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What Were The 13 Colonies Similarities

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The History of American Revolution - Timeline, Facts & Causes

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How Did The War Between Britain and America Benefit Others

The american revolutionary war: the battles of lexington and concord, the role of women during the american revolution, revolutionary mothers by carol berkin: the role of founding mothers during the american revolution, differences between british and american soldiers in the american revolution, american revolution's negative impact on native american history, the role of boston tea party in the american revolution, establishment of american ideals during american revolution, the spies of the american revolution: nathan hale, the revolution of 1800, role and concequences of the articles of confederation, the second american revolution: its impact and legacy, the impact of valley forge on the american revolution , analysis of the main causes of the american revolution, war on the colonies: french, indian war and american revolution, a history of the enlightenment inspired revolutions, a study of major revolution events in america, the american revolution: how women and wives influenced husbands and friends, main minuses of the articles of confederation, insurgency and asymmetric warfare in the american revolutionary war  .

22 March 1765 – 14 January 1784

Thirteen Colonies (United States)

Dutch Republic, France, Loyalist, Spain, United Kingdom, United States, American colonies

The Boston Tea Party (1773), The Battles of Lexington and Concord (1775), The Declaration of Independence (1776), The Battle of Saratoga (1777), The Siege of Yorktown (1781)

George Washington: As the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, George Washington emerged as a central figure in the revolution. His strategic brilliance, perseverance, and moral character helped inspire and lead the troops through challenging times, ultimately leading to victory. Thomas Jefferson: Known for his eloquence and intellect, Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence. His ideas and ideals, including the belief in natural rights and self-governance, greatly influenced the revolutionary cause. Benjamin Franklin: A polymath and influential statesman, Benjamin Franklin played a vital role in rallying support for the revolution. He traveled to Europe as a diplomat, securing crucial aid from France and other countries, and his scientific discoveries further enhanced his reputation. John Adams: A passionate advocate for independence, John Adams was instrumental in driving the revolutionary movement forward. He served as a diplomat, including as a representative to France and as the second President of the United States, and his contributions to shaping the nation were significant. Abigail Adams: Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, was an influential figure in her own right. Her letters to her husband and other prominent figures provided valuable insights and perspectives on the revolution, and she became an early advocate for women's rights and equality.

In the 18th century, the thirteen American colonies were under British rule. Over time, tensions began to rise as the colonists developed a distinct identity and desired greater autonomy. Several key factors contributed to the buildup of resentment and ultimately led to the revolution. One crucial prerequisite was the concept of colonial self-government. The colonists enjoyed a degree of self-rule, which allowed them to develop their own institutions and local governments. However, as British policies, such as the Stamp Act and Townshend Acts, imposed new taxes and regulations on the colonies, the sense of self-government and individual liberties were threatened. Another significant factor was the Enlightenment era, which spread ideas of natural rights, individual freedoms, and representative government. Influential thinkers like John Locke and Thomas Paine advocated for the rights of the people and challenged the legitimacy of monarchy. The causes of the American Revolution were diverse and multifaceted. The colonists' grievances included taxation without representation, restrictions on trade, and the presence of British troops in the colonies. The Boston Massacre in 1770 and the Boston Tea Party in 1773 further heightened tensions and solidified the resolve for independence. Ultimately, the outbreak of armed conflict in 1775 at Lexington and Concord marked the beginning of the Revolutionary War. The Declaration of Independence, adopted on July 4, 1776, served as a powerful statement of the colonists' grievances and their determination to establish a free and sovereign nation. The historical context of the American Revolution reflects the culmination of colonial aspirations for self-government, Enlightenment ideas of individual rights, and a series of grievances against British rule.

Establishment of the United States as a sovereign nation; the creation of a new form of government based on democratic principles; adoption of the United States Constitution; redefinition of citizenship; abolition of feudalism; expansion of territorial boundaries, etc.

One of the major effects of the American Revolution was the establishment of a new form of government based on the principles of democracy and individual rights. The United States Constitution, born out of the revolution, served as a model for constitutional governments around the world. The idea of a government by the people and for the people spread, inspiring future revolutions and movements for independence. The revolution also challenged the existing colonial powers, particularly the British Empire, and set in motion a wave of decolonization throughout the world. The success of the American colonies in breaking free from British rule demonstrated that colonies could successfully achieve independence, fueling nationalist movements in other parts of the world and ultimately leading to the dissolution of empires. The American Revolution also had significant economic effects. It established the United States as a new economic power and opened up opportunities for trade and commerce. The revolution encouraged the development of industry and innovation, setting the stage for the industrial revolution that would follow. Furthermore, the American Revolution had a profound impact on the institution of slavery. While the revolution did not immediately abolish slavery, it planted the seeds of abolitionism and sparked debates on the issue of human rights and equality. Lastly, the American Revolution inspired and influenced subsequent revolutions and movements for independence, such as the French Revolution, which drew inspiration from the ideals of liberty, equality, and popular sovereignty championed by the American colonists.

Public opinion on the American Revolution varied greatly during the time period and continues to be interpreted differently today. In the 18th century, support for the revolution was not unanimous. Some colonists were loyal to the British Crown and opposed the revolutionary movement, while others actively supported the cause of independence. Public opinion shifted over time as events unfolded and more people became aware of the grievances and aspirations of the revolutionaries. Many colonists, especially those who felt oppressed by British policies, embraced the ideals of liberty, self-determination, and representation. They saw the revolution as a necessary step towards achieving these principles and securing their rights as free individuals. Others were motivated by economic factors, such as trade restrictions and taxation without representation, which fueled their support for independence. However, there were also segments of the population that remained loyal to Britain. Some believed in the benefits of British rule, such as protection and stability, while others feared the potential chaos and uncertainty that could result from a revolution. In modern times, public opinion on the American Revolution tends to be positive, with many viewing it as a pivotal moment in history that laid the foundation for democratic governance and individual freedoms. The ideals and principles that emerged from the revolution continue to shape American identity and influence public discourse on issues of liberty, equality, and self-governance.

1. The American Revolution lasted for eight years, from 1775 to 1783, making it one of the longest and most significant conflicts in American history. 2. The American Revolution had a profound impact on the world stage. It inspired other countries and movements seeking independence and democracy, such as the French Revolution that followed in 1789. 3. While often overlooked, women made significant contributions to the American Revolution. They served as spies, messengers, nurses, and even soldiers. Some notable examples include Deborah Sampson, who disguised herself as a man to join the Continental Army, and Abigail Adams, who advocated for women's rights.

The topic of the American Revolution holds immense importance for academic exploration and essay writing due to its profound impact on the world and the enduring legacy it left behind. Firstly, the American Revolution marked a pivotal moment in history where thirteen colonies fought for their independence from British rule, leading to the formation of the United States of America. It represents a significant event in the development of democracy and self-governance, serving as an inspiration for subsequent revolutions worldwide. Studying the American Revolution allows us to understand the principles and ideals that shaped the nation's foundation, such as liberty, equality, and the pursuit of happiness. It sheds light on the struggles and sacrifices made by individuals who fought for their rights and paved the way for the establishment of a democratic government. Furthermore, exploring this topic provides insights into the complexities of colonial society, the causes of the revolution, the role of key figures, and the social, economic, and political consequences of the conflict.

1. Bailyn, B. (1992). The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Belknap Press. 2. Ellis, J. J. (2013). American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic. Vintage. 3. Ferling, J. E. (2015). Whirlwind: The American Revolution and the War That Won It. Bloomsbury Publishing. 4. Fischer, D. H. (2006). Washington's Crossing. Oxford University Press. 5. Maier, P. (1997). American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence. Vintage. 6. Middlekauff, R. (2005). The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789. Oxford University Press. 7. Middlekauff, R. (2007). The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789. Oxford University Press. 8. Nash, G. B. (2006). The Unknown American Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America. Penguin Books. 9. Tuchman, B. W. (1989). The First Salute: A View of the American Revolution. Random House. 10. Wood, G. S. (1992). The Radicalism of the American Revolution. Vintage.

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Chapter 3 Introductory Essay: 1763-1789

Written by: Jonathan Den Hartog, Samford University

By the end of this section, you will:.

• Explain the context in which America gained independence and developed a sense of national identity

Introduction

The American Revolution remains an important milestone in American history. More than just a political and military event, the movement for independence and the founding of the United States also established the young nation’s political ideals and defined new governing structures to sustain them. These structures continue to shape a country based on political, religious, and economic liberty, and the principle of self-government under law. The “shot heard round the world” (as poet Ralph Waldo Emerson described the battles of Lexington and Concord) created a nation that came to inspire the democratic pursuit of liberty in other lands, bringing a “new order of the ages”.

This engraving of the 1775 battle of Lexington—detailed by American printmaker Amos Doolittle who volunteered to fight against the British—is the only contemporary American visual record of this event.

From Resistance to Revolution

As British subjects, the colonists felt flush with patriotism after the Anglo-American victory in the French and Indian War (1754–1763). They were proud of their king, George III, and of the “rights of Englishmen” that made them part of a free and prosperous world empire. Although Britain’s policies after the French and Indian War caused disputes and tensions between the crown and its North American colonies, independence for the colonies was not a foregone conclusion. Instead, the desire for independence emerged as a result of individual decisions and large-scale events that intensified the conflict with Great Britain and helped unite the diverse colonies.

As early as 1763, British responses to the end of the French and Indian War were arousing anger in the colonies. An immediate question concerned Britain’s relationship with American Indians in the interior. Many French-allied American Indians formed a confederation and continued to fight the British, especially under the leadership of the Odawa chief Pontiac and the Delaware prophet Neolin. Together, they hoped to reclaim lands exclusively for their tribes and to entice the French to return and once again challenge the English. Pontiac’s War led to American Indian seizure of western settlements such as Detroit and Fort Niagara. Rather than ending the dispute quickly, unsuccessful British attempts at diplomacy with France’s Indian allies dragged the war into 1766. (See the Pontiac’s Rebellion Narrative.)

Meanwhile, the British issued the Proclamation of 1763, which attempted to separate American Indian and white settlements by forbidding American colonists to cross the Appalachian Mountains. The hope was to prevent another costly war and crushing war debt. The British stationed troops and built forts on the American frontier to enforce the proclamation, but they were ignoring reality. Many colonists had already settled west of the Appalachians in search of new opportunities, and those who had fought the war specifically to acquire land believed their property rights were being violated by the British standing army.

The line drawn by the Royal Proclamation of 1763 from Lake Ontario to the Gulf of Mexico left much of the frontier “reserved for the Indians” and led to resentment from many colonists.

In 1764, the British began to raise revenue for the large army stationed on the colonial frontier and tightened their enforcement of trade regulations. This was a change from the relatively hands-off approach to governing they had previously embraced. The new ministry of George Grenville introduced the Sugar Act, which reduced the six-pence tax from the widely ignored Molasses Act (1733) by three pence per gallon. But British customs officials were ordered to enforce the Sugar Act by collecting the newly lowered tax and prosecuting smugglers in vice-admiralty courts without juries. Colonial merchants bristled against the changes in imperial policy, but worse changes were yet to come.

The introduction of the Stamp Act in 1765 caused the first significant constitutional dispute over Britain’s taxing the colonists without their consent. The Stamp Act was designed to raise revenue from the colonies (to help pay for the cost of troops on the frontier) by taxing legal forms and printed materials including newspapers; a stamp was placed on the document to indicate that the duty had been paid. Because the colonists had long raised money for the crown through their own elected legislatures, to which they gave their consent, and because they did not have direct representation in Parliament, they cried, “No taxation without representation,” claiming their rights as Englishmen. Although the colonists accepted the British Parliament’s right to use tariffs as a means to regulate their commerce within the imperial system, they asserted that the new taxes were aimed solely to raise revenue. In other words, the Stamp Act imposed a direct tax on the colonists, taking their property without their consent, and, as such, amounted to a new power being claimed by the British Parliament. (See the Stamp Act Resistance Narrative.)

Early voices of protest and resistance came from attorney and farmer Patrick Henry in the Virginia House of Burgesses and lawyer John Adams outside Boston. A group of clubs organized in Boston. Members ransacked the houses of Andrew Oliver, the appointed collector of the Stamp Tax, and Thomas Hutchinson, the colony’s lieutenant governor. Calls for active resistance came from the Sons of Liberty, a group of artisans, laborers, and sailors led by Samuel Adams (cousin of John and a business owner quickly emerging as a leader of the opposition). Petitions, protests, boycotts of articles bearing the stamp, and even violence spread to other cities, including New York, and demonstrated that the colonists’ resolve could keep the Stamp Tax from being collected.

This 1765 engraving entitled “Stamp Master in Effigy” depicts an angry mob in Portsmouth New Hampshire hanging a Crown-appointed stamp master in effigy. (credit: “New Hampshire—Stamp Master in Effigy ” courtesy of the New Hampshire Historical Society)

Meanwhile, delegates from nine colonies met in New York as the Stamp Act Congress to register a formal complaint in October 1765. The Congress was a show of increasing unity; it declared colonial rights and petitioned the British Parliament for relief.

