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American Revolutionary War. American War of Independence. American Revolution: General.
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American Revolutionary War American War of Independence
American Revolution: General • The American Revolution refers to the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which the Thirteen Colonies of North America overthrew the governance of the British Empire and collectively became the nation of the United States of America. • In this period, the colonies first formed self-governing independent states, and then united to defend that self-governance in the armed conflict from 1775 to 1783 known as the American Revolutionary War (or the “American War of Independence”). • The War resulted in the states breaking away from the empire with the Declaration of Independence in 1776, victory on the battlefield in October 1781, and British recognition of United States sovereignty and independence in 1783. • (American Revolutionary War: an overview)
Causes of the revolution • The revolution had many causes. • Firstly, long-term social, economic, and political changes in the colonies before 1750 provided the basis for an independent nation with representative political institutions. • Next, more immediately, the French and Indian War (1754-1763) changed the relationship between the colonies and their mother country. • Finally, a decade of conflicts between the British government and the colonists, beginning with the Stamp Act crisis in 1765, led to the outbreak of war in 1775 and the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
Causes of the revolution 1. The American people 2. The political systems 3. Rapid economic growth 4. French and Indian War
Causes: The American People (1) 1. Population increase: Britain’s 13 North American colonies experienced an extraordinary rate of population growth. • In 1700 the population was about 250,000; • Seven decades later there were about 2,500,000 inhabitants, a tenfold increase; • In 1700 there were 20 people in Britain for every American colonist; by 1775 this ratio had fallen to 3 to 1. • This phenomenal growth was a precondition for a successful independence movement.
Causes: The American People (2) 2. Racial and ethnical diversity: The American population also changed in composition. • The proportion of the colonists who were of English culture and ancestry steadily declined during the 1700s as the result of the new arrivals, by forced or voluntary migration, of new racial and ethnic groups. • Migrants from Germany, Scotland, and Ireland made up at least 30 percent of the white population, thus adding ethnic diversity to a region already divided along racial lines. • Only the New England colonies of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire remained predominantly English in composition and culture. • Furthermore, as a result of massive slave trade and a high rate of natural increase, the total black population numbered 567,000 on the eve of independence. Most lived as slaves working on tobacco and rice plantations in the Southern colonies. Slaves and some free blacks also lived in the Northern colonies, working on small farms or in cities.
Causes: The American People (3) 3. Religious diversity: • Many of the American colonists were not members of any church. • Of those who had a religious affiliation, the vast majority were Protestant Christians. There were significant numbers of Roman Catholicsin Maryland and Delaware, and a small number of Jews, mostly in Rhode Island. • Among the Protestants, there were significant regional variations. In New England, the Congregational Church was legally established. In the South, the Church of Englandlikewise received state support. However, Scots-Irish migrants created Presbyterian churches in the Southern backcountry. In the mid-Atlantic colonies, there were many different faiths, including Quakers, Dutch Reformed, Mennonites, Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Lutherans, so that it was difficult to enforce support for a single established church.
Causes: The American People (4) • Summary: • Rapid population growth, racial and ethnical diversity and religious diversity made the American colonies more difficult for Britain to rule. • It was therefore an important precondition for the rise of an independence movement and the subsequent emergence of a unique American nationality.
The Political System (1) • Colony loyalty and lack of national consciousness • In 1750 there was little political basis for a national consciousness in the colonies of British North America. • The inhabitants’ first political allegiance was to their own colony. • Each of the 13 colonies was a separate entity, with its own governor and legislative assembly. • The lower house of each legislature was elected by the adult white men who were property owners. • However, the upper houses, or councils, and the governors were chosen in different ways depending on the type of colony.
The Political System (2) • There were three kinds of colonies: corporate, proprietary, and royal. 1. Corporate colonies: Rhode Island and Connecticut The colonies had been founded under charters granted by the king of England that bestowed corporate rights. In these two colonies, the corporation of property owners elected the council and governor as well as the assembly. 2. Proprietary colonies: Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware They were ruled by descendants of their founders. Their governors and councils were chosen by their British proprietors, or owners. 3. Royal provinces: Georgia, North and South Carolina, Virginia, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire Their governors were appointed by the king on the advice of the Board of Trade, which supervised colonial affairs. Their councils, except in Massachusetts, were nominated by the governor and approved by the Board of Trade.
The Political System (3) • In 1750 there were no governmental bodies or political parties that could formulate policy for the colonists as a whole. Such intercolony ties were created only in response to political events that affected all the colonies—first the French and Indian War and then the struggle for independence. • Nevertheless, the colonies shared one important political institution. • Each colony had a representative assembly with authority to make laws covering most aspects of local life. • The assemblies had the right to tax; to appropriate money for public works and public officials; and to regulate internal trade, religion, and social behavior. • Although the British government was responsible for external matters, such as foreign affairs and trade, the American colonists had a great deal of self-government during the colonial period.
