freedom. As a result of the growing wave started by the Revolution, there are now more people around the world living in freedom than ever before, both in absolute numbers and as a percentage of the world's population.[232][233][234][235]
Interpretations
Interpretations vary concerning the effect of the Revolution. Historians such asBernard Bailyn,Gordon Wood, andEdmund Morgan view it as a unique and radical event which produced deep changes and had a profound effect on world affairs, such as an increasing belief in the principles of the Enlightenment. These were demonstrated by a leadership and government that espoused protection of natural rights, and a system of laws chosen by the people.[236] John Murrin, by contrast, argues that the definition of "the people" at that time was mostly restricted to free men who passed a property qualification.[237][238]
Gordon Wood states:
The American Revolution was integral to the changes occurring in American society, politics and culture .... These changes were radical, and they were extensive .... The Revolution not only radically changed the personal and social relationships of people, including the position of women, but also destroyed aristocracy as it'd been understood in the Western world for at least two millennia.[239]
Edmund Morgan has argued that, in terms of long-term impact on American society and values:
The Revolution did revolutionize social relations. It did displace the deference, the patronage, the social divisions that had determined the way people viewed one another for centuries and still view one another in much of the world. It did give to ordinary people a pride and power, not to say an arrogance, that have continued to shock visitors from less favored lands. It may have left standing a host of inequalities that have troubled us ever since. But it generated the egalitarian view of human society that makes them troubling and makes our world so different from the one in which the revolutionists had grown up.[240]
Inspiring other independence movements and revolutions
TheU.S. Constitution, drafted shortly after independence, remains the world's oldest written constitution, and has been emulated by other countries, in some cases verbatim.[244] Some historians and scholars argue that the subsequent wave of independence and revolutionary movements has contributed to the continued expansion of democratic government; 144 countries, representing two-third of the world's population, are full or partially democracies of same form.[245][234][246][247][235][232]
The Dutch Republic, also at war with Britain, was the next country after France to sign a treaty with the United States, on October 8, 1782.[87] On April 3, 1783, Ambassador ExtraordinaryGustaf Philip Creutz, representing KingGustav III of Sweden, and Benjamin Franklin, signed aTreaty of Amity and Commerce with the U.S.[87]
The Revolution had a strong, immediate influence in Great Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, and France. Many British and IrishWhigs in Parliament spoke glowingly in favor of the American cause. In Ireland, the Protestant minoritywho controlled Ireland demandedself-rule. Under the leadership ofHenry Grattan, theIrish Patriot Party forced the reversal of mercantilist prohibitions against trade with other British colonies. The King and his cabinet in London could not risk another rebellion, and so made a series of concessions to the Patriot faction in Dublin. Armed volunteer units of theProtestant Ascendancy were set up ostensibly to protect against an invasion from France. As had been in colonial America, so too in Ireland now the King no longer had amonopoly of lethal force.[248][241][249]
For many Europeans, such as theMarquis de Lafayette, who later were active during the era of theFrench Revolution, the American case along with theDutch Revolt (end of the 16th century) and the 17th centuryEnglish Civil War, was among the examples of overthrowing an old regime. The American Declaration of Independence influenced the FrenchDeclaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789.[250][251] The spirit of the Declaration of Independence led to laws ending slavery in all the Northern states and the Northwest Territory, with New Jersey the last in 1804. States such as New Jersey and New York adopted gradual emancipation, which kept some people as slaves for more than two decades longer.[252][241][253]
During the revolution, the contradiction between the Patriots' professed ideals of liberty and the institution of slavery generated increased scrutiny of the latter.[255]: 235 [256]: 105–106 [257]: 186 As early as 1764, the Boston Patriot leaderJames Otis, Jr. declared that all men, "white or black", were "by the law of nature" born free.[255]: 237 Anti-slavery calls became more common in the early 1770s. In 1773,Benjamin Rush, the future signer of the Declaration of Independence, called on "advocates for American liberty" to oppose slavery.[255]: 239 Slavery became an issue that had to be addressed. As historian Christopher L. Brown put it, slavery "had never been on the agenda in a serious way before," but the Revolution "forced it to be a public question from there forward."[258][259]
In the late 1760s and early 1770s, several colonies, including Massachusetts and Virginia, attempted to restrict the slave trade, but were prevented from doing so by royally appointed governors.[255]: 245 In 1774, as part of a broader non-importation movement aimed at Britain, the Continental Congress called on all the colonies to ban the importation of slaves, and the colonies passed acts doing so.[255]: 245