The colonial boycott of British goods in response to the Stamp Act had its desired effect: British merchants affected by it petitioned the crown to revoke the taxes. In the face of this colonial resistance, a new government took leadership in Parliament and in 1766 repealed the Stamp Act. The colonists celebrated and thought the crisis was resolved. However, the British Parliament simultaneously passed the Declaratory Act, asserting its authority with the power to legislate for the colonies “in all cases whatsoever,” including taxing without consent. The stage was set to continue the conflict.

Like their British counterparts, many Americans adopted the custom of drinking tea. How does this teapot c. 1770 show the politicization of the cultural habit of tea drinking? (credit: “No Stamp Act Teapot ” Division of Cultural and Community Life National Museum of American History Smithsonian Institution)

Just one year later, Parliament began to pass the so-called Townshend Acts. The first of these was the Revenue Act, which taxed many goods imported by the colonies, including paint, glass, lead, paper, and tea. Despite the stationing of British troops in Boston to quell resistance, artisans and laborers protested the taxes, while in nonimportation agreements (boycotts), merchants and planters pledged not to import taxed goods. Women resisted the tax by rejecting the consumer goods of Great Britain, producing homespun clothing and brewing homemade concoctions rather than buying imported British cloth and tea. They organized into groups called the Daughters of Liberty to play their part in resisting what they viewed as British tyranny, and they formed the backbone of the nonconsumption movement not to use British goods. John Dickinson, a wealthy lawyer, penned the most significant protest, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania. The tax “appears to me to be unconstitutional,” he wrote, and “destructive to the liberty of these colonies.” The key question was whether “the parliament can legally take money out of our pockets, without our consent.” The colonists’ boycott significantly hurt British trade and few taxes were collected, so Parliament revoked the Townshend Acts in 1770, leaving only the tax on tea. (See the John Dickinson Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania 1767-1768 Primary Source.)

British officials had stationed troops in urban areas, especially New York and Boston, to quell the growing opposition movements. Their presence led to numerous smaller incidents and eventually to the eruption of violence in Boston. In March 1770, soldiers guarding the Boston Customs House were pelted with rocks and ice chunks thrown by angry colonists. Feeling threatened, they fired into the crowd, killing six Bostonians. The soldiers claimed they had fired in self-defense, but colonists called it a cold-blooded slaughter. This was the interpretation put forward by the silversmith Paul Revere in his widely reproduced engraving of the event, now called the “Boston Massacre.” The soldiers soon faced trial, and John Adams—although no friend of British taxation—served as their defense attorney to prove that colonists respected the rule of law. Remarkably, he convinced the Boston jury of the soldiers’ innocence, but tensions continued to simmer. (See The Boston Massacre Narrative.)

Boston was ripe for resistance to British demands when Parliament issued the 1773 Tea Act. The intention was to save the British East India Company from bankruptcy by lowering the price of tea (to increase demand) while assessing a small tax along with it. Colonists saw this as a trap, using low prices to induce them to break their boycott by purchasing taxed tea from the East Indian monopoly. Before the three ships carrying the tea could be unloaded at Boston harbor, the Sons of Liberty organized a mass protest in which thousands participated. Men disguised themselves as American Indians (to symbolize their love of natural freedom), marched to the ships, and threw the tea into Boston Harbor—an event later called “the Boston Tea Party”. (See The Boston Tea Party Narrative.)

This portrayal of the Boston Tea Party dates from 1789 and reads “Americans throwing Cargoes of the Tea Ships into the River at Boston.” On the basis of the image and the artist’s caption do you think the artist was sympathetic to the Patriot or the British cause?

Parliament could not overlook this defiance of its laws and destruction of a significant amount of private property. In early 1774, it passed what it called the Coercive Acts to compel obedience to British rule. The Boston Port Act closed Boston Harbor, the main source of livelihood for many in the city. Other acts gained tighter control of the judiciary in the colony, dissolved the colonial legislature, shut down town meetings, and allowed Parliament to tear up the Massachusetts charter without due process or redress. The colonists called these laws the “Intolerable Acts.” Meeting in Philadelphia in September and October 1774, representatives of the colonies discussed how to respond. This First Continental Congress was an expression of intercolonial unity. The representatives agreed to send help to Boston, boycott British goods, and affirm their natural and constitutional rights. Few contemplated independence; most hoped to bring about a reconciliation and restoration of colonial rights. The representatives also agreed to meet again, in the spring of 1775. By that time, events had taken a very different course. (See the Acts of Parliament Lesson.)

From Lexington and Concord to Independence

Some Patriots in the colonies sought more radical solutions than reconciliation. Early in 1775, Patrick Henry tried to rouse the Virginia House of Burgesses to action:

The war is inevitable—and let it come! . . . 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!

Around the same time, Major General Thomas Gage, Britain’s military governor of Massachusetts, planned to seize colonial munitions held at Concord and capture several Patriot leaders, including Samuel Adams and John Hancock, along the way. On April 18, 1775, when it became clear the British were preparing to move, riders were dispatched to alert the countryside, most famously Paul Revere (in a trip immortalized by the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow). As a result, the following morning, the Lexington militia gathered on Lexington Green to stand in protest. As the British column advanced, its commander ordered the colonists to disperse. A shot rang out—no one knows from where. The British opened fire, and after the skirmish, seven Lexington men lay dead.

The British advanced to Concord, where by now the supplies had been safely hidden away. After witnessing British destruction in the town, the Concord militia counterattacked at the North Bridge. This was Emerson’s “shot heard round the world.” Militia units converged from all over eastern Massachusetts, pursued the British back to Boston, and besieged the city. One militiaman who survived was young Levi Preston. Years afterward, he reported that “what we meant in going for those Redcoats was this: we had always governed ourselves and we always meant to. They didn’t mean we should.”

On June 17, 1775, the Battle of Bunker Hill erupted when the colonial troops seized and fortified Breed’s Hill and repulsed three British attacks. Running low on ammunition, the colonists held their fire until the last moment under the command, “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.” The British captured their position—and suffered unexpectedly high casualties—but the battle galvanized the colonists. Although they were still divided, many came to believe that King George, instead of merely having bad advisors or making bad policies, was openly going to war with them. Arguments for independence began to gain traction. The build-up to the call for independence had been long, but now there seemed no other recourse. (See The Path to Independence Lesson.)

One key voice urging independence was that of Thomas Paine, a recent immigrant from England. In early 1776, Paine published Common Sense, a bestseller in which he attacked monarchy generally before suggesting the folly of an island (Britain) ruling a continent (America). Paine called on the colonists “to begin the world over again” and was one of the clearest voices pushing them toward independence. (See the Thomas Paine Common Sense 1776 Primary Source.)

(a) Thomas Paine’s Common Sense helped convince many colonists of the need for independence from Great Britain. (b) Paine shown here in a portrait by Laurent Dabos was a political activist and revolutionary best known for his writings on both the American and French Revolutions.

The Second Continental Congress debated the question of independence in 1776. The commander of the Continental Army, George Washington of Virginia, agreed with Henry Knox’s audacious plan to bring massive cannons three hundred miles through the winter snows from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston. When Knox succeeded, Washington used the guns to end the siege of Boston. At the congress, cousins Samuel and John Adams argued for independence and convinced a Virginia ally, Richard Henry Lee to offer this motion on June 7:

That these United Colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent States that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved.

Confronting its choices Congress also appointed a committee to prepare a Declaration of Independence. The committee consisted of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston, and Thomas Jefferson a 33-year-old Virginian who accepted the task of drafting the important document. (See Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence Narrative.)

No contemporary images of the Constitutional Congress survive. Robert Edge Pine worked on his painting Congress Voting Independence from 1784 to 1788. How has this artist conveyed the seriousness of the task the delegates faced?

When the votes were tallied for Lee’s resolution about a month later on July 2, twelve states had voted for independence; New York abstained until it received instructions from its legislature. John Adams later wrote that it was as if “thirteen clocks were made to strike together.” The next two days were spent revising the language of the official Declaration, which Congress approved on July 4, 1776.

The Declaration of Independence laid down several principles for the independent nation. The document made a universal assertion that all humans were created equal. According to the ideas of John Locke and the Enlightenment, people were equal in their natural rights, which included life, liberty, and the ability to pursue happiness. The document also stated that legitimate governments derived their power from the consent of the governed and existed to protect those inalienable rights. According to this “social compact,” the people had the right to overthrow a tyrannical government that violated their rights and to establish a new government. The Declaration of Independence, which also included a list of specific instances in which the crown had violated Americans’ rights, laid down the principles of republican government dedicated to the protection of individual political, religious, and economic liberties. (See the Signing the Declaration of Independence Decision Point.)

Congress had made and approved the Declaration, but whether the country could sustain the claim of independence was another matter. The struggle would have to be won on the battlefield.

War and Peace

For independence to be secured, the war had to be fought and won. British generals aimed to secure the port cities, expand British influence, and gradually win the population back to a position of loyalty. They commanded a professional army but had to subdue the entire eastern seaboard. General Washington, on the other hand, learned how to keep the Continental Army in the field and take calculated risks in the face of a British force superior in number, training, and supplies. The support of the individual states, and the congressional effort to secure allies, were essential to the war effort, but they were not guaranteed. The British sent an army of nearly thirty-two thousand redcoats and German mercenaries. They also enjoyed naval supremacy and expected that their more-experienced generals would win an easy victory over the provincials. The campaigns of 1776, thus, were about survival.

After securing Boston, Washington moved his army to New York City, the likely target of the next British attack. In the summer of 1776, the British fleet arrived under the command of Admiral Richard Howe. It carried an army led by his brother, General William Howe, and consisted not only of British troops but also of German mercenaries from Hesse (the Hessians). The first blow came on Long Island, where British attacks easily threw Washington’s army into disarray. Washington led his army in retreat to Manhattan, and then from New Jersey all the way into Pennsylvania. By the end of the year, his situation looked bleak. Many of Washington’s soldiers, about to come to the end of their enlistments, would be free to depart. If Washington could not keep his army in the field or show some success, the claim of independence might seem like an empty promise.

It was critical, therefore, to rally the troops to a decisive victory. Washington and his officers decided on the bold stroke of attacking Trenton. On Christmas evening, they crossed the Delaware River and marched through the night to arrive in Trenton at dawn on December 26. There, they surprised the Hessian outpost and captured the city. Washington then launched a quick strike on nearby Princeton. The success of this campaign gave the Americans enough hope to keep fighting. (See the Washington Crossing the Delaware Narrative and the Art Analysis: Washington Crossing the Delaware Primary Source.)

The campaigns of 1777 brought highs and lows for supporters of independence. On the positive side, the Continental Army successfully countered a British invasion from Canada. Searching for a new strategy after the New Jersey campaign, the British attacked southward from Canada with an army under the leadership of General John Burgoyne. Burgoyne’s goal was to cut through upstate New York and link up with British forces coming north along the Hudson River from New York City. A revolutionary force under Horatio Gates and Benedict Arnold swung north to meet the slow-moving Burgoyne, clashing at Saratoga, near Albany, in September and October. There, the Americans forced Burgoyne to surrender his entire army. (See The Battle of Saratoga and the French Alliance Narrative.)

The victory at Saratoga proved especially significant because it helped persuade the French to form an alliance with the United States. The treaty of alliance, brokered by Franklin and signed in early 1778, brought much-needed financial help from France to the war effort, along with the promise of military aid. But despite the important victory won by General Gates to the north, Washington continued to struggle against the main British army.

John Trumbull painted this wartime image of Washington on a promontory above the Hudson River. Washington’s enslaved valet William “Billy” Lee stands behind him and British warships fire on a U.S. fort in the background. Lee rode alongside Washington for the duration of the Revolutionary War.

For Washington, 1777 was dispiriting in that he failed to win any grand successes. The major battles came in the fall, when the British army sailed from New York and worked its way up the Chesapeake Bay, aiming to capture Philadelphia, the seat of American power where the Continental Congress met. Washington tried to stop the British, fighting at Brandywine Bridge and Germantown in September and October. He lost both battles, and the defeat at Germantown was especially severe. The British easily seized Philadelphia—a victory, even though Congress had long since left the capital and reconvened in nearby Lancaster and York. The demoralized Continentals straggled to a winter camp at Valley Forge, where few supplies reached them, and Washington grew frustrated that the states were not meeting congressional requisitions of provisions for the troops. Sickness incapacitated the undernourished soldiers. Many walked through the snow barefoot, leaving bloody footprints behind. (See the Joseph Plumb Martin The Adventures of a Revolutionary Soldier 1777 Primary Source.)

Here again, Washington provided significant leadership, keeping the army together through strength of character and his example in the face of numerous hardships. Warmer weather energized the army. So did Baron Friedrich von Steuben, newly arrived from Prussia, whom Washington had placed in charge of drilling the soldiers and preparing them for more combat. In June 1778, a more professional, better disciplined Continental Army battled the British to a draw at the Battle of Monmouth, as the imperial army withdrew from Philadelphia and returned to New York.

