(176588) The movement that destroyed the first British Empire, establishing the United States and, indirectly, Canada. A much larger event than the War of Independence (177583), the revolution developed from the issue of whether Parliament had the power to tax the North American colonies directly. But more was involved than constitutional dispute, and the Revolution left America a transformed place.
The Revolution can be divided into three main phases. In the first (17645), relations worsened between the colonies and Britain, primarily over the issue of Parliament's right to tax the colonies without reference to the colonial assemblies. During this phase, the American resistance movement was concentrated in the major port towns, with considerable support in the elected assemblies. Major events included the Stamp Act crisis (17656), resistance to the Townshend Acts (176770), the Boston Massacre (1770), the burning of the customs cruiser Gaspée (1772), and the Boston Tea Party (1773). This phase culminated in Parliament's passage of the Intolerable Acts (1774) to punish Massachusetts for the Tea Party, the beginnings of the collapse of the colonial governments, and the calling of the First Continental Congress (1774).
The second phase brought war and independence. Fighting began at Lexington and Concord, MA (Apr 1775), and lasted until the surrender of Lord Cornwallis to Washington at Yorktown, VA, in 1781. Military conflict centred on Boston until the British withdrew (Mar 1776). From August 1776 until the beginning of 1780, the main theatre was the states of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, with major engagements at Long Island, at such New Jersey sites as Princeton, Monmouth, and Trenton, and at Saratoga in upstate New York. The American victory at Saratoga convinced the French to enter the war officially, bringing badly-needed material support, troops, monetary credit, and a fleet. After 1780, fighting shifted southward, when Sir Henry Clinton led an invasion of South Carolina. Cornwallis, his successor, led his army gradually N until Washington and the French Admiral de Grasse trapped him on the Yorktown peninsula. The defeat resulted in the fall of Lord North, the British prime minister who had prosecuted the war, and ended British will for further fighting. Peace was signed at Paris two years later.
The third phase led to the creation of the modern United States. This process began with the writing of the first state constitutions, immediately after the Declaration of Independence (Jul 1776). At the same time, the Articles of Confederation were prepared by the Continental Congress as a basis for interstate relations, but the document was not adopted until 1781. Its weaknesses, such as an inability to tax or to enforce Congressional decisions and commitments, soon became apparent. These, together with dissatisfaction about developments in the states, led to the Federalist movement. Initially, this sought merely to reform the Articles, but its great achievement, in 1787 and 1788, was to abolish that document completely, and establish the present US Constitution. At that point, the Revolution was effectively over.
The creation of a large republic was one of the most innovative changes that the Revolution brought. Political thinkers had long doubted whether republicanism could govern a large area or even survive at all. The state and federal constitutions adopted between 1776 and 1788 thus defined the most advanced political hopes of their time. Permanent republicanism in the USA opened the way for the long-term decline of monarchy in the world. The Revolution was also a democratic movement. By its end, an ideology of equal rights had taken shape in the USA, largely as a result of pressure from ordinary farmers and artisans who had found their moment to make a political breakthrough. Such people actually seized control in Pennsylvania and in Vermont, which broke free of New York in 1777, and established radically democratic political institutions. The Revolution brought social change as well. One aspect was the transformation of slavery from a fact of life into a political and moral problem. In the Northern states, opposition became strong enough to set slavery on the road to extinction, and even in the upper South, where legal slavery persisted, the number of free blacks grew dramatically.
National independence, declared by the Continental Congress in 1776, thus meant national transformation. But the Revolution was not the work of a united people. In some places there was considerable loyalism, and even civil war. The many loyalists who fled at the war's end became the core of English-speaking Canada. The movement itself developed as a series of coalitions. The initial alliance, which resisted British imperial policy after 1765, centred on the three major seaports (Boston, New York, and Philadelphia) and on the planter class of Chesapeake Bay. But the independence crisis saw the mobilization of large numbers of farmers in the interior, and they, together with urban working people, developed a political programme of their own. The third great coalition enlisted Southern planters and Northern entrepreneurs and professionals in Federalism, which created the modern structure of the USA. The movement won wide urban support, but less in rural areas. The Federal Constitution reflected its makers' specific concerns, as well as their large goal of safeguarding American independence and liberty. French support was vital to the Americans' military defeat of Britain. The leadership of a truly remarkable group of men was vital throughout the era. But popular political involvement in unprecedented ways was what made the American Revolution truly revolutionary.
