American Revolution

The American Revolution (1765–1789) was a political movement in the Thirteen Colonies of Great Britain. It began as a rebellion by the colonies and grew into a revolution. The colonies won the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), and this led to the creation of the United States. Britain accepted their independence in the Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783. The second U.S. Constitution took effect in 1789, and the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791.

Problems with British rule began soon after the French and Indian War ended in 1763. The colonists had fought in that war and helped it directly. Still, the British Parliament placed new Taxes on the colonists to pay for the costs of the war. Parliament also gave control of the colonies' western lands to British officials in Montreal. In 1765, people from several colonies met at the Stamp Act Congress in New York City. Their Declaration of Rights and Grievances said that taxation without representation, along with other British policies, went against their rights as Englishmen. The Stamp Act was canceled in 1767, but tensions rose again after Parliament passed the Townshend Acts. King George III sent British troops to Massachusetts to stop the growing rebellion. This led to the Boston Massacre in 1770.

In December 1773, a local group from the Sons of Liberty carried out the Boston Tea Party. They threw chests of taxed tea, owned by the British East India Company, into Boston Harbor. Parliament responded with a series of punitive laws, called the Intolerable Acts. These laws were meant to end self-government in Massachusetts, but they increased support for revolution among Americans. In 1774, twelve of the Thirteen Colonies sent delegates to the First Continental Congress to work together against British rule. The Province of Georgia joined in 1775. In August 1775, King George III proclaimed Massachusetts to be in rebellion. When the British tried to take away the colonists' weapons, the Battles of Lexington and Concord took place, and the Revolutionary War began.

The Second Continental Congress, acting as the provisional government, created the Continental Army and chose George Washington as its commander-in-chief in 1775. The Continental Army laid siege to Boston and forced the British to leave by sea in March 1776. On July 2, 1776, Congress passed the Lee Resolution. On July 4, it unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence. For most of the war, it was unclear who would win. In 1781, however, Washington and the Continental Army won the Siege of Yorktown. After this, King George III and the Fox–North coalition in government agreed to end British colonial rule and accept American independence.

The war went on for another seven years, and France and Spain eventually joined in. On September 28, 1781, Washington led the Continental Army in capturing a British army under General Cornwallis at the Siege of Yorktown. The United States gained almost all the land east of the Mississippi River and south of the Great Lakes. It was the first nation to set up a federal republic with a written constitution. This constitution was based on universal natural rights, consent of the governed, and equality under the law. Its democracy still had important limits compared with later ideas.

Origins

For a step-by-step guide, see Timeline of the American Revolution.

Further information: Colonial history of the United States

See also: List of 18th-century wars involving the Thirteen Colonies

After the Glorious Revolution in England, Britain followed a policy of "salutary neglect," which mostly left the Thirteen Colonies free to govern themselves. This policy, along with the liberty ideas from the Glorious Revolution, helped create new kinds of government. Examples include William Penn's Frame of Government of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Charter of 1691. Religion also changed, with the Congregational Protestantism of New England and the First Great Awakening across the colonies. Some colonies, including Massachusetts and, at least at first, Georgia, banned slavery, though this was less common. After the French and Indian War, Britain took large areas of land from New France and began to control colonial affairs more closely. The colonies wanted more freedom from Britain. One Patriot, Capt. Levi Preston of Danvers, Massachusetts, explained it this way: "...we always had governed ourselves, and we always meant to. They didn't mean we should."

Britain's trade rules, based on mercantilism, were meant to make the colonies useful to Britain. The Navigation Acts limited colonial trade. Laws such as the Wool Act 1698, the Hat Act 1731, and the Iron Act 1750 protected British industries from colonial competition. The Molasses Act 1733 added a tax on foreign molasses, which New England colonists protested. During the French and Indian War (1754–1763), Britain sent many soldiers, and the colonies also helped with money and supplies. Afterward, British soldiers stayed in North America. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 closed land beyond the Appalachian Mountains to settlers, which upset many colonists. Parliament then passed the Sugar Act in 1764 and the Stamp Act in 1765, the first direct tax on the colonies. Colonists objected because they had no elected voice in Parliament. They used the slogan "No taxation without representation." Groups called the Sons of Liberty organized protests and boycotts, and the Stamp Act Congress met in New York City. Parliament repealed the stamp tax in 1766 but passed the Declaratory Act. Later, the Townshend Acts placed new taxes on goods. In 1770, British soldiers fired into a crowd in Boston during the Boston Massacre, and some people were killed. In 1773, colonists dumped tea into Boston Harbor in the Boston Tea Party, after the Tea Act was passed. Britain responded with the Intolerable Acts, including the Boston Port Act. The colonies answered by forming the First Continental Congress.