As the war raged, it affected different groups of Americans differently. Many Loyalists (also known as Tories) were shunned by their communities or forced to resettle under British protection. Women who sympathized with the revolution supported the war effort by creating homespun clothing, often working in groups at events in their homes called “spinning bees.” When men went to war, the women kept family farms, businesses, and artisan shops operating, producing supplies the army could use. While her husband, John, held important offices, Abigail Adams took much of the responsibility for the family’s farm in Braintree, Massachusetts. She even collected saltpeter for the making of gunpowder. Some colonial women followed their brothers and husbands to war, to support the Continental Army by cooking for the camp and nursing injured soldiers. Their engagement with the revolutionary cause brought new respect and contributed to the growth of an idea of “Republican Mothers” who raised patriotic and virtuous children for the new nation. Although women did not enjoy widespread equal civil rights, adult women of New Jersey exercised the right to vote in the early nineteenth century if, like their male counterparts, they served as heads of households meeting minimum property requirements. (See the Abigail Adams: “Remember the Ladies” Mini DBQ Lesson and the Judith Sargent Murray “On the Equality of the Sexes ” 1790 Primary Source)

To African American slaves in the South, the British appeared to offer better opportunities. In 1775, Lord Dunmore the royal governor of Virginia, offered men enslaved by Patriots their freedom if they would take up arms against the colonists. Many did, although few had gained their freedom by the conclusion of the war. Meanwhile, Dunmore’s proclamation made southern planters even more determined to oppose British rule. No such offer of freedom was forthcoming from the Patriots.

Dunmore’s 1775 proclamation of freedom for slaves who took the loyalists’ side was made for practical reasons more than moral ones: Dunmore hoped to bolster his own forces and scare slave-owning Patriots into abandoning their calls for revolution.

The Continental Congress removed harsh criticism of the slave trade and slavery from Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of Independence, because it wrongly blamed the king for the slave trade and ignored American complicity. Later, John Laurens and Alexander Hamilton failed in their efforts to free and arm slaves in South Carolina. Despite some southern opposition, Washington eventually allowed free blacks to enlist in the Continental Army. Free black sailors such as Lemuel Haynes, who became a prominent minister after the war, served in the navy. Largely from the North, these men helped Washington’s army escape from Long Island and cross the Delaware River. In most cases, they served alongside white soldiers in integrated units. Rhode Island and Massachusetts also raised companies entirely of free black soldiers. The natural-rights principles of the Revolution inspired the push to eliminate slavery in the North, either immediately or gradually, during and after the war.

American Indians would have preferred to stay neutral in the Anglo-American conflict, but choices were often forced on them. Some tribes sided with the British, fearing the unchecked expansion of American settlers. Most members of the Iroquois League allied themselves with the British and, led by Joseph Brant, launched raids against Patriot communities in New York and Pennsylvania. Many other tribes along the frontier, including the Shawnee, Delaware, Mohawk, and Cherokee, also fought with the British. The need to deal with Indian raids was one reason for George Rogers Clark’s mission to seize western lands from the British. His victories at Kaskaskia and Vincennes, in present-day Illinois and Indiana, respectively, significantly reduced British strength in the Northwest Territory by 1779.

In contrast, many fewer tribes fought on the side of the Americans. By deciding to do so, the Oneida split the Iroquois League. Other American Indian groups living in long-settled areas also sided with the United States, including the Stockbridge Indians of Massachusetts and the Catawbas in the Carolinas. Many American frontiersmen treated Indian settlements with great violence, including a destructive march through Iroquois lands in New York in 1779 and the massacre of neutral American Indians at the Moravian village of Gnadenhutten in eastern Ohio a few years later. These conflicts deepened hostilities between American Indians and white settlers and helped whites justify the westward expansion of the frontier after the war.

After 1778, the British turned their attention to the South, where they hoped to rally Loyalist support. The major port of Charleston, South Carolina, easily fell to the British general Henry Clinton in May 1780. Pacifying the rest of the South fell to General Charles Cornwallis. He dueled across the Carolinas with the U.S. general Nathanael Greene. Encounters at King’s Mountain and Cowpens were indecisive or narrow American victories, but they effectively neutralized larger British forces in the South. After fighting at Guilford Courthouse, Cornwallis decided to head north into Virginia. He settled at Yorktown and built defenses with the expectation that the British navy would arrive to bring his army back to New York. However, in the Battle of the Capes (September 1781), the French navy defeated the British force sent to relieve Cornwallis. As a result, Cornwallis remained stuck at Yorktown.

Recognizing an opportunity, the French Marquis de Lafayette alerted Washington, who brought the main body of his army south with French forces under Rochambeau to confront Cornwallis. As the Americans strengthened their siege with the help of French engineers, command of several actions fell to Washington’s former aide, Alexander Hamilton. After separate forces of American and French troops captured two fortifications in the British outworks with a bayonet charge, Cornwallis realized he had no choice but to surrender.

John Trumbull’s 1819-1820 painting Surrender of Lord Cornwallis hangs in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington DC. American General Benjamin Lincoln appears mounted on a white horse and accepts the sword of the British officer to his right; Cornwallis was not present at the surrender. Note the American troops to General Lincoln’s left and the French troops to his right under the white flag of the French Bourbon monarchy.

The war continued for two more years, but there were no more significant battles. By capturing Cornwallis’s army, the revolutionaries had neutralized the most significant British force in America and cleared the way for American diplomats to broker peace. In Paris, Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay won British recognition of American independence. In the end, which came in 1783, not only was independence recognized, but the new nation gained a western border at the Mississippi River, unleashing a wave of immigration to settle the land west of the Appalachians.

Confederation and Constitution

The 1780s witnessed tensions between those who wished to maintain a decentralized federation and others who believed the United States needed a new constitutional republic with a strengthened national government. The first framework of government, the Articles of Confederation, sufficed for winning the war and resolving states’ disputes over land west of the Appalachians. Yet many believed the government created by the Articles had almost lost the war because it did not adequately support the army, and after the war it had failed to govern the nation adequately. With the nation’s independence recognized, Americans had to build a stable government in the place of the British government they had thrown off. Important debates emerged about the size and shape of the nation, continuities and breaks with the colonial past, and the character of a new governing system for a free people. Debates took place not only in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 but also in public discussions afterward in the states. Throughout the process, Americans considered various constitutional forms, but they agreed on the significance of constitutional government.

As they thought about these questions, they faced many immediate challenges in recovering from the war. Tens of thousands of Loyalists refused to continue living in the new republic and migrated to Great Britain, the Caribbean, and, most often, Canada. Many states allowed their citizens to confiscate Loyalist property and not pay their debts to British merchants, in violation of the 1783 Treaty of Paris. Economic depression resulted from a shortage of currency and lost British trade connections; businesses worked for several years to recover.

The United States did not even have complete control over its territory. Britain kept troops on the frontier, claiming it needed to ensure compliance with the peace treaty. Spain crippled the western U.S. economy by shutting down American navigation of the Mississippi River and access to the Gulf of Mexico. Individual states failed to fulfill their agreements to creditors and to other states. They passed tariffs on each other and nearly went to war over trade disputes.

In the face of these challenges, the first framework of government to be adopted was the Articles of Confederation. Although Congress began the process of drafting it shortly after independence and adopted the document in 1777, it approved a final version only in 1781. First, the title is significant: The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. The Articles set up a Confederation, or a league of friendship, not a nation. The states maintained their separate sovereignties and agreed to work together on foreign affairs but little else. As a result, the central government was intentionally weak and made up of a unicameral Congress that had few powers. It did not have the power to tax, so funds for the Confederation were supposed to come from requests made to the states. There was no independent executive or judiciary. Important decisions required a supermajority of nine of the thirteen states. Significantly, the adoption of amendments or changes to the document had to be unanimous. Several attempts at reforming the Articles, such as granting Congress the power to tax imports, failed by votes of twelve to one. As a result, government was adrift, and many statesmen such as Madison, Hamilton, and Washington began thinking about stronger, more national solutions. (See The Articles of Confederation 1781 Primary Source and the Constitutional Convention Lesson.)

Watch this BRI Homework Help video on the Articles of Confederation to review their weaknesses and why statesmen desired a stronger central government.

Nationalists such as Madison were also concerned about tyrannical majorities’ violations of minority rights in the states. For example, in Virginia, Madison helped promote freedom of conscience or religious liberty. He successfully won passage of Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which formally disestablished the official church and protected religious liberty as a natural right. The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom later provided a precedent for the First Amendment. Protecting political and religious liberties became key components in the creation of a stronger constitutional government. (See the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom Narrative.)

Even with all its problems, the Confederation Congress did achieve great success with the settlement of the West. It created the Ordinance of 1784, which provided for the entrance of new states on an equal footing with existing ones, and for their republican government. Jefferson’s proposal to forever ban slavery in the West failed by one vote. The Northwest Ordinance, enacted a few years later in 1787, was a thoughtful response to the question of how to treat a territory held by the national government. Each territory, as it gained population, would elect a territorial legislature, draft a republican constitution, and gain the status of a state. Through this process, the Old Northwest eventually became the states of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin. At the same time, the Northwest Ordinance’s final articles established the protection of the rights of residents, including the rights of  habeas corpus and the right to a trial by jury. It provided for public education to advance knowledge and virtue. Also, very significantly, the ordinance permanently outlawed slavery north of the Ohio River. Not only did this decision keep those future states free, it also demonstrated the principle that the national government could make decisions about slavery in new territories. (See The Northwest Ordinance 1787 Primary Source.)

The first steps leading to a new Constitutional Convention were small. Concerns about trade and the navigation of the Chesapeake led to a 1785 meeting, hosted by Washington at Mount Vernon, between delegates from Virginia and Maryland. That meeting prompted more ambitious designs. Madison, a young Virginia lawyer and landowner, urged Congress to call for a new convention to be held in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1786. Nationally minded leaders from several states attended, including Madison, Hamilton from New York, and Dickinson from Delaware. Because of the late invitation, however, five other states sent delegates who arrived only after the meeting had disbanded, so a quorum was never reached. The one accomplishment of the Annapolis Convention was to ask Congress to call for another convention to be held in 1787 in Philadelphia. This was the Constitutional Convention. (See The Constitutional Convention Narrative and The Annapolis Convention Decision Point.)

As states prepared for the new convention in Philadelphia, word came of a popular uprising in Massachusetts. To pay off its Revolutionary War debts, the Massachusetts legislature had increased taxes. This move was met with active resistance in the western part of the state, where many farmers feared losing their land because they could not make the payments due to a credit crunch, recession, and high taxes. The insurgents wanted to cut taxes, print money, abolish the state senate, and revise the state constitution. Under the leadership of Daniel Shays, a farmer and former revolutionary soldier, they closed the courts in Springfield to prevent property foreclosures and defied the state government. By January 1787, Shays’ Rebellion had dissipated—the state legislature had raised an army to put down the uprising, and its leaders had fled. Still, officials feared disorder would spread if the government were not strengthened. Henry Knox strongly advocated for reform, and the idea was accepted by many revolutionary leaders, including Knox’s friend and fellow nationalist, George Washington. (See the Shays’ Rebellion Narrative.)

As a result, when the delegates assembled in Philadelphia, in the same hall where Congress had declared independence, they did so with a sense of urgency. They opted for secrecy to ensure free deliberation, allow delegates to change their minds, and prevent outside pressures from swaying the debates. They even ordered the windows nailed shut—quite a discomfort through the summer months. One important first step was to name someone to preside over the convention, and this honor fell to Washington. His presence lent moral seriousness and credibility to the whole endeavor. Members of the assembled convention soon concluded that the Articles of Confederation were beyond saving, and a new frame of government would be required, even though this goal surpassed their mandate to revise the Articles. At this point, Edmund Randolph of Virginia stepped forward with the proposal for a new plan of government conceived by fellow Virginian Madison (who was also keeping extensive notes of the convention, despite a rule against doing so).

Madison’s Virginia Plan favored large states by opting for a bicameral Congress with representation in both houses to be determined by population size alone. This irked the smaller states, which responded with the New Jersey Plan, adhering to the existing practice of allowing all states equal representation in an assembly. With two opposing visions, there seemed no clear path forward, and some delegates feared the convention would falter. From this conflict, however, a third plan emerged, shaped by Sherman and other delegates from Connecticut. This Connecticut Compromise or “Great Compromise” delineated the bicameral Congress we have today, with separate houses each offering a different means of representation: proportional to population in the House of Representatives and equal in the Senate, where each state would elect two senators. The crisis had been averted. (See Argumentation: The Process of Compromise Lesson.)

The convention then moved on to other matters. For instance, delegates considered the nature of the executive—a potentially delicate topic given that the presumed first executive was Washington. Hamilton argued for a very strong executive, possibly even one elected for life. However, although the convention created the presidency, it also hemmed it in, to be checked by the other branches. The Electoral College, in which each state’s votes were equal to the sum of its two senators plus its number of representatives in the House, was instituted as another part of the federal system. Significantly, the delegates spent minimal time on the federal judiciary, leaving the responsibility of defining its role to the new government.