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The American Revolution was a political movement during the last half of the 18th century that resulted in the creation of a new nation, the United States of America, and ended British control of the Thirteen Colonies. In this period, the Colonies rebelled and entered into the American Revolutionary War against the British between 1775 and 1783, which culminated in an American victory.
The Revolution involved a series of broad intellectual and social shifts that occurred in the early American society, such as the new republican ideals that took hold in the American population. The American shift to republicanism, as well as the gradually expanding democracy, caused an upheaval of the traditional social hierarchy, and created the ethic that formed the core of American political values.
The revolutionary era began in 1763, when Britain defeated France in the French and Indian War and the military threat to the colonies from France ended. After protests in Boston the British sent combat troops, the Americans trained militiamen and fighting began in 1775. The American Revolution as a political revolution is seen to last until 1789, when the new national government under George Washington began operating.
Origins
Republican ideology
The Americans created a political ideology called "republicanism", which was widespread in the colonies by 1775. It was influenced greatly by the Radical Whigs or "country party" in Britain, whose critique of British government emphasized that corruption was to be feared.
A second stream of thought growing in significance was the liberalism of John Locke, including his theory of the "social contract". In terms of writing state and national constitutions, the Americans used Montesquieu's analysis of the ideally "balanced" British Constitution.
Taxation without Representation
By 1763, Great Britain possessed a vast holding on the North American continent. Victory in the Seven Years' War had given Great Britain New France (Canada), Spanish Florida, and the Native American lands east of the Mississippi River. In 1765, the colonists still considered themselves loyal subjects of the British Crown, with the same historic rights and obligations as subjects in Britain.
The British government sought to tax its vast North American possessions, primarily to help pay for its past wars, most of the costs of which occurred in Europe. The problem was that Britain refused to consult with the colonies about taxes, thereby violating the historic British principle of "no taxation without representation."
In theory, Great Britain already regulated the economies of the colonies through the Navigation Acts according to the doctrines of mercantilism, which said that anything that benefited the Empire (and hurt other empires) was good policy. He lost the case, but John Adams later wrote, "American independence was then and there born."
In 1763, Patrick Henry argued the Parson's Cause case.
In 1764, Parliament enacted the Sugar Act and the Currency Act, further vexing the colonists. Protests led to a powerful new weapon, the systemic boycott of British goods.
Stamp Act 1765
Trouble came in three waves. The Stamp Act taxed everyone by requiring all legal documents, permits, commercial contracts, newspapers, pamphlets, and even playing cards in the colonies to carry a tax stamp purchased from royal officials.
Colonial protest was widespread. Parliament repealed the hated Stamp Act, but pointedly passed the Declaratory Act, asserting its authority over the colonies “in all cases whatsoever.” Not one single "stamp" was allowed to be issued .
The second wave of protest came in 1767, when Parliament passed the Townshend Acts. instead colonial leaders organized boycotts of these British imports. The British sent more soldiers to Boston. Tensions continued to mount, culminating in the "Boston Massacre" on March 5, 1770, when British soldiers of the 29th Regiment of Foot fired into an angry mob, killing five.
Western land dispute
The Proclamation of 1763 restricted American movement across the Appalachian Mountains. By then, however, the Americans had scant regard for new laws from London—they were organizing at the local and colonial level for war.
Crises, 1772–1775
While there were many causes of the American Revolution, it was a series of specific events, or crises, that finally triggered the outbreak of war.