The Political System (4) • Summary • The capable leaders of the assemblies took the lead in the independence struggle. These well-functioning representative institutions would form the basis for the new state governments.
Economic growth • Economic growth paved the way for the independence movement. • This economic system was based on the production of wheat, cattle, corn, tobacco, and rice in America for export to the West Indies, Britain, and Europe. • Southern agriculture was founded on the cultivation of tobacco, wheat, and corn in Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina, and of rice and indigo in South Carolina and Georgia. There was a large demand for these crops in Europe. These crops were cultivated with the help of black slaves imported from Africa. The white planter class in the South was the most powerful, both politically and economically. • Wheat was the main cash crop of the mid-Atlantic colonies of Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey. These colonies, along with those in New England, exported wheat—along with corn, cattle, horses, fish, and wood—primarily to the West Indies, where their merchants received bills of exchange from merchant houses in Great Britain. These credits were then used to purchase British manufactured goods.
French and Indian War (1) • Different names: In America it is known as the French and Indian War (1754-1763). In Europe it is called the Seven Years’ War because the fighting there lasted from 1756 to 1763. • Cause of the war: French wanted to expand its colonies in North America, thus resulting conflict first with native Indians and then British. • The war in North America was fought mostly throughout the Northern colonies. • In the end Great Britain defeated France. During the peace negotiations, Britain acquired French holdings in Canada and Florida from France’s ally, Spain.
French and Indian War (2) • Before the war: Great Britain had practiced a policy of salutary neglect, not insisting on strict enforcement of laws. During this period, the colonists developed a nearly independent political and economic system. • After the war: However, British leaders reevaluated their relationship with the colonies, ending the policy of salutary neglect and proposing reforms and new taxes. • This reevaluation was caused by conflicts between Great Britain and the colonies during the war, such as:
French and Indian War (3) 1. the colonial assemblies’ insistence on controlling the militia units raised to fight the French, the increased colonial independence, and colonial smuggling of French goods into the country during the war. 2. The war had left Great Britain deeply in debt. British leaders viewed American prosperity as a resource and taxing the colonies as a means to relieve British debt. • Conflicts arose as Great Britain attempted to reassert its power over the colonies; they viewed Great Britain’s attempts to tax them as interference into internal matters. The colonies believed that Great Britain had jurisdiction only over external issues.
Origins of the revolution 1. Navigation Acts 2. British Royal Proclamation of 1763 3. Stamp Act of 1765 4. Townshend Act and Boston Massacre 5. Tea Act and Boston Tea Party 6. Intolerable Acts 1774
Navigation Acts (1) • The British Empire at the time practiced the policy of the mercantilism in order to solve its economic problems and achieve economic superiority over its European rivals. • The British ruling class tried to monopolize the markets in the colonies, to hold back the development of manufacturing there, and to control everything and keep all profits for themselves. • The Navigation Act 1663 required all European goods bound for America or other colonies to be shipped through England or Wales first. In England, the goods would be unloaded, inspected, paid duties, and reloaded. The trade had to be carried in English vessels, which included those of its colonies. • Furthermore, imports of “enumerated commodities(such as sugar, rice, and tobacco)” had to be landed and pay tax before going on to other countries. • Results • The Acts had significantly assisted in the growth of London as a major financial centre, which led to Britain becoming a global superpower until the mid 20th Century. • However, the Acts caused resentment in the colonies, for it increased the cost to the colonies, and increased the shipping time.
Navigation Acts (2) * Enumerated Commoditieswere colonial products permitted to be exported only to limited destinations, generally British colonies, England, Ireland, Wales, Berwick on Tweed, or, after 1707, Scotland. • The first article enumerated was tobacco in 1621, by order in council. • Parliament later enumerated other goods by specific act, including sugar, tobacco, indigo, ginger, speckle wood, and various kinds of dyewoods in 1660; • rice and molasses in 1704; • naval stores, including tar, pitch, rosin, turpentine, hemp, masts, yards, and bowsprits in 1705; • copper ore, beaver skins, and furs in 1721; • coffee, pimento, cacao, hides and skins, whale fins, raw silk, potash and pearl ash, iron, and lumber in 1764; • and all other commodities in 1766–1767. • Such legislation aimed to prevent important products from reaching European markets except by way of England.