The framers also faced the dilemma of how to address the institution of slavery. Delegates from the Deep South threatened to walk out of the convention if a new constitution endangered it. As a result, the convention’s treatment of slavery was ambiguous. The Constitution never mentions “slaves” or “slavery.” Even so, practical considerations made it impossible to ignore. Whereas delegates from the North did not think slaves should count toward the population totals establishing representation in Congress but should count for taxation, southern delegates disagreed, arguing the opposite. The “Three-Fifths Compromise” resolved that, although free people would be counted in full, only three-fifths of the number of “all other Persons” would be applied to state population totals for purposes of congressional apportionment and taxation. A precedent set by the Articles of Confederation also guided the compromise. In addition, after the convention voted down a southern proposal to prevent congressional interference with the international slave trade, the national government gained the power, after 1808, to choose to prohibit the “Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit.” (See the Is the Constitution a Proslavery Document? Point-Counterpoint.)

After most of the debates were finished, the convention’s ideas were put into words by a Committee of Style, including Gouverneur Morris of New York. By September 1787, the proposed constitution was ready to be sent to the Confederation Congress and then to the state legislatures to be submitted to popular ratifying conventions consisting of the people’s representatives. One of the most important provisions at this point stated that only nine of thirteen states had to ratify the document for it to go into effect in the states where it had been approved.

Watch this BRI Homework Help video on the Constitution for a comprehensive review of the philosophies behind the Constitution.

With the Constitution now public, citizens across the country could make it a topic of scrutiny and debate. This was one of the convention’s goals: The Preamble was rooted in popular sovereignty when it claimed to express the will of “We, the People of the United States.” The Constitution was to be considered at special state conventions and not by state legislatures, for instance, because the framers anticipated state politicians would resist the Constitution’s diminishing of the power of the states. In these conventions, nationalists who supported the Constitution seized the name “Federalists,” alluding to federalism or the sharing of powers between the nation’s and states’ governments. Already well organized, Federalists coordinated their efforts in the various states. They could call on many polished writers for support. John Dickinson, for instance, wrote a series of essays called The Letters of Fabius. Even more famously, Hamilton, Jay, and Madison united to write the Federalist Papers, signing their collected efforts with the Latin pseudonym “Publius.”

The Federalist Papers made practical and theoretical arguments in favor of strengthening the nation’s government through the proposed constitution. Although many other voices also supported the Constitution at that time, people still look to The Federalist Papers for important insights into the thoughts of the framers of the Constitution. The people labeled “Anti-Federalists,” however, were suspicious of the Constitution and its grant of power to a national government. Considering themselves defenders of the Articles of Confederation and its own federal system, they worried that, like the British government in the 1760s and 1770s, the distant new authority proposed by the Constitution would usurp the powers of their states and violate citizens’ individual rights. Many of them also wrote pseudonymously, taking names like Brutus—the Roman assassin of power-grasping Caesar—or Federal Farmer. Many also had Revolutionary credentials, such as Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams. They worried Americans would relinquish the liberty they had just fought so hard to attain. As their name suggests, the Anti-Federalists came to be identified as an opposition voice, warning about the growth of a strong national government with great powers over taxation and the ability to raise standing armies that would endanger citizens’ rights.

(See the Federalist/Anti-Federalist Debate on Congress’s Powers of Taxation DBQ Lesson.)

As debates raged in newspapers and public houses, state conventions took up the Constitution. On December 7, 1787, Delaware became the first state to ratify it. The next four states—Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut—followed quickly. Pennsylvania’s Federalists so accelerated approval that Anti-Federalists had little chance to mount a real opposition. The others were small states that believed the Constitution would help them. Massachusetts came next, and there, because of Shays’ Rebellion, opinion was more divided. Still, Federalists rallied important Revolutionary leaders like Revere, Hancock, and Samuel Adams to achieve ratification. Maryland and South Carolina followed. (See The Ratification Debate on the Constitution Narrative.)

When New Hampshire voted “yes” in June 1788, Federalists rejoiced that nine states had ratified. However, two of the most populous states, Virginia and New York, still had to consider the Constitution. Federalists feared that failing to gain the support of either would threaten the legitimacy of the Constitution and the viability of the nine-state union already established. Madison and other Federalists battled Patrick Henry in an epic debate in Virginia, narrowly winning ratification. Hamilton and Jay similarly faced a powerful contingent of Anti-Federalists in New York, but this state also ratified the Constitution in the end. In both states, as had been the case in Massachusetts, Anti-Federalists gained Madison’s promise that the new government would quickly draft a Bill of Rights for the Constitution. The new government under the Constitution could move forward (temporarily without North Carolina and Rhode Island, which remained outside the new union for more than a year.)

The final result was that American citizens and their representatives, through a public debate, had agreed on a new form of government. They had passed the test Hamilton had set for them in Federalist Paper No. 1, determining that self-government was possible and that citizens could establish a government through “reflection and choice” rather than having it imposed by “accident and force.” Madison kept his word, and in the new Congress, he authored the ten amendments of the Bill of Rights and shepherded them to approval. The Anti-Federalists stayed engaged in politics and kept a wary eye on the new national government. The process, although often improvisational and hinging on the contingency, had been orderly and deliberative. In the American Revolution, statesmen and citizens had avoided military dictatorship and mass civilian bloodshed, creating a lasting system of government in which power was organized for the protection and promotion of liberty.

In the relatively short span of time between 1763 and 1789 the thirteen colonies went from loyal subjects of the British crown to open rebellion to an independent republic guided by the U.S. Constitution.

Additional Chapter Resources

• Mercy Otis Warren Narrative
• George Washington at Newburgh Decision Point
• Loyalist vs. Patriot Decision Point
• Were the Anti-Federalists Unduly Suspicious or Insightful Political Thinkers? Point-Counterpoint
• Quaker Anti-Slavery Petition 1783 Primary Source
• Belinda Sutton Petition to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts 1783 Primary Source
• Junípero Serra’s Baja California Diary Primary Source
• State Constitution Comparison Lesson
• Argumentation: Self-Interest or Republicanism? Lesson

Review Questions

1. Which of the following best describes the fiscal consequences of the French and Indian War?

• The French and Indian War caused the Northwest Territories to be absorbed into the British colonial government leading to an increase in British resources.
• The French and Indian War exploded the British national debt and tax burden leading to Parliament’s decision to tax the colonies to pay the war’s cost.
• The French and Indian War caused the colonies to realize their economic self-sufficiency and allowed colonial governments to impose taxes upon their citizens.
• The French and Indian War resulted in a British loss which left the British economically indebted to France and forced them to use the colonies to pay this debt.

2. Which act marked the first serious constitutional dispute over Parliament’s taxing the colonists without their consent?

• Declaratory Act
• Boston Port Act

3. At the conclusion of the French and Indian War what was the political status of the territory west of the Appalachian Mountains?

• Colonial settlers were forbidden to cross the Appalachian Mountains.
• The British government acquired this territory and governed it under the Northwest Ordinance.
• Colonial rebels were banished to these territories which were held by the British but very loosely governed.
• The French governed this territory as a colony until it was purchased by Jefferson in 1803.

4. What was the main purpose of the Stamp Act Congress?

• To declare independence from the British government
• To develop a new Constitution to govern the colonies
• To establish the Stamp Act and other tax legislation
• To formalize the colonial complaints against Parliament

5. What legislation was imposed on Massachusetts as a punishment for rebellious behavior during the “Tea Party” in December 1773?

• Coercive Acts
• Townshend Acts

6. How did the British use the institution of slavery as a tool against the colonists in the Revolutionary War?

• Southern slaveholders forced slaves to fight on their behalf.
• By promising freedom, in exchange for slaves’ support, the British encouraged Patriots’ slaves to rebel against their owners.
• Slaves were captured and forced to haul goods and supplies for the British army.
• The British saw slavery as evil and motivated slaves to fight to abolish the institution in the colonies.

7. Which of the following best describes the role of American Indian tribes in the Revolutionary War?

• American Indians mostly moved into the Northwest Territories to escape the conflict.
• American Indians often sided with the British although some fought alongside the colonists.
• American Indians unanimously supported the British cause in return for protection.
• American Indians generally supported the colonists believing that the colonists’ commitment to freedom and independence would make it more likely that Indians’ property rights would be protected.

8. Which of the following best describes the motives of the French military during the Revolutionary War?

• The French military supported the British because the French feared for the security of their own colonial holdings.
• The French military supported the American patriots against France’s rival the British to raise France’s own global political and economic standing.
• The French military was hired by Congress to fight on behalf of the rebels because the colonial population was much too small to successfully overthrow the British.
• The French military provided financial support to the Americans but remained physically uninvolved in the conflict.

9. What purpose did the Articles of Confederation serve?

• The Articles of Confederation served as the structure for the first government of the new United States.
• The Articles of Confederation listed Americans’ grievances against King George III.
• The Articles of Confederation were the first ten amendments to the Constitution which limited the federal government’s power.
• The Articles of Confederation created a new united nation with an effective national government.

10. Which of the following best describes the evolution of American colonists desiring independence?

• Immediately after the French and Indian War American colonists realized they would be better served economically and politically by full independence and advocated for it.
• After the British government passed the first direct tax American colonists created a delegation to discuss and legislate independence.
• After the Declaration of Independence was agreed upon by committee members all American colonists thoroughly supported the War for Independence.
• Incremental shifts toward independence were not complete even during the Revolution because tens of thousands of American colonists remained loyal to Britain.

11. Which of the following did not contribute to the call for a Second Continental Congress in 1776?

• The British attacks on Lexington and Concord and the violence at Bunker Hill
• The popularity of a pro-independence pamphlet written by Thomas Paine
• The need for a central entity to wage the resistance effort
• The successful alliance between American colonists and France to wage war against the British

12. Which of the following best describes George Washington’s leadership of the Continental Army?

• Fierce fighter who had an iron grip on the infantry units and who would use his war experience to influence the colonial legislature
• Long-term strategist willing to use new tactics to gain victories and boost morale
• Lackluster commander unable to successfully achieve the task of independence
• Extremely competitive personality who betrayed the revolutionary cause by siding with the British

13. Which battle is significant because it resulted in the creation of a successful alliance with the French?

• Battle of Lexington and Concord
• Battle of Trenton
• Battle of Saratoga
• Battle of Yorktown

14. A change in perception about American white women was the idea of Republican Motherhood which

• articulated that a woman’s ideal role was a mother with as many children as possible
• emphasized the importance of raising patriotic children to participate in the newly formed republic
• implemented a public education program that taught children how to be Republican
• identified women as equal to their male counterparts and entitled to access to the finances of the household

15. The Articles of Confederation were designed to

• maintain state sovereignty preventing the usurpation of power by a central government while allowing the states to function as a unit in military and diplomatic matters
• create a strong federal government that could unify the states as a nation
• mimic the powers of the British Crown without the ability to tax
• give a voice to each citizen of the United States regardless of race and gender

16. Which of the following constitutional issues most definitively highlighted the divide between Northern and Southern delegates at the Constitutional Convention?

• The Great Compromise
• The Electoral College
• The Three-Fifths Compromise
• An independent judiciary

17. Shays’ Rebellion is most similar to which earlier event in American history?

• Bacon’s Rebellion
• Pueblo Revolt of 1680
• Passage of the Proclamation of 1763
• Stono Rebellion

18. Which political faction was suspicious of the new Constitution and wary of the stronger authority of the federal government?

• Anti-Federalist

19. After ratification of the Constitution the Bill of Rights was designed to

• calm Anti-Federalist fears and protect individual freedoms from a stronger federal government
• promote the Federalist idea that the Constitution was an effective defense for inalienable rights
• establish the process for western territories to enter the union as states
• list the grievances perceived by Americans and share them with the world as a justification for rebellion

Free Response Questions

• Explain how a debate over liberty and self-government influenced the Continental Congress’s decision to declare independence in 1776.
• Describe the role of women during the American Revolution.
• Explain how the debates over individual rights and liberties continued to shape political debates after the American Revolution.
• Describe the changes and continuities in North American attitudes toward executive power between 1763 and 1789.

AP Practice Questions

“Their jurisprudence was marked with wisdom and dignity and their simplicity and piety were displayed equally in the regulation of their police the nature of their contracts and the punctuality of observance. The old Plymouth colony remained for some time a distinct government. They chose their own magistrates independent of all foreign control; but a few years involved them with the Massachusetts [colony] of which Boston more recently settled than Plymouth was the capital. From the local situation of a country separated by an ocean of a thousand leagues from the parent state and surrounded by a world of savages an immediate compact with the King of Great Britain was thought necessary. Thus a charter was early granted stipulating on the part of the crown that the Massachusetts [colony] should have a legislative body within itself composed of three branches and subject to no control except his majesty’s negative within a limited term to any laws formed by their assembly that might be thought to militate with the general interest of the realm of England. The governor was appointed by the crown the representative body annually chosen by the people and the council elected by the representatives from the people at large.”