In the first two decades after the American Revolution, state legislatures and individuals took actions to free slaves, in part based on revolutionary ideals. Northern states passed new constitutions that contained language about equal rights or specifically abolished slavery; some states, such as New York and New Jersey, where slavery was more widespread, passed laws by the end of the 18th century to abolish slavery by a gradual method. By 1804, all the northern states had passed laws outlawing slavery, either immediately or over time.[260]
No southern state abolished slavery. However, individual owners could free their slaves by personal decision. Numerous slaveholders who freed their slaves cited revolutionary ideals in their documents; others freed slaves as a reward for service. Records also suggest that some slaveholders were freeing their own mixed-race children, born into slavery to slave mothers. The number of free Blacks as a proportion of the Black population in the upper South increased from less than 1 percent to nearly 10 percent between 1790 and 1810 as a result of these actions.[e] Nevertheless, slavery continued in the South, where it became a "peculiar institution", setting the stage for future sectional conflict between North and South over the issue.[257]: 186–187
Thousands of free Blacks in the northern states fought in the state militias and Continental Army. In the south, both sides offered freedom to slaves who would perform military service. Roughly 20,000 slaves fought in the American Revolution.[271]
The status of women during the Revolutionary War can be illustrated by the interchange of gender, sexuality, citizenship, and class. While women were entering a period in which they found themselves gaining more identity within society, it was clear that they were still very much considered under men as their role in society remained being a good wife and mother. Their clothes, the way they responded to their husband, and listened to their husband, was incredibly important in the social sphere. Having a woman who was dressed well for her role as a good wife and mother as well as fitting the social role, was a symbol of not only status, but a family devoted to the republic. As they continued to nurture social and political partnerships, their role in enabling the success of the revolution emphasized their changing role in society – leading to the post-revolutionary reconstruction of gender ideology.
In addition, the democratic ideals of the Revolution inspired changes in the roles of women.[272] Patriot women married to Loyalists who left the state could get a divorce and obtain control of the ex-husband's property.[273]Abigail Adams expressed to her husband, the president, the desire of women to have a place in the new republic:
I desire you would remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands.[274]
As discussions rose regarding the rights of man post Revolutionary war, women began pushing a debate for the rights of women as well. One particular woman,Mary Wollstonecraft, would pioneer the discussion regarding women's rights, and push those like Abigail Adams to begin expressing the desire to want a larger place in society. Wollstonecraft was an English writer, philosopher, and advocate for women's rights, and would publish theVindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) – challenging the idea that rights should only be granted to men. As one of the first major advocates and foundational figures for women's rights and gender equality in a time when women were considered inferior to men, Wollstonecraft focused on equal education and social opportunities for women – believing that if women were educated the same as men, they would gain autonomy over their own lives and better contribute to society. Her radical ideas would give ground to the conversation in allowing women to be bearers of rights alongside men – that while the rights of man were taking on a new meaning post-revolutionary America, it was time for the rights of women too. Inspired by the radical feminism in her work, women in the early republic would change their views on marriage, education, participation in public life, and autonomy – pushing them to lay the groundwork for the later women's suffrage movement, education opportunities, property rights, and more.
However, this new sense of independence and dignity did not come with ease, as a gender hierarchy would continue to bind what it meant for women to have rights during the post-revolutionary era. Women in the early republic had many limitations – they could not vote, hold political office, earn fair wages, lacked opportunities for higher education and certain professions, and most importantly, own property independently of their husbands. In addition, they held little legal powers in subjects such as divorce, property rights, and child custody. A central legal concept that reinforced these restrictions wascoverture, a central legal doctrine that limited women's lives in all aspects – making a woman's legal identity a part of their husband's and essentially making them subordinates. The denial of things like property rights to women through coverture would play an important role in why they were denied many other rights, as property was a symbol of individual liberty and empowerment during the post-revolutionary era.
