American Revolution

An engraving by Paul Revere showing British reinforcements arriving at Boston, USA. Revere carried the news of the British approach to Lexington and Concord, where the hostilities began.

American general Horatio Gates was appointed brigadier general of the Continental Army by George Washington in 1775. He won a major victory over the British at the Battle of Saratoga Springs in 1777.

American public official George Mason was one of the fundamental thinkers of the American Revolution. In 1776 he wrote a bill of rights and a constitution for Virginia upon whose ideas and wording Thomas Jefferson drew up the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.

The Boston Tea Party, an anti-colonial incident which took place in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, in 1773. A group of American colonists dressed as American Indians boarded three British ships in Boston harbour and threw the cargoes of tea into the water. Their actions were a protest against the tax on imported tea imposed by the British government, in which they had no representation.

Revolt 1775–83 of the British North American colonies, resulting in the establishment of the USA. It was caused by opposition in the colonies to British economic exploitation and by the unwillingness of the colonists to pay for a British army garrisoned in America. It was also fuelled by the colonists' antimonarchist sentiment and their desire to participate in the policies affecting them.

The American Revolution was the product of complex factors and specific points of conflict, but may have at root been caused by Britain's refusal to recognize that, economically and psychologically, the American colonies had outgrown the status Britain gave them.

Background Britain had gained large territories in North America as a result of the Seven Years' War 1756–63. To finance the administration of these areas and keep them under tight control Britain adopted a series of revenue-raising measures which many in the colonies saw as heavy-handed and caused increasing resentment.

Ideological and religious causes Colonists also began to oppose rule from Britain because of ideas developing in new intellectual schools of thought. The Enlightenment, a movement which began in Europe, raised ideas such as the ‘natural rights’ of individuals and the responsibility of the government to protect these rights. Philosopher John Locke argued that governments could only rule if consent were given by the people it governed. The colonists increasingly felt that they were not being ruled in a representative way by Britain, and began to demand ‘equality’. Religious freedom also became important to colonists, many of whom were discriminated against for non-Protestant beliefs.

Navigation Acts and taxes The first difficulties came with the Navigation Acts, which provided a closed market in Britain to certain colonial goods but restricted colonial trade, making smuggling almost universal. The situation came to a head when the British prime minister George Grenville clamped down on the colonies, insisting that the Navigation Acts be strictly enforced. He proposed that a standing army be garrisoned in the colonies, suggesting that this would protect the colonists from any threat by Americans Indians, but many in America regarded this as a measure to frighten the colonies to comply with Britain's will. Grenville also insisted that the colonies should be taxed to pay for this army.

Stamp Act The army was to be paid for by the Stamp Act, passed in March 1765, which imposed direct taxes on the American colonies for the first time. James Otis of Boston and Patrick Henry of Virginia urged the colonists to resist, and the Stamp Act Congress in New York, led by the colony of Massachusetts, decided to petition the king and Parliament. Widespread unrest broke out under the slogan ‘No taxation without representation’ and there were riots throughout the colonies. The British government failed to appreciate the scale of discontent, and its conciliatory gestures did not go far enough. After some months of deadlock, during which there was serious rioting throughout the colonies, the British government was forced to yield: the American objection to ‘internal’ taxes imposed by Britain prevailed, and the stamp tax was abolished.

Boston Tea Party Despite its climb-down over the Stamp Act, the British government retained the right to impose taxation on the colonies. As the Americans appeared to be willing to accept ‘external’ taxation, such as customs duties, Charles Townshend, the chancellor of the Exchequer, imposed an import duty on tea, glass, and other articles in 1767 to pay for the officials of the crown appointed to the colonies. To the British government this seemed reasonable, but to their surprise American protests continued. Mass opposition, silenced by the repeal of the Stamp Act, was again roused, and the Boston Massacre of March 1770, when British troops opened fire on a crowd of colonists, killing five, threatened to escalate the situation out of control. The British were forced to back down and in April the import duties were repealed, except that on tea, which was retained in the Tea Act, designed to help the East India Company offload surplus stocks of cheap tea.