Mercy Otis Warren History of the Rise Progress and Termination of the American Revolution 1805

1. This passage from Mercy Otis Warren’s history of the American Revolution alludes to which factor leading to colonists’ discontent after the French and Indian War?

• The relative independence the British granted the North American colonies before the 1760s
• The unjust appointment of governors by the king of Great Britain
• The right of the British to tax colonists
• The population pressures caused by mass migration to cities

2. Which of the following statements best describes how colonists justified their opinion that taxation by Parliament was unfair?

• They argued that they had no direct representation in Parliament and thus Parliament had no power to enforce taxes.
• They argued that as self-sufficient colonies they wielded more economic power than Parliament.
• They argued that they were loyal only to the British Crown not to the British Parliament.
• They argued that the monarch traditionally taxed the colonies and was the only one who could issue a tax.

“After an unequivocal experience of the inefficiency of the subsisting federal government, you are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America. The subject speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences nothing less than the existence of the UNION the safety and welfare of the parts of which it is composed the fate of an empire in many respects the most interesting in the world. It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country by their conduct and example to decide the important question whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.”

Publius Federalist Paper: No. 1 1787

3. On the basis of the information in the excerpt provided the author would agree with all the following statements except

• The debate over ratification is a referendum on whether republican self-government is possible.
• This new federal constitution was written after considerable careful thought and debate.
• The question of ratification is central to the survival of the United States.
• The survival of the Union is of secondary concern compared with the safety and welfare of the people.

4. Which of the following best describes the author’s approach to the challenge facing the states after the Constitutional Convention?

• George Washington assumed the role of de facto executive and thus changes needed to be made to the Articles of Confederation.
• Many political leaders believed the governing structure established by the Articles of Confederation was not strong enough and more structure was needed.
• The Revolutionary War had just ended and a document was needed to establish the newly founded government.
• British troops had accidentally fired on rebel militia thus forcing the colonies to sever their relationship with the British government.

“I was eleven years of age and my sisters Rachel and Susannah were older. We all heard the alarm and were up and ready to help fit out father and brother who made an early start for Concord. We were set to work making cartridges and assisting mother in cooking for the army. We sent off a large quantity of food for the soldiers who had left home so early that they had but little breakfast. We were frightened by hearing the noise of guns at Concord; our home was near the river and the sound was conducted by the water. I suppose it was a dreadful day in our home and sad indeed; for our brother so dearly loved never came home.”

Alice Stearns Abbott Citizen of Bedford Massachusetts on the Beginning of Fighting Concord 1775

5. In the excerpt provided the violent conflict described in 1775 most directly contributed to which of the following events?

• Colonial governments writing a petition for peace with a diplomatic solution to conclude the bloodshed
• Immediate Colonial call to arms and declaration of war against the British
• Calls for military and political action which resulted in the meeting of the Second Continental Congress
• An alliance with the French who would provide needed financial and military support

6. The context surrounding the event in the excerpt provided may best be described as

• intercolonial unity in the face of British attack
• strategically planned offensive in the wake of British hostilities
• incremental buildup of tension throughout Massachusetts over British occupation and legislation
• defiance of the Proclamation Line of 1763 and the subsequent conflict over land between American Indians British and colonists

7. Which of the following ideas would be best supported by historians using the excerpt provided as evidence?

• That children wrote unbiased accounts during wartime
• That women and families supported the troops during the Revolution
• That new and advanced technology allowed for more accurate gunfire
• That most New England families felt loyalty and support for the British Crown

“To defeat such treasonable purposes and that all such traitors and their abetters may be brought to justice and that the peace and good order of this colony may be again restored which the ordinary course of the civil law is unable to effect I have thought fit to issue this my proclamation hereby declaring that until the aforesaid good purposes can be obtained I do in virtue of the power and authority to me given by his Majesty determine to execute martial law and cause the same to be executed throughout this colony; and to the end that peace and good order may the sooner be restored I do require every person capable of bearing arms to resort to his Majesty’s STANDARD or be looked upon as traitors to his Majesty’s crown and government and thereby become liable to the penalty the law inflicts upon such offences such as forfeiture of life confiscation of lands &c. &c. And I do hereby farther declare all indented servants Negroes or others (appertaining to rebels) free that are able and willing to bear arms they joining his Majesty’s troops as soon as may be for the more speedily reducing this colony to a proper sense of their duty to his Majesty’s crown and dignity.”

Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation 1775

8. Lord Dunmore’s intent as indicated in the excerpt provided is best described as

• a genuine feeling that the abolition of slavery must be accomplished in the empire
• a desire to undermine the colonial revolt against the crown and acquire more loyalists to fight in the colonies
• a need to prevent imperial rivals from becoming involved in the conflict
• the desire to demonstrate a positive alliance with American Indians to ensure their assistance

9. The excerpt from Dunmore’s Proclamation highlights which of the following about the early years of the American Revolution?

• The variety of reasons people chose to identify as a loyalist or patriot
• The pivotal role of slaves in the winning of most early battles
• The early decision of most colonists about which side to take during the revolution
• The dynamic actions taken by women to support the troops at war

Primary Sources

Adams John. “Letter to Hezekiah Niles.” February 13 1818. http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/letter-to-hezekiah-niles-on-the-american-revolution/

Declaratory Act. http://www.constitution.org/bcp/decl_act.htm

Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Paul Revere’s engraving of the Boston Massacre 1770.” https://gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/road-revolution/resources/paul-revere%E2%80%99s-engraving-boston-massacre-1770

Hamilton Alexander John Jay and James Madison. The Federalist Papers . https://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/fed.as

Hamilton Alexander. The Federalist Papers : No. 1. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed01.asp

Longfellow Henry Wadsworth. “Paul Revere’s Ride.” https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/paul-reveres-ride

United States Constitution. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript

Suggested Resources

Bailyn Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution . Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 1992.

Beeman Richard. Plain Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution . New York: Random House 2009.

Berkin Carol . A Brilliant Solution: Inventing the American Constitution . New York: Mariner Books 2002.

Berkin Carol. Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence . New York: Vintage 2005.

Brookhiser Richard . Alexander Hamilton: American . New York: Simon and Schuster 2000.

Calloway Colin. The American Revolution in Indian Country: Crisis and Diversity in Native American Communities . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1995.

Chernow Ron. Alexander Hamilton . New York: Penguin 2004.

Dowd Gregory Evans. A Spirited Resistance: The North American Indian Struggle for Unity 1745-1815 . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press 1992.

Ellis Joseph. His Excellency: George Washington . New York: Alfred A. Knopf 2004.

Emerson Ralph Waldo. “Concord Hymn.” 1837. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/45870

Fischer David Hackett. Paul Revere’s Ride . New York: Oxford University Press 1994.

Fischer David Hackett. Washington’s Crossing . New York: Oxford University Press 2004.

Kerber Linda. Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1980.

Kidd Thomas. God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution . NY: Basic Books 2010.

Maier Pauline. American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence . New York: Alfred A. Knopf 1997.

Maier Pauline. From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain 1765-1776 . New York: Alfred A. Knopf 1972.

Maier Pauline. Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution 1787-1788 . New York: Simon & Schuster 2010.

McCullough David. John Adams . NY: Simon & Schuster 2001.

McDonald Forrest. Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution . Lawrence: University of Kansas Press 1985.

Middlekauff Robert. The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution 1763-1789 revised ed. New York: Oxford University Press 2005.

Morgan Edmund and Helen Morgan. The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1953.

Morgan Edmund. Inventing the People: The Rise of Popular Sovereignty in England and America . New York: W.W. Norton 1989.

Morgan Edmund. The Birth of the Republic 1763-1789 4th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2013.

Morris Richard. The Peacemakers: The Great Powers and American Independence . New York: Harper & Row 1965.

Norton Mary Beth. Founding Mothers and Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society . New York: Alfred A. Knopf 1996.

Norton Mary Beth. Liberty’s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women 1750-1800 . Boston: Little Brown 1980.

Norton Mary Beth. Liberty’s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women 1750-1800 . Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1996.

Paine Thomas. Common Sense in Common Sense and Related Writings ed. Thomas Slaughter. Boston: Bedford St. Martins 2001.

Rakove Jack. James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic . New York: Pearson/Longman 2007.

Saillant John. Black Puritan Black Republican: The Life and Thought of Lemuel Haynes 1753-1833 . New York: Oxford University Press 2003.

Storing Herbert ed. The Anti-Federalist: Writings by the Opponents of the Constitution . Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1985.

Storing Herbert. What the Anti-Federalists Were For: The Political Thought of the Opponents of the Constitution . Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1981.

Taylor Alan. American Revolutions: A Continental History 1750-1804 . New York: W.W. Norton 2016.

Wood Gordon. The Creation of the American Republic 1776-1787 . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1998.

Related Content

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

In our resource history is presented through a series of narratives, primary sources, and point-counterpoint debates that invites students to participate in the ongoing conversation about the American experiment.

Open Yale Courses

You are here, the american revolution.

The American Revolution entailed some remarkable transformations–converting British colonists into American revolutionaries, and a cluster of colonies into a confederation of states with a common cause–but it was far more complex and enduring than the fighting of a war. As John Adams put it, “The Revolution was in the Minds of the people… before a drop of blood was drawn at Lexington”–and it continued long past America’s victory at Yorktown. This course will examine the Revolution from this broad perspective, tracing the participants’ shifting sense of themselves as British subjects, colonial settlers, revolutionaries, and Americans.

This Yale College course, taught on campus twice per week for 50 minutes, was recorded for Open Yale Courses in Spring 2010.

Bailyn, Bernard. Faces of Revolution: Personalities and Themes in the Struggle for American Independence . New York: Knopf, 1990.

Brown, Richard D., ed. Major Problems in the Era of the American Revolution, 1760-1791 . 2nd ed. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning, 1999.

Cray, Robert E. Jr., “Major John Andre and the Three Captors: Class Dynamics and Revolutionary Memory Wars in the Early Republic, 1780-1831,” Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 17, No. 3. Autumn, 1997.

Gross, Robert A. The Minutemen and Their World . Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2001.

Hamilton, Alexander, James Madison, and John Jay. The Federalist Papers . New York: Penguin, 1987.

McDonnell, Michael. “Popular Mobilization and Political Culture in Revolutionary Virginia: The Failure of the Minutemen and the Revolution from Below,” Journal of American History, Vol. 85, No. 3. December, 1998.

Paine, Thomas. Common Sense . New York: Penguin, 1982.

Raphael, Ray. A People’s History of the American Revolution . New York: HarperCollins, 2002.

Schwartz, Barry. “George Washington and the Whig Conception of Heroic Leadership,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 48, No. 1. February, 1983.

Wood, Gordon S. The Radicalism of the American Revolution . New York: Knopf, 1992.

Wood, Gordon S. The American Revolution: A History . New York: Modern Library, 2002. [optional]

Exams There is one midterm exam covering material discussed up through Lecture 13. The final exam covers material from the entire course.

Papers One paper, 3-5 pages long, is due the day of Lecture 9. A second paper, 7-9 pages in length, is due the day of Lecture 23.

First paper: 15% Midterm exam: 20% Second paper: 25% Final exam: 30% Discussion section participation: 10%

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Without cookies your experience may not be seamless.

• Essays on the American Revolution

In this Book

• Stephen G. Kurtz
• Published by: The University of North Carolina Press
• Series: Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia

Table of Contents

• Title page, Copyright
• pp. vii-viii
• Introduction
• 1. The Central Themes of the American Revolution: An Interpretation
• BERNARD BAILYN
• 2. An Uneasy Connection: An Analysis of the Preconditions of the American Revolution
• JACK P. GREENE
• 3. Violence and the American Revolution
• RICHARD MAXWELL BROWN
• 4. The American Revolution: The Military Conflict Considered as a Revolutionary War
• pp. 121-156
• 5. The Structure of Politics in the Continental Congress
• H. JAMES HENDERSON
• pp. 157-196
• 6. The Role of Religion in the Revolution: Liberty of Conscience and Cultural Cohesion in the New Nation
• WILLIAM G. McLOUGHLIN
• pp. 197-255
• 7. Feudalism, Communalism, and the Yeoman Freeholder: The American Revolution Considered as a Social Accident
• ROWLAND BERTHOFF AND JOHN M. MURRIN
• pp. 256-288
• 8. Conflict and Consensus in the American Revolution
• EDMUND S. MORGAN
• pp. 289-310
• pp. 311-318
• Notes on the Contributors
• pp. 319-320

Additional Information

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Introduction: American Revolutions

Edward G. Gray is professor of history at Florida State University. He is the author of New World Babel: Languages and Nations in Early America (1999) and The Making of John Ledyard: Empire and Ambition in the Life of an Early American Traveler (2007). He is presently writing a book about the Atlantic radical Thomas Paine and his quest to build an iron bridge.