So while women would eventually begin gaining new rights such as increased access to education and limited property and voting rights – much of their lives still depended on men. This stark contrast of men's versus women's rights comes from the deeply established gender roles from philosophical theories like the Scottish Theory – stating that the rights of women were simply benefits in life. The emphasis of women's rights was on duty and obligation, instead of liberty and choice – confining women to the traditional role of wife and mother. On the other hand, men's rights were heavily inspired by Locke, as it emphasized equality, individual autonomy, and the expansion of personal freedoms. This is evident in their rights to property, participation in government, and autonomy. So while women were becoming bearers of rights, the foundation and philosophy of those given rights differed vastly and continued to stay limited.
The early national period of America would continue to struggle with the concept of rights and equality, as women also faced the notion that women should be under the dominance of men – carried by a resurgence of Christian beliefs. Women were blamed for the "Fall of Man", in reference to Eve and Adam in the Bible. So while women were beginning to bear rights, the type of language that was being used when talking about the rights of women was done with care and hesitance. This Christian worldview has viewed women as inferior to men long before the early republic, however it is important to note the influence it would continue to place onto their rights as they began to oppose traditional gender roles.
It is also important to note that for more than thirty years, however, the 1776New Jersey State Constitution gave the vote to "all inhabitants" who had a certain level of wealth, including unmarried women and blacks (not married women because they could not own property separately from their husbands), until in 1807, when that state legislature passed a bill interpreting the constitution to mean universalwhite malesuffrage, excluding paupers.[275]
British Loyalists fleeing toBritish Canada as depicted in this early 20th century drawing
Tens of thousands of Loyalists left the United States following thewar; Philip Ranlet estimates 20,000, whileMaya Jasanoff estimates as many as 70,000.[276] Some migrated to Britain, but the great majority received land and subsidies for resettlement in British colonies in North America, especiallyQuebec (concentrating in theEastern Townships),Prince Edward Island, andNova Scotia.[277] Britain created the colonies of Upper Canada (Ontario) andNew Brunswick expressly for their benefit, and the Crown awarded land to Loyalists as compensation for losses in the United States. Nevertheless, approximately eighty-five percent of the Loyalists stayed in the United States as American citizens, and some of the exiles later returned to the U.S.[278] Patrick Henry spoke of the issue of allowing Loyalists to return as such: "Shall we, who have laid the proud British lion at our feet, be frightened of its whelps?" His actions helped secure return of the Loyalists to American soil.[279]
The American Revolution has a central place in the American memory[280] as the story of the nation's founding. It is covered in the schools, memorialized by two national holidays,Washington's Birthday in February andIndependence Day in July, and commemorated in innumerable monuments. George Washington's estate atMount Vernon was one of the first national pilgrimages for tourists and attracted 10,000 visitors a year by the 1850s.[281]
The Revolution became a matter of contention in the 1850s in the debates leading to theAmerican Civil War (1861–1865), as spokesmen of both theNorthern United States and theSouthern United States claimed that their region was the true custodian of the legacy of 1776.[282] TheUnited States Bicentennial in 1976 came a year after the American withdrawal from theVietnam War, and speakers stressed the themes of renewal and rebirth based on a restoration of traditional values.[283]
Today, more than 100battlefields and historic sites of the American Revolution are protected and maintained by the government. TheNational Park Service alone manages and maintains more than 50 battlefield parks and many other sites such asIndependence Hall that are related to the Revolution.[284] The privateAmerican Battlefield Trust uses government grants and other funds to preserve almost 700 acres of battlefield land in six states, and the ambitious private recreation/restoration/preservation/interpretation of over 300 acres of pre-1790Colonial Williamsburg was created in the first half of the 20th century for public visitation.[285]
^Lord North claimed that Englishmen paid an average 25 shillings annually in taxes, whereas Americans paid only sixpence.[40]
^Massachusetts' constitution is still in force in the 21st century, continuously since its ratification on June 15, 1780
^A final naval battle was fought on March 10, 1783, by CaptainJohn Barry and the crew of theUSSAlliance, who defeated three British warships led by HMSSybille.[100]
^Some historians suggest that loss of the American colonies enabled Britain to deal with theFrench Revolution with more unity and better organization than would otherwise have been the case.[105] Britain turned towards Asia, the Pacific, and later Africa with subsequent exploration leading to the rise of theSecond British Empire.[107]
^Weimer, Adrian Chastain (2023). "Courts: Articulating Sedition and Loyalty".A Constitutional Culture: New England and the Struggle Against Arbitrary Rule in the Restoration Empire. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 70–71.ISBN978-1-5128-2397-4.