The colonists refused to buy British tea, and instead smuggled tea from the Netherlands. The protests gained momentum during 1773 as cargoes of tea rotted in storage in Charleston and other ports. In Boston the protests went further still: a band of men disguised as American Indians boarded British tea ships in the harbour and emptied 342 tea chests into the sea, an episode immortalized as the Boston Tea Party. George III was outraged and demanded Parliament take drastic action, especially against Massachusetts. The Intolerable Acts, as they were known to the colonists, were passed in March 1774. Several different acts closed the port of Boston; gave the Massachusetts governor, General Thomas Gage, the power to billet soldiers in colonists' homes; annulled the colony's charter; and moved the capital from Boston to Salem.

First Continental Congress The Intolerable Acts provoked the other colonies to declare their support for Massachusetts, and the First Continental Congress was convened in Philadelphia on 5 September 1774. It called for civil disobedience against the British authorities in protest at the acts and resolved to draft an appeal for fair treatment to King George and to the British and Canadian people. Independence from Britain was explicitly rejected, and it was not until much later that the faction pressing for independence gained the upper hand.

Outbreak of war The spark which ignited wholesale revolution came at Lexington, Massachusetts, on 19 April 1775. General Gage had been sent to Massachusetts as both military and civil governor to suppress the signs of incipient rebellion in the colony. He dispatched a small force to seize illegal military stores at Lexington and to arrest two prominent rebels, John Hancock and Samuel Adams. The local colonists' militia, known as Minutemen, exchanged fire with the British troops and the battles of Lexington and Concord began the revolution.

From revolt to revolution The Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia in May 1775 and adopted the rebel militias in the field as the Continental Army; George Washington was then appointed commander-in-chief of the American forces on 15 June. Although the Congress was now much like a federal government of the 13 American colonies in a state of war with the British government, it was not yet prepared to throw off allegiance to the crown. The British were reinforced by the arrival in Boston of William Howe, Henry Clinton, and John Burgoyne with additional troops, raising their total force to 10,000.

The American army occupied the mainland and the first significant engagement of the conflict came at the Battle of Bunker Hill on 17 June 1775, which the British won only at a great cost in casualties. An American force invaded Canada but was forced to retreat after Benedict Arnold's defeat at Québec in December 1775. George Washington fortified Dorchester Heights outside Boston in March 1776 and bombarded the city, forcing Howe to evacuate on 17 March. The Continental Congress accepted it could no longer claim allegiance to the British crown and the American Declaration of Independence, drafted by Thomas Jefferson and revised by Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, was formally passed on 4 July 1776.

After Washington's defeat at Long Island on 27 August the Americans were forced to abandon New York in September and Washington retreated through New Jersey to Pennsylvania. The Americans fought back and defeated the British at the Battle of Trenton, New Jersey, on 29 December, then at Princeton on 3 January 1777. However, Washington suffered major reversals at the Battle of Brandywine on 11 September and at Germantown on 4 October, and Howe occupied Philadelphia, now the capital of the formally independent states. Just two weeks later, the British suffered a setback when Horatio Gates pushed the British forces under John Burgoyne into surrender at the Battle of Saratoga and prevented them linking up with Howe's forces.

The European powers intervene The French saw an opportunity to strike a blow at the old enemy Britain, concluding an offensive and defensive treaty with American emissaries in February 1778, which provoked Britain to declare war on France. The Netherlands signed a treaty of amity with the American colonies in September 1778 and joined in the war against Britain in 1780. Spain declared war in June 1779, laying siege to Gibraltar and allowing New Orleans to be used as a base for privateers acting against British shipping. Catherine II of Russia formed the League of Armed Neutrality in March 1780 to assist the American colonies by obstructing the use of British sea power. The American Revolution thus became part of a larger war in which most of the great powers participated to some extent, and the financial and military aid of many of these nations helped America win the war.