Jane Kamensky is Harry S. Truman Professor of American Civilization and chair of the history department at Brandeis University. Her books include The Exchange Artist: A Tale of High-Flying Speculation and America’s First Banking Collapse (2008) and Governing the Tongue: The Politics of Speech in Early New England (1997). She is also the coauthor of the novel Blindspot, written jointly with Jill Lepore (2008); and of the forthcoming tenth edition of A People and a Nation (2014). She is currently at work on a book about American artists in London during the age of revolution.

• Published: 28 December 2012
• Cite Icon Cite
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The American Revolution is a significant event in the history of the United States, yet has generated little interest among academic historians. This stems from two seemingly irreconcilable interpretations of the formation of the United States. Some view the Revolution as an intellectual event, while many social historians see it as a fundamentally popular and even populist revolt in which self-interested elites were challenged by ordinary people. This book explores what the American Revolution means at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Readers in the United States consider the histories of the war between Britain and her mainland North American colonies as origins stories. America's Revolution was Britain's American War, an episode in the entangled history of a vast and growing empire. It offers a continental perspective on the Revolution, focusing on contested North American frontiers. The book suggests a major shift in the core narrative of the Revolution, showing how the familiar tale of money and politics—taxation and representation—is joined and made more complex by stories focused on territorial sovereignty and native dispossession.

Few events in American history attract as much attention as the Revolution. Politicians routinely quote Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, and Patrick Henry. Schools, museums, the press, and the public commemorate significant Revolutionary-era dates. The best-seller list seems never to be without at least one title that references America’s founding and its “fathers.”

Among academic historians, however, the Revolution has come to occupy a distinctly less prominent place than it held a generation ago. Fewer courses are framed around the subject; fewer journal articles and monographs engage it; fewer dissertations plumb its depths. There are a number of explanations for this apparent shift in interest. In recent years, for instance, students of premodern North America have moved away from questions about the origins of the United States and toward explorations of larger Atlantic or continental arenas. 1 There is another cause as well, a much older one. At least since the 1960s, and arguably long before, scholars of the period have struggled to reconcile two seemingly irreconcilable interpretations of the formation of the United States. Some insist that the Revolution is best understood as an intellectual event, driven by ideas about liberty, property, and tyranny articulated by a select group of elite founders. By contrast, many social historians see the Revolution not as the work of remote thinkers and theorists, but as a fundamentally popular and even populist revolt in which ordinary people challenged self-interested elites. For decades, a pitched battle between these two interpretive camps yielded ever-more Manichean and absolute postures. For some, as the intellectual historian Daniel Rodgers has written, the terms of scholarly debate became “reflexively dualistic: ideas versus behavior; rhetoric versus ‘the concrete realities of life’; propaganda and mystification on the one hand, the real stuff on the other.” 2 No wonder many young scholars turned toward less highly charged subject matter as they sought to enter the profession.

The tension between a revolution of cultural elites and one of ordinary people lingers. But in recent years, historians have identified new angles of vision that transcend that tension. With new frameworks to test and refine, scholars have returned to the Revolution that remade America, remaking the Revolution in turn. Cultural historians have begun to find meaning in language, sentiment, and the material world that transcends the elite-plebeian dichotomy. 3 Institutional historians—historians of law, of business, of the military, of government, of the household, and others—have likewise found compelling ways to capture the full social and intellectual spectrum in one revolutionary story. 4 Atlantic and imperial historians place the American founding in a broader transnational context, considering its place among a series of transformations that shaped life in the Atlantic littoral. 5 In place of a singular event, directed solely at the formation of the United States, and thus subject to monocausal explanations of its origins and results, we confront a series of complex and interlinked historical processes: the triumph of one empire over its European rivals, followed by a series of rebellions within that empire, some of which converged in the creation of a new United States.

Drawing on this new work, assembling scholars from several generations, trained in multiple disciplines, with varying national and regional specializations, the Oxford Handbook of the American Revolution seeks to capture the fullest sense of what the American Revolution means at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Methodologically pluralist, even promiscuous, this Handbook is crowded with unfamiliar as well as better-known characters, male and female, native and Anglo, “British” and “American,” leaders and ordinary people. Elites come down to earth through explorations of their material lives. “The people” wrestle with lofty ideas as well as pressing economic interests. Revolutions are waged among sometimes-reluctant patriots and often-ambivalent loyalists, with many neutrals occupying a spectrum of positions in between. The walls between the shifting sides are thin, even permeable. Many of the combatants emerge as hesitant creatures of empire rather than zealous progenitors of a nation.

Looking West, Looking East

For readers in the United States, histories of the war between Britain and her mainland North American colonies are, at their deepest level, origins stories, which is one reason so many books about the Revolution have the word birth in their titles. 6 The story of the Revolution is our book of Genesis. Taking a god’s-eye view from blockaded Boston harbor or Carpenters’ Hall in Philadelphia, we wait for the United States to emerge from dark and formless void. Dawn breaks, and a string of glorious begats follows; Washington, Hamilton, Madison, and Adams stride through our pages like gods in tricorn hats.

This view from America’s port cities may be stirring, but it is necessarily incomplete—provincial by definition. The chapters that make up this volume often look toward an emerging United States from the vantage point of the thirteen rebellious colonies. But they take a range of other views as well, facing west from London, north from the West Indies, and east from Indian country. Touching down in places as far-flung as France and Poland, Jamaica and Sierra Leone, the country of the Six Nations and Bengal, this volume returns the American Revolution to the world and the world to the American Revolution.

America’s Revolution was Britain’s American War: a series of fateful moves in the high-stakes chess game of the European great powers, and a chapter in the entangled history of a vast and growing empire. In crucial respects, London looked first to Paris and Madrid, then to Brussels, Amsterdam, and Vienna. “The history of eighteenth-century Britain was in Europe,” the English historian Brendan Simms proclaims. “Foreign policy, rather than taxation, popular unrest, religion, elections or colonial expansion, was the central political preoccupation” of the realm. 7 However difficult to govern, America—especially continental America—was something of a sideshow. The American War—like the French and Indian War before it, and King George’s War before that—was the far western front in the centuries-long battle for political and military supremacy on the European continent. In the regular course of human events, Whitehall was far more anxious about Versailles than about Virginia.

Of course, the view from London did not end in Europe, but extended east and farther south as well as west, following the sinews of power to the ragged edges of empire. As Maya Jasanoff has argued, Clive’s victory over the nawab of Bengal in 1757, not Wolfe’s victory over Montcalm’s forces at Quebec two years later, “may well have been the defining imperial battle” of the Seven Years’ War. 8 After its stunning victory in that global conflict, Britain’s territorial claims stretched from Fort Bute on the Mississippi River to Fort William at Calcutta. By 1770, the first voyage of Captain James Cook had pushed the imperial frontier all the way to Botany Bay. An empire so vast came at a steep cost. The British government struggled to govern polities as diverse as the “natives of Hindostan and those of Virginia ,” as Edmund Burke noted in the 1770s. 9 One size fit few. Efforts to reform the empire in the 1760s—through taxes and trade prohibitions—were understood by American patriots to be exceptional and punitive. In fact, they were acts of inclusion : attempts to bring the Americans into an increasingly well-fenced and carefully tended imperial fold. “For all their cocksure certainty,” Eliga Gould has written, “the British saw their actions toward the colonies as fundamentally pacific.” 10 Their purpose, at least in the eyes of imperial reformers, was to bring greater harmony to the full, vast range of British imperial possessions, and greater security to the British subjects who lived in them. The view from North America was different, and often opposed; one nation’s pacifism was another’s bellicosity. The war came, and shockingly, the Continentals won it. But many British officials understood the loss of the rebellious North American colonies less as a fatal blow than as the high price of success, an object lesson that would prove instructive in South Asia, the Antipodes, and Africa.

Britain lost only parts of America—thirteen of twenty-six colonies on the western side of the Atlantic. 11 The Union Jack continued to fly over great swaths of the North American mainland, from Halifax to the upper Mississippi. For decades, the continent simmered with tension between those who professed fealty to King George and those who declared themselves independent citizens of the American republic. In 1812, those tensions boiled over in a second Anglo-American civil war. 12

Britain also retained the islands of the West Indies, the glittering jewels in the empire’s crown. Long before the Revolution, the price fetched by Caribbean sugar dwarfed the value of all other streams of colonial tribute: tobacco, rice, and indigo from Virginia and the Carolinas; wheat and naval stores from the mid-Atlantic; lumber and salted fish from New England and the Maritime provinces. Losing the colonies from New Hampshire to Georgia was, in part, the cost of defending the Greater and Lesser Antilles—a cost the British government was willing to bear. 13

The strategic and economic importance of Jamaica, Barbados, and Britain’s other Caribbean possessions was proportional not only to the sugar they produced, but to the African men and women they consumed. The Crown’s commitment to holding the West Indies reminds us of the centrality of the Atlantic slave system to the metropolis and its colonies. What David Brion Davis decades ago labeled “the problem of slavery in the Age of Revolution” became the central moral dilemma of the age, on both sides of the Atlantic. 14 “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?” Samuel Johnson pondered in 1775. Slavery, not taxation, was the real tyranny, he insisted. 15 The pervasive language of liberty, along with the disruptions of wartime, energized the freedom struggle of Africans and their descendants in the New World. A vocal minority of men and women of European descent—particularly in the former colonies that depended least upon slave labor—likewise became troubled by the existence of slavery in a land where nature’s god had created all men equal. Meanwhile, invoking their rights to property, slaveholders in the plantation colonies redoubled their commitment to a system of forced labor that had once seemed natural, but now required an increasingly elaborate legal and intellectual defense.

In addition to national, imperial, and Atlantic views, many of the chapters in this Handbook offer what we might call a continental perspective on the Revolution, placing contests over the lands of the North American interior front and center. These struggles were not new in the 1770s. Britain, France, and their native allies and enemies had warred over the heart of the continent numerous times, most spectacularly in the great war for empire that concluded in 1763. So, too, indigenous Americans, settler-colonists, and speculators had skirmished over land claims in the backcountry for generations, and did so with increasing frequency after the Peace of Paris transferred control of all lands east of the Mississippi to Britain. In what Daniel Richter calls “the shared Euro-Indian transatlantic imperial world” before 1763, the balance of power in inland North America had been complex, shifting, and multisided. 16 Native leaders held many trump cards in the game. After 1763, the game grew simpler and starker. In Indian country as in the colonies, positions hardened and new lines were drawn. A new generation of indigenous prophets called for pan-Indian solidarity among the continent’s “red” men, while a new generation of settler-speculators rallied “whites” against Indians. For some Euro-Americans, anti-Indian hatred and the rejection of the British monarch came to be one and the same. The Declaration of Independence thus spoke in soaring terms of the equality of all humanity, yet also accused George III of having “endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers…merciless Indian savages.” 17

By focusing on contested North American frontiers, several of the Handbook chapters suggest a significant shift in the core narrative of the Revolution. The familiar tale of money and politics—taxation and representation—is joined and made more complex by stories focused on territorial sovereignty and native dispossession. At a treaty conference in Easton, Pennsylvania, in 1757, Teedyuscung, a leader of the eastern Delaware, summarized this facet of the conflict succinctly: “The Land is the Cause of our Differences,” he explained—“that is our being unhappily turned out of the land is the cause.” That year the Delaware won concessions by pitting the interests of the “Great King across the Water” against those of colonial governors nearer at hand. After the Seven Years’ War, room for such negotiations diminished sharply. British settlers poured into the backcountry. Teedyuscung was murdered in 1763, in an arson attack on his cabin that spread to consume twenty other buildings in the town of Wyoming, on the banks of the Susquehanna River, in Pennsylvania’s northeastern corner. Warriors from the Iroquois Confederacy were blamed for the killing, but historians now think the likelier culprits were agents of Connecticut’s Susquehanna Land Company, who less than two weeks after Teedyuscung’s death began settling the acres on which his village had stood. 18 In the years ahead, the war between natives, settlers, and rulers over their competing claims to American territory would overspread much of the continent.

American origins stories need new settings, then, and new narratives as well. A focus on the worlds beyond what came, in the nineteenth century, to be called “the original thirteen colonies” reminds us that there was far more pluribus than unum in colonial North America, even in British North America. The struggle to craft a nation from this fluid, polyglot, bumptious multitude was protracted and violent, a bloody civil war that raged from Halifax to Havana and embroiled much of Europe from 1775 through 1782.

The Long Revolution

If the where of the Revolution has become increasingly ambiguous, the when likewise presents new challenges. Although there are some very clear turning points—the end of the Seven Years’ War (1763), the Stamp Act (1765), the fighting at Lexington and Concord (1775), the formal declaring of independence (1776), the Peace of Paris (1783), the ratification of a federal constitution (1789)—the time line for the Revolutionary era remains elusive. But one impulse seems clear: contemporary scholars are inclined to see the American Revolution less in terms of a series of discreet, momentous turning points and more in terms of the longue durée : a swath of historical time, lasting half a century or more, characterized by many of the phenomena and processes commonly attributed to a much narrower Revolutionary time line. Many of the changes scholars once made synonymous with the Revolution started much earlier, or were completed much later, or both.