Military hostilities begin

Further information: Shot heard round the world, Boston campaign, and Invasion of Quebec (1775)

In February 1775, King George III said that Massachusetts was in a state of rebellion. The British soldiers there were ordered to take the colonists' weapons and arrest their leaders. This led to the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. The Patriots gathered a militia of thousands of people and laid siege to Boston, where thousands of British soldiers were stationed. The Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia on June 14, 1775. The members did not agree on what to do. They set up the Continental Army, with George Washington as its commander-in-chief. They also wrote the Olive Branch Petition, which tried to reach an agreement with King George.

In August, the king issued a Proclamation of Rebellion. It said that all the colonies were "in rebellion" and called members of Congress traitors. On June 17, 1775, the British won the Battle of Bunker Hill, but it came at a great cost. Many soldiers on both sides were hurt. In October 1775, Benjamin Franklin wrote to Joseph Priestley about the cost of the war. In the winter of 1775, the Americans invaded northeastern Quebec under generals Benedict Arnold and Richard Montgomery. They hoped to gain the support of French-speaking colonists who had recently been taken over by the British. The attack failed, and many American soldiers were lost.

From rebellion to revolution

After the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775, the Patriots controlled Massachusetts outside Boston's city limits. The Loyalists were on the defensive without the help of the British army. In each of the Thirteen Colonies, American patriots overthrew their governments, closed courts, and sent away British colonial officials. They held elected conventions and set up their own legislatures. They also wrote new constitutions that said they were now states, no longer colonies. On January 5, 1776, New Hampshire approved the first state constitution. New Jersey, South Carolina, and Virginia also wrote their own constitutions. Rhode Island and Connecticut changed their existing royal charters by removing all mentions of the Crown. Many of the new constitutions, including those of Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia, were shaped by different ideas about who could vote and hold office.

Main article: State constitution (United States)

In March 1776, the Continental Army, led by George Washington, forced the British to evacuate Boston. This happened after the fortification of Dorchester Heights with cannons captured at Fort Ticonderoga. By July 1776, the revolutionaries controlled all thirteen states, and all of the royal officials had left. In April 1776, the North Carolina Provincial Congress issued the Halifax Resolves. By June, nine state legislatures supported independence. Richard Henry Lee proposed independence on June 7, 1776. On July 4, the Founding Fathers of the United Colonies met at the Pennsylvania State House and adopted the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson wrote most of it, and it famously said that "all men are created equal." What had started as a rebellion had now become a revolution. The goal was to replace the political and social order in America with one based on rights for everyone.

Main articles: Committee of Five, Lee Resolution, and United States Declaration of Independence

With new state constitutions and the Declaration of Independence, each former colony worked as its own independent and self-governing state. On November 5, 1777, Congress approved the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. This created a union with shared sovereignty. The Articles were fully approved on March 1, 1781. The Continental Congress was then replaced by the United States in Congress Assembled, led by Samuel Huntington.

Main article: Articles of Confederation

Defending the revolution

Further information: Northern theater of the American Revolutionary War, New York and New Jersey campaign, Staten Island Peace Conference, Saratoga campaign, and Philadelphia campaign

In 1776, the British came back with a well-trained army and the world's largest navy. They did not understand how much support the Patriots had. They gathered their forces at their naval base at Halifax, Nova Scotia and landed near New York Harbor. They won the Battle of Brooklyn in August. Then they met American representatives on Staten Island at the Staten Island Peace Conference, but the talks ended when Richard Howe asked the Americans to take back the Declaration of Independence. The British then seized New York City, which they held until November 1783.

Washington had earlier forced the British out of Boston. Later, he crossed the Delaware River in a surprise attack. His wins at Trenton and Princeton gave the Patriots new hope. In 1777, a British army that had come south from Canada was trapped and surrendered after the Battles of Saratoga. This loss led France to officially join the war on the American side. In 1778, the United States and France signed the Treaty of Amity and Commerce and the Treaty of Alliance.

After 1778, Britain focused on bigger conflicts and turned its attention to the southern states. British forces captured Savannah in 1778 and took Charleston in 1780. They controlled much of Georgia and South Carolina. However, not enough Loyalists joined them, and the fighting turned into a guerrilla war. In late 1781, Cornwallis marched his army to Yorktown, Virginia, expecting help from British ships. But a larger French fleet won the Battle of the Chesapeake. The British surrendered in October 1781 after a siege by combined French and American armies led by Washington. In 1783, Washington calmed unrest among officers in the Newburgh Conspiracy.