In June 1772, in what became known as the Gaspée Affair, a British warship that had been vigorously enforcing unpopular trade regulations was burned by American patriots. In late 1772, Samuel Adams set about creating new Committees of Correspondence that would link together patriots in all 13 colonies and eventually provide the framework for a rebel government.
Most serious of all was the Boston Tea Party. The "Tea Act", passed by Parliament in 1773, allowed the British East India Company to sell tea without the usual colonial tax, thereby allowing it to undercut the prices of the colonial merchants.
London immediately responded with the Intolerable Acts, called by the British the "Coercive Acts" or "Punitive Acts", a series of laws, passed by Parliament in early 1774. Even worse Parliament passed the Massachusetts Government Act which stripped the people of the colony of self government, with local officials to be replaced by new royal officials. All the colonies joined in boycotts of British merchandise, which was a heavy blow to the British business community.
The Intolerable Acts included:
The Massachusetts Government Act, which altered the Massachusetts charter and restricted town meetings; The Administration of Justice Act, which ordered that all British soldiers to be tried be arraigned in Britain, not the colonies; The Boston Port Act, which closed the port of Boston until the British had been compensated for the tea lost in the Boston Tea Party (the British never received such a payment); and The Quartering Act of 1774, which compelled the residents of Boston to house British regulars sent in to control the vicinity.The First Continental Congress endorsed the Suffolk Resolves, which declared the Intolerable Acts to be unconstitutional, called for the people to form militias, and called for Massachusetts to form a Patriot government.
In response, primarily to the Massachusetts Government Act, the people of Worcester set up an armed picket line in front of the local courthouse and refused to allow the British magistrates to enter. British troops were sent from England, but by the time they arrived, the entire colony of Massachusetts, with the exception of the heavily garrisoned city of Boston, had thrown off British control of local affairs.
Fighting begins at Lexington: 1775
The Battle of Lexington and Concord took place April 19, 1775, when the British sent a regiment to confiscate arms and arrest revolutionaries in Concord. It was the first fighting of the American Revolutionary War, and immediately the news aroused the 13 colonies to call out their militias and send troops to besiege Boston. By late spring 1776, with George Washington as commander, the Americans forced the British to evacuate Boston. The patriots were in control everywhere in the 13 states (they were no longer colonies), and the states were ready to declare independence. While there still were many Loyalists, they were no longer in control anywhere by July 1776, and all of the British Royal officials had fled.
The Second Continental Congress convened in 1775, after the war had started.
Patriots
The revolutionaries, known as Patriots, Whigs, Congress Men or Americans, included a full range of social and economic classes, but a unanimity regarding the need to defend the rights of Americans. After the War, Patriots such as George Washington, James Madison, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay for example, were deeply devoted to republicanism while also eager to build a rich and powerful nation, while Patriots such as Patrick Henry, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson represented democratic impulses and the agrarian plantation element that wanted a localized society with greater political equality.
Loyalists and neutrals
While there is no way of knowing the actual numbers, most likely 20% to 30% of the colonists remained loyal to the British Crown;
Native Americans mostly rejected American pleas that they remain neutral. The most prominent Native American leader siding with the Loyalists was Joseph Brant of the Mohawk nation, who led frontier raids on isolated settlements in Pennsylvania and New York until an American army under John Sullivan secured New York in 1779, forcing all the Loyalist Indians permanently into Canada.
A minority of uncertain size tried to stay neutral in the war. As patriots declared independence, the Quakers, who continued to do business with the British, were attacked as supporters of British rule, "contrivers and authors of seditious publications" critical of the revolutionary cause.
After the war, the great majority of Loyalists remained in America and resumed normal lives. Some, such as Samuel Seabury, became prominent American leaders. When the Loyalists left the South in 1783, they took about 75,000 of their slaves with them to the British West Indies.
Class differences among the Patriots
Historians, such as J. Ideological demands always came first: the Patriots viewed independence as a means of freeing themselves from British oppression and taxation and, above all, reasserting what they considered to be their rights.