Take American independence, for example. For decades before the Seven Years’ War, many imperial thinkers had argued that the combined forces of economy, geography, and demography made the eventual independence of the American colonies inevitable. Yet for even the most rebellious British colonists in the 1770s, prospect of independence seemed terrifying. As late as March 1776, John Adams called “Independency…an Hobgoblin, of so frightful Mein, that it would throw a delicate Person into Fits to look it in the Face.” 19 The congeries of men and women who mustered the courage to stare that hobgoblin down were shifting and fluid in their composition and their interests; their unity was sometimes opportunistic and often illusory.

In sum, the patriots’ “glorious cause” comprised many causes, which only sometimes intersected. The declaration in July 1776 that “these United Colonies” were and ought to be “Free and Independent States” was far more surprising than it was predestined.

For people of color, women, and white men without property, it was perhaps less surprising than disappointing. For these Americans, independence remained an abstraction for decades—and in some cases centuries—after the Revolution’s end. Relatively few of them came away from the Revolutionary years with all that republican citizenship promised. Many lacked the right to vote or to hold property; a substantial minority continued to be considered as property, human chattel in an empire for liberty, as Jefferson called it. Indeed, in some respects there seemed to be two distinct revolutions—one democratic, plural, and plebeian; the second, controlled, uniform, and elite. In many spheres of life, from law and public policy to marriage and sexuality, the new nation experienced what Rosemarie Zagarri has called a “Revolutionary backlash” in the 1780s and 1790s. 20

For the United States as a nation among nations, independence was similarly fraught. America came into being in part because it was recognized as such by powerful European states. But what exactly did this recognition mean? Did the United States in fact conclude its Revolution a free and independent member of the community of Atlantic nations? As with so many other cherished chestnuts of national memory, upon close examination this one turns out to be only partly true. The United States may have been independent of the legislative authority of Parliament or the sovereign authority of the monarch, but they were not ultimately free from the British Empire.

Perhaps the most profound indication of just how tenuous American independence was comes from the framers of the Constitution. Although they agreed on very little, one thing was clear to virtually all the participants in the laborious process of reform that began in the spring of 1787: under the Articles of Confederation, the Continental Congress would be unable to insure the security of the new American republic. Much like the small, weak states that preceded them, the United States would have to form a much stronger union. As James Madison observed, throughout history “feeble communities, independent of each other, have resorted to Union…for the common safety ag[ain]st powerful neighbors, and for the preservation of peace and justice among themselves.” 21 The very foundation of America’s federal republic, that is, was partly driven by the tenuousness of American independence.

If many scholars now approach American independence with a certain amount of caution, they insist upon similar complexity when it comes to the matter of the era’s politics and government. Here, too, contemporary historians find continuity where a generation ago historians more often tended to find rupture. To be sure, the state and federal republics the Americans created rested on a profound redistribution of political authority. Yet the shift in power from the king-in-Parliament to the people had begun well before the Revolution’s first battles. In Massachusetts, for instance, that story is a long one—beginning decades before the Revolution and culminating in the kind of direct democracy that came to be practiced there as the colony became a state. In Virginia, new patterns of popular political participation emerged in the 1760s in response to local events, and shaped the political process that ultimately led to independence. In these and other colonial locales, much that is revolutionary about the American Revolution—the transfer of governing authority from an imperial regime to the people themselves—had begun years before independence was actually declared.

When it comes to political change, exactly what can be attributed to the events that unfolded between 1775 and 1789? The question becomes even more pressing when we recognize, as Bernard Bailyn, Gordon Wood, and others began to do in the 1960s, that the ideologies and conceptual frames through which many Americans interpreted Revolutionary events had their origins in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Britain. 22 From the English Civil War through the early years of the Hanoverian dynasty, Britons in the home islands plumbed the shortcomings of monarchy as thoroughly as did British subjects in the distant American colonies—indeed, more so. As the eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher David Hume observed in 1742, well before the first stirrings of revolution in America, “the mere name of King commands little respect; and to talk of a king as God’s vice regent upon earth, or to give him any of these magnificent titles which formerly dazzled mankind, would but excite laughter in any one.” Few carried such thinking to the extreme of imagining a world without kings. But for the Americans, that leap was made possible, at least in part, by a transatlantic political culture that saw monarchs as no more sacred or divinely ordained than any other element of England’s mixed constitution. 23

If the republic Americans created emerged from the fertile soil of pre-Revolutionary Anglo-American political thought, how novel was the United States? Did its creation, as Thomas Paine famously hoped, in fact “begin the world over again?” 24 For many observers, Paine included, the answer suggests historical continuity as much as revolutionary rupture. The Americans may not have created a constitutional monarchy built upon the economic foundation of overseas colonies. But they did create an empire—not a colonizing, oceanic empire like its British counterpart, but an empire nonetheless. Through war, settlement, and trade, the new nation slowly extended its territorial claims across North America. To the chagrin of many Americans, the Continental Congress and the union that replaced it only seemed to encourage this empire building. As one opponent of the Constitution warned, “It is the opinion of the ablest writers on the subject, that no extensive empire can be governed upon republican principles, and that such a government will degenerate to a despotism.” 25

In the immediate aftermath of the war, such fears were compounded by the simple fact that American empire faced an imperial arena populated by old hands. Britain, in particular, would come out of the Revolution with its imperial ambitions almost fully intact. The “American War” had little enduring impact on politics in Britain. 26 With the help of the French Revolution and America’s former friend, Edmund Burke, the British government was able to quash most reformist sentiment at home and freely pursue imperial ambitions abroad. Indeed, the British Empire may actually have emerged from the American War a stronger, more nimble entity. For a succession of American administrations, struggling to fend off British intrusions in the far West and at sea, it may at times have seemed as if the American colonies’ subordinate status as colonies had been only nominally challenged. As Eliga Gould has suggested, Britain retained in America “an informal empire, one based on the commercial supremacy of British ships and goods, on regional networks of British satellites and tributary allies, and on Britain’s ability to impose its own conceptions of international law and order on other governments and peoples.” 27 American independence remained incomplete independence for decades, if not for centuries. Novus ordo seclorum ? Yes and no.

An Ongoing Revolution

“The American Revolution was not a common event,” John Adams wrote to the Baltimore printer Hezekiah Niles in February 1818. “Its effects and consequences have been awful over a great part of the globe,” and rippled still. “But what do we mean by the American Revolution?” he asked. “Do we mean the American War?” Certainly not; “the Revolution was effected before the war commenced.” The Revolution was not won on the battlefield, or cemented in the halls of Congress. No, Adams argued, a “ radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution. ” In place of the old hierarchical bonds that constituted British society, Americans had created new fraternal ones, linking human beings in a common polity.

Understanding this slow and subtle reformation “in the minds and hearts of the people” would be, Adams explained, the obligation of American historians. “By what means this great and important alteration in the religious, moral, political, and social character of the people of thirteen colonies, all distinct, unconnected, and independent of each other, was begun, pursued, and accomplished, it is surely interesting to humanity to investigate, and perpetuate to posterity.” Adams could imagine no better occupation for the “young gentlemen of letters in all the states, especially in the thirteen original states,” than “to undertake the laborious, but certainly interesting and amusing, task of searching and collecting all the records, pamphlets, newspapers, and even handbills which in any way contributed to change the temper and views of the people and compose them into an independent nation.” 28

At the end of Adams’s long and eventful life, fifty years to the day after the Declaration was signed, that labor had barely begun. Nearly two centuries later, ladies as well as gentlemen pursue it, in the original thirteen colonies, across the United States, and around the globe. Readers will find in this volume grounds for continued debate and discussion, as well as wide-ranging expertise and a healthy dose of good old-fashioned storytelling. Together and separately, these thirty-three chapters demonstrate that the American Revolution remains as vibrant and inviting a subject of scholarly inquiry as it was in John Adams’s day. In this Handbook and beyond, the work continues.

1. For examples of oceanic and hemispheric perspectives on the history of the Americas during the Revolutionary era see J. H. Elliott , Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America, 1492–1830 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), pt. 3 ; Kären Wigen et al. , “ Forum : Oceans of History,” American Historical Review 111, no. 3 (June 2006): 717–780 ; Eliga H. Gould , “Entangled Histories, Entangled Worlds: The English-Speaking Atlantic as a Spanish Periphery,” American Historical Review 112, no. 3 (2007): 764–786 ; and David Armitage , “Three Concepts of Atlantic History,” in The British Atlantic World, 1500–1800, ed. David Armitage and Michael J. Braddick (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 11–27 . The continental perspective is well represented in Alan Taylor , American Colonies: The Settling of North America (New York: Viking/Penguin, 2001), esp. pt. 3 ; and Daniel K. Richter , Before the Revolution: America’s Ancient Pasts (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011) .

2. Daniel T. Rodgers , “Republicanism: The Career of a Concept,” Journal of American History 79, no. 1 (June 1992): 25 . For evidence that little changed in the ensuing decade and a half see Thomas Slaughter , “Plus Ça Change…,” Reviews in American History 34, no. 3 (September 2007): 291–506 ; and Staunton Lynd et al. , “ Forum: Economics and American Independence,” William and Mary Quarterly , 3rd ser., vol. 68, no. 4 (October 2011): 597–656 .

3. For an exploration of recent developments in eighteenth-century American cultural history see Michael Meranze , “Culture and Governance: Reflections on the Cultural History of Eighteenth-Century British America,” William and Mary Quarterly , 3rd ser., vol. 65, no. 4 (October 2008): 713–744 .

4. Important implications of this return to institutional history are explored in William J. Novak , “The Myth of the ‘Weak’ American State,” American Historical Review 113, no. 3 (June 2008): 752–772 .

5. See, for examples, Eliga H. Gould and Peter Onuf , eds., Empire and Nation: The American Revolution in the Atlantic World (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005) ; David Armitage , The Declaration of Independence: A Global History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007) ; Wim Klooster , Revolutions in the Atlantic World: A Comparative History (New York: NYU Press, 2009) ; and David Armitage and Sanjay Subrahmanyam , eds., The Age of Revolutions in a Global Context (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) .

6. The classic example is Edmund S. Morgan , The Birth of the Republic (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956) ; but see also, more recently, works as different in their interpretations of the Revolution as Gordon S. Wood , The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States (New York: Penguin, 2011) ; and Gary B. Nash , The Unknown American Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America (New York: Viking/Penguin, 2005) . Many other titles contain the word “origins,” including, famously, Bernard Bailyn , The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967) ; and, more recently and ideologically opposed, Woody Holton , Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution (New York: Hill & Wang, 2007) .

7. Brendan Simms , Three Victories and a Defeat: The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire, 1714–1783 (New York: Basic Books, 2009) , 1. See also H. T. Dickinson , ed., Britain and the American Revolution (New York: Longman, 1998) ; and Stephen Conway , The British Isles and the War of American Independence (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000) .

8. Maya Jasanoff , Edge of Empire: Lives, Culture, and Conquest in the East, 1750–1850 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 20 .

9. Burke quoted in P. J. Marshall , The Making and Unmaking of Empires: Britain, India, and America c. 1750–1783 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 204 .

10. Eliga H. Gould, “Fears of War, Fantasies of Peace: British Politics and the Coming of the American Revolution,” in Gould and Onuf, Empire and Nation , 19–35, quotation at 20; see also Gould , The Persistence of Empire: British Political Culture in the Age of the American Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000) ; and Jack P. Greene , The Constitutional Origins of the American Revolution (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011) .

11. Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy , An Empire Divided: The American Revolution and the British Caribbean (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000) .

12. Alan Taylor , The Civil War of 1812 : American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, and Indian Allies (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010) ; Maya Jasanoff , Liberty’s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011) .

O’Shaughnessy, Empire Divided ; and David Geggus, “The Caribbean in the Age of Revolution,” in Armitage and Subrahmanyam, Age of Revolution , 83–100.

14. David Brion Davis , The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770–1823 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1975) . See also Christopher Leslie Brown , Moral Capital: The Foundations of British Abolitionism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006) . The classic statement of the vexed relationship between slavery and freedom in American history remains Edmund S. Morgan , American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia (New York: W. W. Norton, 1975) .

15.   Samuel Johnson , Taxation No Tyranny; An Answer to the Resolutions and Address of the American Congress (London: printed for T. Cadell, 1775), 89 .

16. Daniel K. Richter , Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of North America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 188 .

17. Peter Silver , Our Savage Neighbors: How Indian War Transformed Early America (New York: W. W. Norton, 2007) ; and Nancy Shoemaker , A Strange Likeness: Becoming Red and White in Eighteenth-Century North America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004) . See also Colin G. Calloway , The Scratch of a Pen: 1763 and the Transformation of North America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006) .

18. Teedyuscung quoted in E. B. O’Callaghan , ed., Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New-York: Procured in Holland, England, and France , vol. 7 (Albany, NY: Weed, Parsons and Co., Printers, 1856), 300–301 . On his death see Anthony F. C. Wallace , King of the Delawares: Teedyuscung, 1700–1763 (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990), esp. 258–263 .