^abMiller,Origins of the American Revolution (1943) p. 89
^T.H. Breen,American Insurgents, American Patriots: The Revolution of the People (2010) pp. 81–82
^Robert E. Shalhope, "Republicanism and early American historiography."William and Mary Quarterly (1982) 39#2 334–356.online
^Homer L. Calkin, "Pamphlets and public opinion during the American Revolution".Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 64.1 (1940): 22–42.online
^Thomas P. Slaughter, "The Tax Man Cometh: Ideological Opposition to Internal Taxes, 1760–1790".William and Mary Quarterly (1984). 41 (4): 566–591.doi:10.2307/1919154
^Melvin I. Urofsky and Paul Finkelman,A March of Liberty: A Constitutional History of the United States (Oxford UP, 2002) v. 1 p. 52.
^Whiteley, Peter (July 1, 1996).Lord North: The Prime Minister Who Lost America. Bloomsbury Publishing.ISBN978-0-8264-3493-7.
^Mark, Harrison W. (November 30, 2023)."Intolerable Acts". Archived fromthe original on July 18, 2025. RetrievedJuly 18, 2025.
^Alexander, John Kurt (2002).Samuel Adams: America's Revolutionary Politician. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 249.ISBN0-7425-2115-X.
^Fowler, William M.; Fowler, Lillian M. (January 1, 1997).Samuel Adams: Radical Puritan (Handlin, Oscar ed.). New York: Longman. p. 190.ISBN0-673-99293-4.
^Mary Beth Norton et al.,A People and a Nation (6th ed. 2001) vol 1 pp. 144–145
^Ketchum, Richard (October 14, 2002).Divided Loyalties: How the American Revolution came to New York. Henry Holt and Co.ISBN0-8050-6120-7.
^Unger, Harlow Giles (September 1, 2000).Unger, Harlow, John Hancock, Merchant King and American Patriot. Somerset, New Jersey: Wiley & Sons.ISBN0-7858-2026-4.
^Armitage, David.The Declaration of Independence: A Global History. Harvard University Press, London. 2007. "The Articles of Confederation safeguarded it for each of the thirteen states in Article II ("Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence"), but confined its international expression to Congress alone."
^Tesesis, Alexander.Self-Government and the Declaration of Independence. Cornell Law Review, Volume 97 Issue 4. May 2012.(applying the Declaration in the context of state sovereignty while dealing with personal liberty laws, noting that "after the declaration of independence in 1776, each state, at least before the confederation, was a sovereign, independent body").
^Martin I. J. Griffin,The Story of Commodore John Barry (2010) pp. 218–223
^Charles R. Ritcheson, "The Earl of Shelbourne and Peace with America, 1782–1783: Vision and Reality".International History Review 5#3 (1983): 322–345.
^Harlow, Ralph Volney (1929). "Aspects of Revolutionary Finance, 1775–1783".The American Historical Review.35 (1):46–68.doi:10.2307/1838471.JSTOR1838471.
^E. Wayne Carp,To Starve the Army at Pleasure: Continental Army Administration and American Political Culture, 1775–1783 (1990)
^E. James Ferguson,The power of the purse: A history of American public finance, 1776–1790 (1961)
^Office of the Historian (2020)."Milestones: 1784–1800".history.state.gov. Department of State.Archived from the original on February 4, 2009. RetrievedJanuary 19, 2020.