Historians still discuss how likely an American victory was. John E. Ferling says the chances were so small that it was "almost a miracle." Joseph Ellis argues that the chances favored the Americans.

Paris peace treaty

Main article: Treaty of Paris (1783)

Further information: Diplomacy in the American Revolutionary War and Peace of Paris (1783)

During talks in Paris, the American team learned that France supported American independence but did not want the new nation to gain much land. France hoped to keep the United States east of the Appalachian Mountains. The Americans then began secret talks directly with London, leaving France out. British Prime Minister Lord Shelburne led the British side. He saw a chance to make the United States a useful trading partner. The United States gained all the land east of the Mississippi River, including southern Canada below the Great Lakes. Spain took control of Florida from Britain. The United States also gained fishing rights off the Canadian coast. British merchants and Loyalists were allowed to get back their property. Shelburne expected good trade between Britain and the fast-growing United States, and this did happen. The blockade ended, and American merchants could trade with any nation in the world.

The British mostly left their Indigenous allies behind. These groups were not part of the treaty and did not accept it until the United States defeated them in battle. Still, the British sold weapons to these groups and kept forts in American territory until the Jay Treaty of 1795.

Finance

Main article: Financial costs of the American Revolutionary War

Britain spent about £100 million on its war against the Americans, the French, and the Spanish. Britain had a strong money system. It was based on the wealth of many landowners and on banks and money lenders in London. This helped Britain pay its soldiers and suppliers and hire tens of thousands of German soldiers.

The Americans had a much harder time. In 1775, there was at most 12 million dollars in gold in the colonies. The British blockade of American ports stopped almost all trade and made things worse. The Americans relied on volunteers and donations. They often paid late, and they paid soldiers with money that had lost value. In 1783, soldiers and officers were given land to make up for wages they had earned but never received.

Congress borrowed money from wealthy people and asked the states for help. However, Congress had no way to collect taxes, so the states did little. By 1780, Congress was asking for basic supplies such as corn, beef, and pork, which barely kept the army fed. The war cost about 66 million dollars in gold and silver.

France secretly gave money, gunpowder, and weapons to the American cause. It also lent about 18 million livres. Congress printed paper money called "Continental Dollars," but it lost so much value that the phrase "not worth a Continental" came to mean worthless. Soldiers suffered the most, because their pay was often late and worth less each month.

In 1781, Robert Morris was named Superintendent of Finance of the United States. In 1782, he used a French loan to start the private Bank of North America. He cut the civil list, used competitive bidding for contracts, improved accounting, and asked the states to give the national government its full share of money and supplies.

"A more perfect union"

Main articles: United States Constitution and United States Bill of Rights

See also: Annapolis Convention (1786), Philadelphia Convention, and The Federalist Papers

The war ended in 1783. Trade grew again around the world, but the country recovered slowly. The national government still followed the Articles of Confederation. It settled the issue of the western territories, which the states had given to Congress. American settlers quickly moved into those areas. Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee became states in the 1790s.

However, the national government could not collect taxes. It had no money to pay the war debts it owed to European countries and private banks. It also could not pay Americans who had received promissory notes for supplies during the war. Leaders such as George Washington and Alexander Hamilton worried that the new nation was too weak to survive a foreign war. They also feared more uprisings like Shays's Rebellion in Massachusetts in 1786. They convinced Congress to call the Philadelphia Convention in 1787. In 1790, Congress combined the remaining debts into one national debt of $80 million, following Hamilton's advice. Hamilton was the first Secretary of the Treasury.

The Convention wrote a new Constitution. It created a republic that could collect taxes, with a much stronger national government in a federal system. It included an effective executive in a check-and-balance system with the courts and the legislature. The Constitution was approved in 1788 after a difficult debate in the states. The new administration under President George Washington took office in New York in March 1789. The new two-house Congress of the United States also began its work. James Madison led Congress in proposing changes to the Constitution to reassure people who worried about federal power. These changes guaranteed many of the inalienable rights that had been a foundation for the revolution. Rhode Island was the last state to approve the Constitution, in 1790. The first ten amendments were approved in 1791 and became known as the United States Bill of Rights. In 1795, James Swan, an American banker working for France, helped settle the remaining debt to France. After that, the United States no longer owed money to foreign governments.