Women
The boycott of British goods would have been entirely unworkable without the willing participation of American women: women made the bulk of household purchases, and the boycotted items were largely household items such as tea and cloth.
Creating new state constitutions
By summer 1776, the Patriots had control of all the territory and population; All thirteen states had overthrown their existing governments, closing courts and driving British agents and governors from their homes.
On January 5, 1776, New Hampshire ratified the first state constitution, six months before the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
The new states had to decide not only what form of government to create, they first had to decide how to select those who would craft the constitutions and how the resulting document would be ratified. In states where the wealthy exerted firm control over the process, such as Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, New York and Massachusetts, the result was constitutions that featured
Substantial property qualifications for voting and even more substantial requirements for elected positions (though New York and Maryland lowered property qualifications);In states where the less affluent had organized sufficiently to have significant power—especially Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New Hampshire—the resulting constitutions embodied
universal white 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);Whether conservatives or radicals held sway in a state did not mean that the side with less power accepted the result quietly. In Pennsylvania, the landowners horrified by their new constitution (Benjamin Rush called it "our state dung cart"), while in Massachusetts, voters twice rejected the constitution that was presented for ratification; In 1790, conservatives gained power in the state legislature, called a new constitutional convention, and rewrote the constitution.
Military history: expulsion of the British 1776
The military history of the war in 1775 focused on Boston, held by the British but surrounded by militia from nearby colonies. The Congress selected George Washington as commander in chief, and he forced the British to evacuate the city in March 1776.
Independence, 1776
Main article: American Revolutionary War
On January 10, 1776, Thomas Paine published a political pamphlet entitled Common Sense arguing that the only solution to the problems with Britain was republicanism and independence from Great Britain.
On July 4, 1776, the United States Declaration of Independence was ratified by the Second Continental Congress.
The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, commonly known as the Articles of Confederation, formed the first governing document of the United States of America, combining
the colonies into a loose confederation of sovereign states.
War
British return: 1776-1777
The British returned in force in August 1776, engaging the fledgling Continental Army for the first time in the largest action of the Revolution in the Battle of Long Island. They also held New Jersey, but in a surprise attack, Washington crossed the Delaware into New Jersey and defeated British armies at Trenton and Princeton, thereby reviving the Patriot cause and regaining New Jersey. The American theatre thus became only one front in Britain's war.
Because of the alliance and the deteriorating military situation, Sir Henry Clinton, the British commander, evacuated Philadelphia to reinforce New York City. After an inconclusive engagement, the British successfully retreated to New York City.
British attack the South, 1779-1781
In late December 1778, the British captured Savannah and started moving north into South Carolina. Not enough Loyalists turned out, however, and the British had to fight their way north into North Carolina and Virginia, where they expected to be rescued by the British fleet. Trapped at Yorktown, Virginia, the British surrendered their main combat army to Washington in October 1781.
Peace treaty
The peace treaty with Britain, known as the Treaty of Paris (1783) gave the U.S. all land east of the Mississippi River and south of the Great Lakes. The Native American nations actually living in this region were not a party to this treaty and did not recognise it until they were defeated militarily by the United States.
Aftermath of war
For 2% of the inhabitants of the United States, defeat was followed by exile. Approximately fifty thousand United Empire Loyalists fled to the remaining British colonies in North America, such as the Province of Quebec, (concentrating in the Eastern Townships), Upper Canada (now known as Ontario), Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia.
Worldwide influence
The most radical impact was the sense that all men have an equal voice in government and that inherited status carried no political weight in the new republic.
The American Revolution was the first wave of the Atlantic Revolutions that took hold in the French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, and the Latin American wars of liberation.
The Revolution had a strong, immediate impact in Great Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, and France. Many British and Irish Whigs had been openly indulgent to the Patriots in America, and the Revolution was the first lesson in politics for many European radicals who would later take on active roles during the era of the French Revolution.
The thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment only wrote that common people had the right to overthrow unjust governments. The American Revolution was a case of practical success, which provided the rest of the world with a 'working model'. American republicanism played a crucial role in the development of European liberalism, as noted by the great German historian Leopold von Ranke in 1848:
By abandoning English constitutionalism and creating a new republic based on the rights of the individual, the North Americans introduced a new force in the world.Nowhere was the influence of the American Revolution more profound than in Latin America, where American writings and the model of colonies, which actually broke free and thrived decisively, shaped their struggle for independence.
Interpretations
Interpretations about the effect of the revolution vary. At one end of the spectrum is the older view that the American Revolution was not "revolutionary" at all, that it did not radically transform colonial society but simply replaced a distant government with a local one. The more recent view pioneered by historians such as Bernard Bailyn, Gordon Wood and Edmund Morgan is that the American Revolution was a unique and radical event that produced deep changes and had a profound impact on world affairs, based on an increasing belief in the principles of republicanism, such as peoples' natural rights, and a system of laws chosen by the people.
National debt
The national debt after the American Revolution fell into three categories. The first was the $11 million owed to foreigners—mostly debts to France during the American Revolution. Congress agreed with some debate that the power and the authority of the new government would pay for the foreign debts. There were also other debts that consisted of promissary notes issued during the Revolutionary War to soldiers, merchants, and farmers who accepted these payments on the premise that the new Constitution would create a government that was likely to pay off the debts of the Revolutionary war.
The war expenses of the individual states were another issue.
Bibliography
Reference Works
Blanco, Richard. The American Revolution: An Encyclopedia 2 vol (1993), 1850 pages Boatner, Mark Mayo, III. Encyclopedia of the American Revolution. (1966); The Encyclopedia of the American Revolutionary War: A Political, Social, and Military History (ABC-CLIO 2006) 5 vol; The Blackwell Encyclopedia of the American Revolution (1994), 845pp; revised edition (2004) titled A Companion to the American Revolution Purcell, L. Who Was Who in the American Revolution (1993); A Political History (2000), British textbook Higginbotham, Don. The War of American Independence: Military Attitudes, Policies, and Practice, 1763-1789 (1983) Online in ACLS History E-book Project. Bernhard Knollenberg, Growth of the American Revolution: 1766-1775 (2003) online edition Lecky, William Edward Hartpole. The American Revolution, 1763-1783 (1898), British perspective Mackesy, Piers. The War for America: 1775-1783 (1992), British military study Middlekauff, Robert. The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789 (1985) Miller, John C. Origins of the American Revolution (1943) Wood, Gordon S. The American Revolution: A History (2003), short survey Wrong, George M. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Harvard University Press, 1967. The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence (2005) Crow, Jeffrey J. The Southern Experience in the American Revolution (1978) Fischer, David Hackett. The Unknown American Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America. The American States during and after the Revolution, 1775-1789 1927. Liberty's Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800 (1980) Palmer, Robert R. The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760-1800. vol 1 (1959) Resch, John Phillips and Walter Sargent, eds. War And Society in the American Revolution: Mobilization And Home Fronts (2006) Rothbard, Murray, Conceived in Liberty (2000), Volume III: Advance to Revolution, 1760-1775 and Volume IV: The Revolutionary War, 1775-1784. American Loyalists: The Loyalists in the American Revolution (1902) Volo, James M. Daily Life during the American Revolution (2003) Wahlke, John C. The Causes of the American Revolution (1967) readings Wood, Gordon S. The Radicalism of the American Revolution: How a Revolution Transformed a Monarchical Society into a Democratic One Unlike Any That Had Ever Existed. ISBN 0-679-40493-7Primary Sources
The American Revolution: Writings from the War of Independence (2001), Library of America, 880pp Commager, Henry Steele and Morris, Richard B., eds. The Spirit of 'Seventy-Six: The Story of the American Revolution As Told by Participants (1975) (ISBN 0060108347) Humphrey; Sources and Documents Illustrating the American Revolution, 1764-1788, and the Formation of the Federal Constitution (1923)Plays and Films about the American Revolution
See: List of plays and films about the American Revolution
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