^Greene and Pole, eds.Companion to the American Revolution, pp. 557–624
^Richard B. Morris,The Forging of the Union: 1781–1789 (1987) pp. 245–266
^Morris,The Forging of the Union: 1781–1789 pp. 300–313
^Morris,The Forging of the Union, 1781–1789 pp. 300–322
^Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy, "'If Others Will Not Be Active, I must Drive': George III and the American Revolution".Early American Studies 2004 2(1): pp. 1–46. P. D. G. Thomas, "George III and the American Revolution".History 1985 70(228)
^Adams, C.F., ed. (1850–1856),The works of John Adams, second president of the United States, vol. VIII, pp. 255–257, quoted in Ayling, p. 323 and Hibbert, p. 165.
^Caroline Robbins, "Decision in '76: Reflections on the 56 Signers".Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Vol. 89 pp. 72–87, quote at p. 86.
^See also Richard D. Brown, "The Founding Fathers of 1776 and 1787: A collective view".William and Mary Quarterly (1976) 33#3: 465–480.online
^Carol Sue Humphrey,The American Revolution and the Press: The Promise of Independence (Northwestern University Press; 2013)
^Mark Edward Lender, review ofAmerican Insurgents, American Patriots: The Revolution of the People (2010) by T. H. Breen, inThe Journal of Military History (2012) 76#1 pp. 233–234
^abFerguson,The Commonalities of Common Sense (2000) pp. 465–504
^Calhoon, "Loyalism and neutrality" in Greene and Pole, eds.A Companion to the American Revolution (1980) atp. 235
^Calhoon, "Loyalism and neutrality" in Greene and Pole, eds.A Companion to the American Revolution (1980) pp. 235–247,
^Mary BethNorton, "The fate of some Black Loyalists of the American Revolution".Journal of Negro History 58.4 (1973): 402–426online.
^Sheila L. Skemp,Benjamin and William Franklin: Father and Son, Patriot and Loyalist (1994)
^"Chaos in New York".Black Loyalists: Our People, Our History. Canada's Digital Collections. Archived fromthe original on November 17, 2007. RetrievedOctober 18, 2007.
^Cometti, Elizabeth (1947). "Women in the American Revolution".The New England Quarterly.20 (3):329–346.doi:10.2307/361443.JSTOR361443.
^Kerber,Women of the Republic (1997) chapters 4 and 6
^Mary Beth Norton,Liberty's Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women (1980)
^Jonathan Dull,A Diplomatic History of the American Revolution (1985) pp. 57–65
^David Patrick Geggus, "The effects of the American Revolution on France and its empire". inA Companion to the American Revolution, ed. Jack P. Greene and J.R. Pole (Blackwell, 2000) pp: 523–530.ISBN978-0-631-21058-0
^abCornelison, Pam (2004).The great American history fact-finder: the who, what, where, when, and why of American history. Ted Yanak (2nd ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.ISBN1-4175-9441-1.OCLC60414840.[page needed]
^Joseph T. Glatthaar and James Kirby Martin,Forgotten Allies: The Oneida Indians and the American Revolution (2007)
^Karim M. Tiro, "A 'Civil' War? Rethinking Iroquois Participation in the American Revolution".Explorations in Early American Culture 4 (2000): 148–165.
^Tom Hatley,The Dividing Paths: Cherokees and South Carolinians through the Era of Revolution (1993); James H. O'Donnell, III,Southern Indians in the American Revolution (1973)
^Gary B. Nash, "The African Americans Revolution", inOxford Handbook of the American Revolution (2012) edited by Edward G Gray and Jane Kamensky pp. 250–270, at p. 254
^Ray Raphael,A People's History of the American Revolution (2001) p. 281
^Peter Kolchin,American Slavery: 1619–1877, New York: Hill and Wang, 1993, p. 73
^abMcDonald, Forrest.Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution, pp. 6–7, Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1985.ISBN0-7006-0284-4.
^Smith, Duane E., general editor.We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution, pp. 204–207, Center for Civic Education, Calabasas, California, 1995.ISBN0-89818-177-1.
^abvan Loon, Hendrik.The Story of Mankind, p. 333, Garden City Publishing Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, 1921.