Further information: Financial costs of the American Revolutionary War, National debt of the United States, and Alexander Hamilton

Ideology and factions

Main articles: Age of Enlightenment and American Enlightenment

Main article: Liberalism in the United States

See also: Social contract and Natural law

Main article: Republicanism in the United States

Main articles: English Dissenters and First Great Awakening

See also: List of clergy in the American Revolution and Quakers in the American Revolution

Main article: Political culture of the United States

Further information: Social class in the United States and Culture of the United States

Main article: George III

See also: Monarchy of the United Kingdom and Royal prerogative in the United Kingdom

Main article: Patriot (American Revolution)

Further information: Sons of Liberty

Main article: Loyalist (American Revolution)

See also: Loyalists fighting in the American Revolution and United Empire Loyalist

Main article: Women in the American Revolution

See also: Republican motherhood

Further information: Diplomacy in the American Revolutionary War

Main articles: France in the American Revolutionary War and Spain and the American Revolutionary War

Main articles: Germans in the American Revolution and Hessian (soldier)

Main article: Native Americans in the United States

Further information: Western theater of the American Revolutionary War, Northern theater of the American Revolutionary War after Saratoga, Treaty of Fort Pitt, and Haudenosaunee Confederacy

Main article: African Americans in the Revolutionary War

Further information: Black Patriot, Black Loyalist, and Book of Negroes

The people of the Thirteen Colonies did not all agree about politics. Their loyalties differed from region to region, from community to community, and even within families. Sometimes they changed during the Revolution. Many colonists were inspired by ideas like natural rights, the consent of the governed, and republicanism, which taught that people should put the good of everyone before their own wants. The philosopher John Locke had a strong influence. Churches that had broken away from the Church of England also played a part, since many of their ministers preached ideas that supported the Revolution.

Patriots wanted independence and were the largest group supporting the cause. A smaller group of white colonists stayed loyal to the British Crown, and they were called Loyalists. Some people tried to stay neutral. Women, Native Americans, Black Americans, and foreign allies such as France, Spain, and German troops took part in different ways. King George III was determined to keep fighting, but after the defeat at Yorktown, Britain agreed to American independence in the Treaties of Paris.

Effects of the revolution

Main articles: American nationalism and American civil religion

After the Revolution, people in the former colonies could take part in real democratic politics, and people's rights were written into state constitutions. Ideas like liberty, consent of the governed, and equality under the law became important values. The new United States also grew its land through territorial expansion and settler colonialism. Losing the war was a shock to Britain. It showed the limits of its fiscal-military state. Many blamed institutional corruption for the defeat, which led to a political crisis. William Pitt helped restore confidence in the British constitution after 1784. Historians disagree about the Revolution's effects. Bernard Bailyn, Gordon Wood, and Edmund Morgan describe it as a radical event that changed American society and spread the Enlightenment ideas about the rights of the individual. In 1848, historian Leopold von Ranke argued that American republicanism helped shape European liberalism. John Murrin, however, points out that "the people" at that time mostly meant free men who owned property.

Main article: Age of Revolution

Further information: Atlantic Revolutions

The first shot of the war, at the Battle of Lexington and Concord, is known as the "shot heard 'round the world". The American Revolution was the first of the Atlantic Revolutions. It was followed by the French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, and the Latin American wars of independence. Its effects were also felt in rebellions in Ireland, where Irish Patriots led by Henry Grattan of the Irish Patriot Party pushed for self-rule. The U.S. Constitution is still the world's oldest written constitution. The ideas in the Declaration of Independence also led to laws ending slavery in the Northern states, though some states ended it gradually. The Revolution's ideals affected enslaved people and women too. Talk of liberty made slavery a public question, and James Otis, Jr. and Benjamin Rush spoke against it. By 1804, all the Northern states had outlawed slavery, either right away or over time, but slavery continued in the South. Main article: African-American history

Main article: History of women in the United States

Women gained more say in society, though a gender hierarchy still limited their rights. Abigail Adams asked her husband to "remember the Ladies," and Mary Wollstonecraft argued for women's rights and education. Tens of thousands of Loyalists left the United States. Historian Maya Jasanoff estimates the number was between 20,000 and 70,000. Most settled in Quebec, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia, and Britain created Ontario and New Brunswick for them. About eighty-five percent stayed in the United States. The Revolution is remembered in schools, on Washington's Birthday, on Independence Day, and at Mount Vernon. During the American Civil War, both the Northern United States and the Southern United States claimed its legacy. Today, the government protects over 100 battlefields and historic sites, including Independence Hall. The American Battlefield Trust and Colonial Williamsburg also help preserve historic land.