British Royal Proclamation of 1763 • The Proclamation of 1763 was issued October 7, 1763 by King George III following Great Britain's acquisition of French territory in North America after the end of the French and Indian War. • The purpose of the proclamation was to establish Britain's vast new North American empire, and to stabilize relations with Native Americans through regulation of trade, settlement, and land purchases on the western frontier. • The Proclamation in essence forbade colonists of the thirteen colonies from settling or buying land west of the Appalachian Mountains. • This led to considerable outrage in the colonies, as many colonists had already acquired land in that region. Additionally, the Proclamation gave the Crown a monopsony over purchasing lands from the First Nations.
Stamp Act 1765 (1) • In 1765 the Stamp Act was the first direct tax ever levied by Parliament on the colonies. • All newspapers, almanacs, pamphlets, and official documents—even decks of playing cards—were required to have the stamps. • All 13 colonies protested fiercely, as popular leaders such as Patrick Henry in Virginia and James Otis in Massachusetts, rallied the people in opposition. • Give me liberty or give me death Patrick Henry • Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace—but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
Stamp Act 1765 (2) Patrick Henry
Stamp Act 1765 (3) • A secret group, the “Sons of Liberty” formed in many towns and threatened violence if anyone sold the stamps. • In Boston, the Sons of Liberty burned the records of the vice-admiralty court and looted the elegant home of the chief justice, Thomas Hutchinson. • Several legislatures called for united action, and nine colonies sent delegates to the Stamp Act Congress in New York City in October 1765. • Moderates led by John Dickinson drew up a “Declaration of Rights and Grievances” stating that taxes passed without representation violated their Rights of Englishmen. • Lending weight to the argument was an economic boycott of British merchandise, as imports into the colonies fell from £2,250,000 in 1764 to £1,944,000 in 1765.
Stamp Act 1765 (3) John Dickinson
Townshend Act and Boston Massacre (1) • In 1767, the Parliament passed the Townshend Acts, which placed a tax on a number of essential goods including paper, glass, and tea. • Angered at the tax increases, colonists organized a boycott of British goods.
Townshend Act and Boston Massacre (2) • In Boston on March 5, 1770, a large mob gathered around a group of British soldiers. • The mob grew more and more threatening, throwing snowballs, rocks and debris at the soldiers. • One soldier was clubbed and fell. All but one of the soldiers fired into the crowd. Eleven people were hit; three civilians were killed at the scene of the shooting, and two died after the incident. • The event quickly came to be called the Boston Massacre. Although the soldiers were tried and acquitted, the widespread descriptions soon became propaganda to turn colonial sentiment against the British. • This in turn began a downward spiral in the relationship between Britain and the Province of Massachusetts.
Tea Act and Boston Tea Party (1) • The Tea Act, passed by Parliament in May of 1773. • The act was not intended to raise revenue in the American colonies, and in fact imposed no new taxes. • It was designed to prop up the East India Company which was in financial difficulty and burdened with eighteen million pounds of unsold tea. • This tea was to be shipped directly to the colonies, and sold at a bargain price. • However, and the radical leaders in America found reason to believe that this act was a maneuver to buy popular support for the taxes already in force. • The direct sale of tea, via British agents, would also have undercut the business of local merchants.
Tea Act and Boston Tea Party (2) • Colonists in Philadelphia and New York turned the tea ships back to Britain. • In Charleston the cargo was left to rot on the docks. • In Boston the Royal Governor was stubborn and held the ships in port, where the colonists would not allow them to unload. • On December 16, 1773, a group of men, led by Samuel Adams and dressed to evoke American Indians, boarded the ships of the government-favored British East India Company and dumped an estimated £10,000 worth of tea on board into the harbor. • This event became known as “the Boston Tea Party”.
Intolerable Acts 1774 • The British government responded by passing several Acts which came to be known as the Intolerable Acts, which further darkened colonial opinion towards the British. • They consisted of four laws enacted by the British parliament: • The first was the Massachusetts Government Act, which altered the Massachusetts charter and restricted town meetings. • The second Act, the Administration of Justice Act, ordered that all British soldiers to be tried were to be arraigned in Britain, not in the colonies. • The third Act was 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 fourth Act was the Quartering Act of 1774, which allowed royal governors to house British troops in the homes of citizens without requiring permission of the owner. • 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.
American War of Independence 1. The beginning of the war 2. Creating new state constitutions 3. United States Declaration of Independence 4. British military reaction 5. The British move South, 1778-1783 6. Treaty of Paris 7. Significance of the War
The beginning of the war The beginning of the war
The beginning of the war • The Battle of Lexington and Concord, taking place on April 19, 1775, marked the first fighting of the American Revolutionary War. • When the British sent a force of roughly 1000 troops to confiscate arms and arrest revolutionaries in Concord, they clashed with the local militia. • The news aroused the 13 colonies to call out their militias and send troops to besiege Boston.