^abcdBailyn, Bernard.To Begin the World Anew: The Genius and Ambiguities of the American Founders, pp. 35, 134–149, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2003.ISBN0-375-41377-4.
^Smith, Duane E., general editor.We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution, pp. 204–207, Center for Civic Education, Calabasas, California, 1995.ISBN0-89818-177-1.
^Wells, H. G.The Outline of History, pp. 840–842, Garden City Publishing Co., Inc., Garden City, NY, 1920.
^R. B. McDowell,Ireland in the Age of Imperialism and Revolution, 1760–1801 (1979)
^Bailyn, Bernard.To Begin the World Anew: The Genius and Ambiguities of the American Founders, pp. 134–137, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2003.ISBN0-375-41377-4.
^Palmer, (1959); Greene and Pole (1994) chapters 49–52
^Center for History and New Media,Liberty, equality, fraternity (2010)
^Bailyn, Bernard.To Begin the World Anew: The Genius and Ambiguities of the American Founders, pp. 134–137, 141–142, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2003.ISBN0-375-41377-4.
^abcdeBailyn, Bernard (2017) [1967].The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (3rd ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.ISBN978-0-674-97565-1.
^Brown, Christopher Leslie (2006).Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.ISBN978-0-8078-3034-5.
^abWood, Gordon S. (1992).The Radicalism of the American Revolution. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.ISBN0-679-40493-7.
^Brown, Christopher. PBS Video "Liberty! The American Revolution," Episode 6, "Are We to be a Nation?," Twin Cities Television, Inc. 1997.
^Brown, Christopher Leslie.Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism, pp. 105–106. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2006.ISBN978-0-8078-3034-5.
^Arthur Zilversmit,The First Emancipation: The Abolition of Slavery in the North (1967) pp. 201–230
^Ketcham, Ralph.James Madison: A Biography, pp. 625–626, American Political Biography Press, Newtown, Connecticut, 1971.ISBN0-945707-33-9.
^Wood, Gordon S.The Radicalism of the American Revolution, pp. 3–8, 186–187, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1992.ISBN0-679-40493-7.
^Bailyn, Bernard.Faces of Revolution: Personalities and Themes in the Struggle for American Independence, pp. 221–224, Vintage Books, New York, 1992.ISBN0-679-73623-9.
^Kerber, Linda K.; Cott, Nancy F.; Gross, Robert; Hunt, Lynn; Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll;Stansell, Christine M. (1989). "Beyond Roles, Beyond Spheres: Thinking about Gender in the Early Republic".The William and Mary Quarterly.46 (3):565–585.doi:10.2307/1922356.JSTOR1922356.
^Mary Beth Norton,Liberty's Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750–1800 (3rd ed. 1996)
^Klinghoffer and Elkis ("The Petticoat Electors: W omen's Suffrage in New Jersey, 1776–1807",Journal of the Early Republic 12, no. 2 (1992): 159–193.)
^Maya Jasanoff,Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World (2011). Philip Ranlet, however, estimates that only 20,000 adult white Loyalists went to Canada. "How Many American Loyalists Left the United States?."Historian 76.2 (2014): 278–307.
^W. Stewart Wallace,The United Empire Loyalists: A Chronicle of the Great Migration (Toronto, 1914)online editionArchived March 29, 2012, at theWayback Machine
^Michael Kammen,A Season of Youth: The American Revolution and the Historical Imagination (1978); Kammen,Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture (1991)
^Lee, Jean B. (2001). "Historical Memory, Sectional Strife, and the American Mecca: Mount Vernon, 1783–1853".The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography.109 (3):255–300.JSTOR4249931.
^Jonathan B. Crider, "De Bow's Revolution: The Memory of the American Revolution in the Politics of the Sectional Crisis, 1850–1861,"American Nineteenth Century History (2009) 10#3 pp. 317–332
^David Ryan, "Re-enacting Independence through Nostalgia – The 1976 US Bicentennial after the Vietnam War",Forum for Inter-American Research (2012) 5#3 pp. 26–48.
Commager, Henry Steele; Richard B. Morris (1967) [1958].The Spirit of Seventy-Six. The story of the American Revolution as told by its participants. Castle Books; HarperCollins Publishers.ISBN0-7858-1463-9.LCCN67011325.