The British prime minister Lord North recognized the potential for a more general war when the French intervened, and he attempted to reverse his previous policy. Peace commissioners were appointed to negotiate with the Americans in April 1778, and Parliament promised the repeal of the Intolerable Acts, suspending them pending the outcome of negotiations. By this time, however, it was too late, and Congress rejected the offer in June 1778.

The war at sea The Americans benefited also from the assistance of the French fleet, on which they were heavily dependent in naval engagements. US-built commerce raiders, such as that captained by the American folk hero John Paul Jones, provided support.

The war moves south Henry Clinton, Howe's successor as commander of the British forces, evacuated Philadelphia in June 1778 and attempted to return to New York. Determined to bring Clinton into battle, Washington hung on his flanks, provoking the inconclusive Battle of Monmouth on 28 June 1778, the last general engagement fought on northern soil. Clinton occupied New York, Washington took up position at nearby White Plains, and the two sides watched each other from these positions for three years. During this time Clinton led a series of raids on the Connecticut coast of the Long Island Sound, punishing Connecticut towns for attacking British ships and supplying the colonial army. These towns included Danbury, New Haven, Fairfield, Norfolk, and New London. The real fighting, however, took place further south. For the British, Lord Cornwallis achieved some notable successes in the south. The comprehensive British victory near Camden, South Carolina, on 16 August 1780 was almost fatal to the Americans.

The American home front The absence of a strong, central, colonial government resulted in a vast shortage of funding and human resources. Paper money and bills of credit financed the war, and while the paper money became almost valueless, inflation rocketed. Profiteers took advantage of these conditions to make money while workers held strikes for higher wages. Soldiers were also in short supply, with state militias sometimes competing against the Continental Army for them. Soldiers were generally ill fed, poorly clothed, and lacked weapons.

Around 5,000 blacks served in the colonial army. At first only free blacks were accepted, but the shortage in soldiers led to the conscription of slaves. Blacks fought with whites in unsegregated units. Americans Indians, threatened by colonial expansion, most often fought for the British, and after the revolt ended their claims to land and self-rule were largely ignored.

Women's contributions to the revolution were mostly through charity work and through assuming management positions of businesses and farms left when the men went to war. A few women, such as Deborah Sampson, even disguised themselves as men and fought in the Continental Army.

British defeat In the late summer of 1781 Lord Cornwallis was besieged in Yorktown, Virginia, by Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette, the French commander. His last hope of evacuation by sea was dashed by the French victory over the British fleet at Chesapeake Bay on 5 September. With the British land force isolated, Lord Cornwallis was forced to surrender on 19 October. His surrender effectively ended British hopes in the war: they evacuated much of the south and all but abandoned land operations. The defeat also forced British prime minister Lord North to resign. The British fleet under Admiral Rodney continued to achieve some success in the West Indies, notably in the defeat of the French fleet in the Battle of the Saints in April 1782. However, maritime victories could not compensate for the collapse of the land force and the British were forced to enter peace preliminaries in November 1782. Hostilities formally ended in February 1783.

Although British troops far outnumbered and were better-equipped than the colonials, they lacked central organization with an overall strategy for winning the war. The American victory was rooted in their dedication to independence, their flexibility, strong leadership under George Washington, and the support of France, Spain, and the Netherlands.

Treaty of Paris Much of the rest of 1783 was spent in negotiation between the many countries who had become embroiled in the conflict, with the Americans represented by Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and John Adams. Under the Treaty of Paris (also known as the Peace of Versailles) of 3 September 1783, Britain recognized the independence of the USA but retained Canada and recovered its West Indian territories; France recovered St Lucia, Tobago, Senegal, and Goree; and Spain retained Minorca and recovered Florida.

Impact of the war Revolutionary ideologies led to social change in the early USA. Titles of nobility and hereditary rights that perpetuated wealth and power were abolished in every state, beginning the decay of the class structure. Religious freedom was expanded, and the First Amendment separated church and state. Moral objection to slavery grew, contributing to its abolition in many Northern states and territories. Education was improved and became more accessible, even to women.

American Revolution - events