The beginning of the war • The Battle of Bunker Hill followed on June 17, 1775. While a British victory, it was made a victory by heavy losses on the British side or about 1,500 of 2,000 British troops over very few American casualties. • The Second Continental Congress convened in 1775, after the war had started. The Congress created the Continental Army and extended the Olive Branch Petition to the crown as an attempt at reconciliation. King George III refused to receive it, issuing instead the Proclamation of Rebellion, requiring action against the “traitors.” • In March 1776, with George Washington as commander, the Continental Army forced the British to evacuate Boston, withdrawing their garrison to Halifax, Nova Scotia. The revolutionaries were in control of governments throughout the 13 colonies and 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 Royal officials had fled.
Creating new state constitutions (1) • Colonies declared as states • Following the Battle of Bunker Hill, in all thirteen colonies, Patriots had overthrown their existing governments, closing courts and driving British governors, agents and supporters from their homes. They had elected conventions and "legislatures" that existed outside of any legal framework; new constitutions were used in each state to supersede royal charters. They declared they were states now, not colonies. • On January 5, 1776, New Hampshire ratified the first state constitution. Then, in May 1776, Congress voted to suppress all forms of crown authority, to be replaced by locally created authority. Virginia, South Carolina, and New Jersey created their constitutions before July 4. Rhode Island and Connecticut simply took their existing royal charters and deleted all references to the crown.
Creating new state constitutions (2) • 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 results were constitutions that featured: substantial property qualifications for voting and even more substantial requirements for elected positions; bicameral legislatures, with the upper house as a check on the lower; strong governors, with veto power over the legislature and substantial appointment authority; few or no restraints on individuals holding multiple positions in government; the continuation of state-established religion. • 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; strong, unicameral legislatures; relatively weak governors, without veto powers, and little appointing authority; prohibition against individuals holding multiple government posts.
United States Declaration of Independence • On January 10, 1776, Thomas Paine published a political booklet Common Sense arguing that the only solution to the problems with Britain was republicanism and independence from Great Britain. • In the following months, before the United States as a political unit declared its independence, several states individually declared their independence.
United States Declaration of Independence • On July 2, 1776, Congress declared the independence of the United States; two days later, on July 4, it adopted the Declaration of Independence, which date is now celebrated as the US Independence Day. • Until this point, the colonies had sought favorable peace terms; now all the states called for independence. • Except for a failed British attempt on September 11, 1776 to secure after the Battle of Long Island, from a Congressional delegation including John Adams and Benjamin Franklin on Staten Island, a revocation of the Declaration of Independence, there would be no negotiations until 1783.
United States Declaration of Independence • 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. • The Second Continental Congress adopted the Articles in November 1777, though they were not formally ratified until March 1, 1781. • On that date the Continental Congress was dissolved and the new government of the United States in Congress Assembled was formed. • The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union
British military reaction 1. Occupation of New York 2. Temporary control of New Jersey 3. Battle of Saratoga
British military reaction • The British returned in force in August 1776, landing in New York and engaging the fledgling Continental Army at the Battle of Brooklyn in one of the largest engagements of the war. • They eventually seized New York City and nearly captured General Washington. The British made the city their main political and military base of operations in North America, holding it until 1783, when they relinquished it under the terms of the Treaty of Paris. • Patriot evacuation and British military occupation made the city the destination for Loyalist refugees, and a focal point of Washington’s intelligence network. • The British also took New Jersey, but in a surprise attack, Washington crossed the Delaware into New Jersey and defeated British armies at Trenton and Princeton, thereby regaining New Jersey. • While the victories involved small numbers, they gave an important boost to pro-independence supporters at a time when morale was flagging, and have become iconic images of the war.
British military reaction • In 1777, as part of a grand strategy to end the war, the British launched two uncoordinated attacks. • The army based in New York City defeated Washington and captured the rebel capital at Philadelphia. • Simultaneously a second army invaded from Canada with the goal of cutting off New England. It was trapped and captured during the Battle of Saratoga, New York, in October 1777. • The British army had agreed to surrender only on condition of being a Convention Army with repatriation to Britain. Realizing that their cause would be adversely affected if the captured troops could be switched with other British troops who would be brought out to America, Congress repudiated these terms, and imprisoned them instead. • The Battle of Saratoga had become the turning point of the Revolution War.
Battle of Saratoga The British were forced to change their strategy: To move to the south
The British move South, 1778-1783 • Change of strategy: • The British strategy in America now concentrated on a campaign in the southern colonies. • Why: • With fewer regular troops at their disposal, the British commanders saw the Southern Strategy as a more viable plan, as the south was perceived as being more strongly Loyalist, with a large population of poorer recent immigrants as well as large numbers of African Americans, both groups who tended to favour them.