Lustig, Mary Lou (2002).The Imperial Executive in America: Sir Edmund Andros, 1637–1714. Madison, WI: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.ISBN978-0-8386-3936-8.OCLC470360764.
Webb, Stephen Saunders (1998).Lord Churchill's Coup: The Anglo-American Empire and the Glorious Revolution Reconsidered. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.ISBN978-0-8156-0558-4.OCLC39756272.
Weimer, Adrian Chastain (2023).A Constitutional Culture: New England and the Struggle Against Arbitrary Rule in the Restoration Empire. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.ISBN978-1-5128-2397-4.
Cappon, Lester (1976).Atlas of Early American History. Princeton University Press.ISBN0-911028-00-5.
Fremont-Barnes, Gregory; Ryerson, Richard Alan; Arnold, James R.; Wiener, Roberta (2006).The Encyclopedia of the American Revolutionary War. Abc-clio.ISBN978-1-85109-408-0.
Gray, Edward G.; Kamensky, Jane (2013).The Oxford Handbook of the American Revolution. Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-19-974670-5.
Greene, Jack P.; Pole, J. R. (2003).A Companion to the American Revolution. Wiley-Blackwell.ISBN978-1-4051-1674-9.
Herrera, Ricardo A. "American War of Independence"Oxford Bibliographies (2017) annotated guide to major scholarly books and articlesonline
Kennedy, Frances H.The American Revolution: A Historical Guidebook (2014) A guide to 150 famous historical sites.
Purcell, L. Edward.Who Was Who in the American Revolution (1993); 1500 short biographies
Resch, John Phillips (2005).Americans at War. MacMillan Reference Library.ISBN978-0-02-865806-3.
Selesky, Harold E.; III, Mark M. Boatner; Schecter, Barnet (2006).Encyclopedia of the American Revolution. Charles Scribner's Sons.ISBN0-684-31470-3.
Symonds, Craig L. (1986).A Battlefield Atlas of the American Revolution. Nautical & Aviation Publishing Company of America.ISBN0-933852-53-3.
Surveys of the era
Alden, John R.A history of the American Revolution (1966) 644 pponline, A scholarly general survey
Allison, Robert.The American Revolution: A Concise History (2011) 128 ppexcerpt and text search
Atkinson, Rick.The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775–1777 (2019) (vol 1 of his 'The Revolution Trilogy'); called, "one of the best books written on the American War for Independence," [Journal of Military History Jan 2020 p. 268]; the maps areonline here
Black, Jeremy (2001).War for America. Sutton Publishing.ISBN0-7509-2808-5., British perspective
Brown, Richard D., and Thomas Paterson, eds.Major Problems in the Era of the American Revolution, 1760–1791: Documents and Essays (2nd ed. 1999)
Bunker, Nick.An Empire on the Edge: How Britain Came to Fight America. New York 2014.
Christie, Ian Ralph (1976).Empire Or Independence. Phaidon Press.ISBN0-7148-1614-0., British perspective'
Cogliano, Francis D.Revolutionary America, 1763–1815; A Political History (2nd ed. 2008), British textbook
Breen, T. H. (2005).The Marketplace of Revolution. Oxford University Press.ISBN0-19-518131-X.
Breen, T. H. (2010).American Insurgents, American Patriots. Hill and Wang.ISBN978-1-4299-3260-8.
Brunsman, Denver Alexander; Silverman, David J. (2014).The American Revolution Reader. Routledge.ISBN978-0-415-53757-5.
Carté, Katerine.Religion and the American Revolution: An Imperial History. Chapel Hill: Omohondro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press 2021.ISBN978-1-4696-6264-0
Gilbert, Alan.Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for Emancipstuob in the War for Independence. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2012.ISBN978-0-226-29307-3
Hull, N.E.H.; Hoffer, Peter C.; Allen, Steven L. (1978). "Choosing Sides: A Quantitative Study of the Personality Determinants of Loyalist and Revolutionary Political Affiliation in New York".Journal of American History.65 (2):344–366.doi:10.2307/1894084.ISSN0021-8723.JSTOR1894084.
Wood, Gordon S.American Revolution (2005) [excerpt and text search] 208 ppexcerpt and text search
Wood, Gordon S. (1992).The Radicalism of the American Revolution. Knopf.ISBN0-679-40493-7.
Historiography
Allison, David, and Larrie D. Ferreiro, eds.The American Revolution: A World War (Smithsonian, 2018)excerptASINB07FLJX556
Ben-Atar, Doron. "The American Revolution" InOxford History of the British Empire, vol. 5, Historiography. New York: Oxford University Press 1998, 94–113.
Breen, Timothy H. "Ideology and nationalism on the eve of the American Revolution: Revisions once more in need of revising."Journal of American History (1997): 13–39.in JSTOR
Burnard, Trevor.Writing Early America: From Empire to Revolution. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press 2023.ISBN978-0-8139-4920-8 Analysis of 400 scholarly journal articles.
Countrymen, Edward. "Historiography" in Harold E. Selesky, ed.,Encyclopedia of the American Revolution (Gale, 2006) pp. 501–508.ISBN978-0-684-31498-3
Hattem, Michael D. "The Historiography of the American Revolution"Journal of the American Revolution (2013)online outlines ten different scholarly approaches
Morgan, Gwenda.The Debate on the American Revolution (2007). Manchester University Press.ISBN978-0-7190-5241-5
Schocket, Andrew M.Fighting over the Founders: How We Remember the American Revolution (2014).ISBN978-0-8147-0816-3,9781479884100,9780814771174 . How politicians, screenwriters, activists, biographers, museum professionals, and re-enactors portray the American Revolution.excerpt
Shalhope, Robert E. "Toward a republican synthesis: the emergence of an understanding of republicanism in American historiography."William and Mary Quarterly (1972): 49–80.in JSTOR
Waldstreicher, David. "The Revolutions of Revolution Historiography: Cold War Contradance, Neo-Imperial Waltz, or Jazz Standard?"Reviews in American History 42.1 (2014): 23–35.online
Wood, Gordon S. "Rhetoric and Reality in the American Revolution."William and Mary Quarterly (1966): 4–32.in JSTOR
Young, Alfred F. and Gregory H. Nobles.Whose American Revolution Was It? Historians Interpret the Founding (2011). NYU Press.ISBN978-0-8147-9710-5
Primary sources
The American Revolution: Writings from the War of Independence (2001), Library of AmericaASINB009OEAT8Q
Dann, John C., ed.The Revolution Remembered: Eyewitness Accounts of the War for Independence (1999).ISBN978-0-226-13624-0.excerpt and text search, recollections by ordinary soldiers
Humphrey, Carol Sue, ed.The Revolutionary Era: Primary Documents on Events from 1776 to 1800 (2003), Greenwood Press.ISBN978-0-313-32083-5, Newspaper accountsexcerpt and text search
Jensen, Merill, ed.Tracts of the American Revolution, 1763–1776 (1967). American pamphletsISBN978-0-87220-693-9
Jensen, Merill, ed.English Historical Documents: American Colonial Documents to 1776: Volume 9 (1955), 890 pp; major collection of important documentsISBN978-0-19-519506-4
Morison, Samuel E. ed.Sources and Documents Illustrating the American Revolution, 1764–1788, and the Formation of the Federal Constitution (1923).ISBN978-0-19-500262-1.
Murdoch, David H. ed.Rebellion in America: A Contemporary British Viewpoint, 1769–1783 (1979), 900+ pp of annotated excerpts fromAnnual Registeronline
American Independence Teaching with Historic Places uses historic places in National Parks and the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places to enliven history, social studies, geography, civics, and other subjects
Ben Franklin's World, podcast on early America, sponsored by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. <www.benfranklinsworld.com>
Revolution! The Atlantic World Reborn, explores the transformations in the world's politics from 1763 to 1815, with particular attention to three revolutions in America, France, and Haiti. Linking the attack on monarchism and aristocracy to the struggle against slavery, it at how freedom, equality, and sovereignty of the people became universal goals.New-York Historical Society
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