19. John Adams to Horatio Gates, Philadelphia, 23 March 1776, in Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774–1789 , 26 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1976–2000), ed. Paul H. Smith , vol. 3, 429–432 . See also Benjamin H. Irvin, “Independence before and during the Revolution,” chapter 8, this volume.

20. Rosemarie Zagarri , Revolutionary Backlash: Women and Politics in the Early American Republic (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007) .

21. “Preface to the Debates in the Convention,” in James Madison , Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 Reported by James Madison (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1966), 3 . See also Max M. Edling, “A More Perfect Union: The Framing and Ratification of the Constitution,” chapter 21, this volume.

22. Bailyn, Ideological Origins ; Gordon S. Wood , The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969) ; and Jack P. Greene , ed., The Reinterpretation of the American Revolution, 1763–1789 (New York: Harper & Row, 1968) .

23. Quoted in Hannah Arendt , On Revolution (1963; paperback ed., New York: Viking, 1965), 113 .

24. Common Sense , in Thomas Paine: Collected Writings, ed. Eric Foner (New York: Library of America, 1995), 52 .

25. James Winthrop , “The Agrippa Letters,” letter 4, December 3, 1787, excerpted in Colonies to Nation, 1763–1789: A Documentary History of the American Revolution , ed. Jack P. Greene (New York: W. W. Norton, 1975), 560 .

Dickinson, Britain and the American Revolution , esp. 20–22.

Eliga H. Gould, “The Empire That Britain Kept,” chapter 25, this volume.

Adams to Hezekiah Niles, February 13, 1818, in Works of John Adams , ed. Charles Francis Adams (1856), 10:282–283, emphasis in original. Available in the Online Library of Liberty, at http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=2127&chapter=193604&layout=html&Itemid=27 .

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American Revolution, also known as Revolutionary War, occurred in the second half of the 18th century. Among its causes was a series of acts established by the Crown. These acts placed taxes on paint, tea, glass, and paper imported to the colonies. As a result of the war, the thirteen American colonies gained independence from the British Crown, thereby creating the United States of America. Whether you need to write an argumentative, persuasive, or discussion paper on the Revolutionary War, this article will be helpful. It contains American Revolution essay examples, titles, and questions for discussion. Boost your critical thinking with us!

• Townshend Acts and the Tea Act as the causes of the American Revolution
• Ideological roots of the American Revolution
• English government and the American colonies before the Revolutionary war
• Revolutionary War: the main participants
• The American Revolution: creating the new constitutions
• Causes and effects of the American Revolution
• Revolutionary War: the key battles

Signifying a cornerstone moment for British colonial politics and the creation of a new, fully sovereign nation, the events from 1765 to 1783 were unusual for the 18th century. Thus, reflecting all the crucial moments within a single American Revolution Essay becomes troublesome to achieve. However, if you keep in mind certain historical events, then you may affect the quality of your paper for the better.

All American Revolution essay topics confine themselves to the situation and its effects. Make sure that you understand the chronology by searching for a timeline, or even create one yourself! Doing so should help you easily trace what date is relevant to which event and, thus, allow you to stay in touch with historical occurrences. Furthermore, understand the continuity of the topic, from the creation of the American colony until the Declaration of Independence. Creating a smooth flowing narrative that takes into consideration both the road to revolution and its aftereffects will demonstrate your comprehensive understanding of the issue.

When writing about the pre-history of the Revolution, pay special attention to ongoing background mechanisms of the time. The surge of patriotism, a strong desire for self-governed democracy, and “Identity American” all did not come into existence at the Boston Tea Party but merely demonstrated themselves most clearly at that time. Linking events together will become more manageable if you can understand the central motivation behind them.

Your structure is another essential aspect of essay writing, with a traditional outline following the events in chronological order, appropriately overviewing them when necessary. Thus, an excellent structure requires that your introduction should include:

• An American Revolution essay hook, which will pique your readers’ interest and make them want to read your work further. Writing in unexpected facts or giving a quote from a contemporary actor of the events, such as one of the founding fathers, are good hook examples because they grab your readers’ attention.
• A brief overview of the circumstances. It should be both in-depth enough to get your readers on the same level of knowledge as you, the writer, and short enough to engage them in your presented ideas.
• An American Revolution essay thesis that will guide your paper from introduction to conclusion. Between overviewing historical information and interest-piquing hooks, your thesis statement should be on-point and summarize the goal of your essay. When writing, you should often return to it, assessing whether the topics you are addressing are reflective of your paper’s goals.

Whatever issues you raise in your introduction and develop in your main body, you should bring them all together in your conclusion. Summarize your findings and compare them against your thesis statement. Doing so will help you carry out a proper verdict regarding the problem and its implications.

The research you have carried out and the resulting compiled bibliography titles will help you build your essay’s credibility. However, apart from reading up on the problem you are addressing, you should think about reading other sample essays. These may not only help you get inspired but also give excellent American Revolution essay titles and structure lessons. Nevertheless, remember that plagiarizing from these papers, or anywhere else, is not advisable! Avoid committing academic crimes and let your own ideas be representative of your academism.

Want to sample some essays to get your essay started? Kick-start your writing process with IvyPanda and its ideas!

• The American Revolution and Its Effects It is an acknowledgeable fact that the American Revolution was not a social revolution like the ones that were experienced in France, Russia or China, but it was a social revolution that was aimed at […]
• Abigail Adams in American Revolution The presidency is a highly celebrated position and in her husband’s capacity, she was elevated to the eyes of the whole nation.
• Summary of “Abraham Lincoln” and “The Second American Revolution” by James M. McPherson According to McPherson, the war, that is, the Civil War, was aimed at bringing about liberty and ensuring the extension of protection to the citizenry which he had a clue of the fact that the […]
• The Shoemaker and the Tea Party: Memory and the American Revolution: Book Analysis Even these facts from the author’s biography make “The Shoemaker and the Tea Party” a reliable source of the knowledge on the American past.”The Shoemaker and the Tea Party” is based on the story of […]
• Sex During the American Revolution American Revolution is one of the most prominent and groundbreaking events in the history of the United States of America. One of the most interesting facts from the video was the usage of clothing and […]
• The Heroes of the American Revolution However, their role was forgotten by the emergence of heroes such as Washington and Adams, white men who reformed the country.
• American Revolution: Principles and Consequences One expanded the number of lands of the young country due to the confiscation of territories that were under the possession of the English government and loyalists, that is, people supporting the crown.
• The American Revolution’s Goals and Achievements The Patriots’ goals in the War, as well as the achievements of the revolution and the first Constitution in relation to different groups of population will be discussed in this essay.
• Haudenosaunee’s Role in the American Revolution They also signed treaties in relation to the support needed by the Americans and the Indians to avoid the conflicts that arose between the nations.
• Causes and Foundations of the American Revolution Speaking about what led to the revolution in the United States – the Boston Massacre, the Tea Party, or the Stamp Act – the most rational reason seems to be the result of all these […]
• The American Revolution: Role of the French The revolutionary war became the fundamental event in the history of the USA. For this reason, the rebellion in America became a chance to undermine the power of the British Empire and restore the balance […]
• The Unknown American Revolution: Book Review In his book, Gary unveiled that the American Revolution’s chaos was through the power of Native Americans, enslaved people, and African Americans, not the people in power. The book boldly explains the origins of the […]
• Causes of the American Revolution: Proclamation & Declaration Acts The Proclamation was initially well-received among the American colonists because of the emancipation of the land and the cessation of hostilities.
• The American Revolution and Its Leading Causes Two acts passed by the British Parliament on British North America include the Stamp Act and the Townshend Act, which caused the Boston Massacre.
• A Woman’s Role During the American Revolution Doing so, in the opinion of the author, is a form of retribution to the people long gone, the ones who sacrificed their lives in honor of the ideals that, in their lifetime, promised a […]
• The Battles of the American Revolution The initial cause of the battle is the desire of the British to take over the harbors in Massachusetts. The battle of Bunker Hill marked the end of the peaceful rebellions and protests and became […]
• American Revolution’s Domestic and Worldwide Effects The American Revolution was a world war against one of the world’s most powerful empires, Great Britain, and a civil war between the American Patriots and the pro-British Loyalists. The main domestic effects of the […]
• Changes Leading to the Colonies to Work Together During the American Revolution Ideally, the two settlements formed the basis of the significant social, political, and economic differences between the northern and southern colonies in British North America.
• American Revolution: Seven Years War in 1763 As a result of the passing the Tea Act in 1773 British East India company was allowed to sell tea directly to the colonist, by passing the colonists middlemen.
• The History of American Revolution and Slavery At the same time, the elites became wary of indentured servants’ claim to the land. The American colonies were dissatisfied with the Royal Proclamation of 1763 it limited their ability to invade new territories and […]
• The Experience of the American Revolution One of such events was the American Revolution, which lasted from 1775 to 1783; it created the independent country of the United States, changed the lives of thousands of people, and gave them the real […]
• Causes of the American Revolution Whereas we cannot point to one particular action as the real cause of the American Revolution, the war was ignited by the way Great Britain treated the thirteen united colonies in comparison to the treatment […]
• American Revolution Rise: Utopian Views Therefore, the problem is that “the dedication to human liberty and dignity exhibited by the leaders of the American Revolution” was impossible because American society “…developed and maintained a system of labor that denied human […]
• Impact of American Revolution on the French One After the success of the American Revolution, there was a lot of literature both in praise and criticism of the war which found its way to the French people.
• The Leadership in Book ‘Towards an American Revolution’ by J. Fresia It’s an indication of the misuse of the people by the leaders in a bid to bar them from enlightenment and also keep them in manipulative positions.
• American Revolution Information People in the colonies were enslaved in tyranny of churches as well as monarchies, and Benjamin, believed that with proper undertaking of education, the colonies would arise to their freedom and Independence.
• American Revolution: An Impact on the Nation The American Revolution can be characterized as one of the milestone events in American history which led to the formation of the state and the nation.
• Benjamin Franklin and the American Revolution Radical interpretations of the Revolution were refracted through a unique understanding of American society and its location in the imperial community.
• The American Revolution U.S. History But at the end the pride of the English King as well as the desperation of the English monarchy forced the hand of the settlers to draw the sword.
• The American Revolution From 1763 to 1777 In America 1763 marked the end of a seven-year war which was known as the India and French war and also marked the beginning of the strained as well as acrimonious relations between the Americans […]
• The History of American Revolution The American Revolution refers to a period between1763 and 1784 when the events in the 13th American colonies culminated in independence from the British colonial rule.
• American Revolution: Causes and Conservative Movement To ease workplace stress, managers must be able to recognize the effects of stress on employees and to determine the cause.
• Figures of the American Revolution in «The Shoemaker and the Tea Party» The book The Shoemaker and the Tea Party by Alfred Young is a biographical essay describing events of the 18th century and life one of the most prominent figures of the American Revolution, George Robert […]
• The American Revolution Causes: English and American Views The American Revolution was brought about by the transformations in the American government and society. The taxes were not welcome at all since they brought about a lot of losses to the colonies.
• American Revolution and Its Historical Stages The following paragraphs are devoted to the description of the stages that contributed to a rise of the revolution against British rule.
• The American Revolution and Political Legitimacy Evolution At the beginning of the article, the Anderson highlights Forbes magazine comments where they stated that the businesses that would continue to feature in the future Forbes directory are the ones that head the activists’ […]
• American Revolution: Perspective of a Soldier Revolution became the event that radically changed the American society of that period and, at the same time, contributed to its unification.
• American Revolution and the Current Issues: Course The understanding of the critical issues in the history of the American Revolution will make the students intellectually understand the subsequent wars in American History and the events that may occur later.
• American Revolution in the United States’ History Americans had a very strong desire to be free and form their own government that would offer the kind of governance they wanted.
• Vietnam War and American Revolution Comparison Consequently, the presence of these matters explains the linkage of the United States’ war in Vietnam and the American Revolution to Mao’s stages of the insurgency.
• American Revolution in Historical Misrepresentation Narrating the good side of history at the expense of the bad side passes the wrong information to the students of history.
• American Revolution Against British Power They considered the fashions and customs of the British to be the best in the world; they sent their children to London for education, and they were very proud of the constitutional monarchy that governed […]
• The American Revolution as a People’s Revolution An idealized conception of a revolution leads to the conclusion that the American Revolution was not a representation of a “people’s revolution”.
• Battle of Brandywine in the American Revolution The Squad’s mission is to reconnoiter the location of the enemy during the night before the battle and prevent the possible unexpected attack of the enemy by enhancing the Principles of War.
• African Americans in the American Revolution Both the slave masters and the British colonizers sought the help of the African Americans during the American Revolution. The revolutionary nature of the American Revolution did not resonate with both the free and enslaved […]
• Post American Revolution Period: Washington Presidency The formation of the National Government during the years of 1789-1815 was associated with many challenging situations, and it was characterized by the opposition of the Federalists and Republicans, among which the important roles were […]
• American Revolution: Reclaiming Rights and Powers As a result, British Government Pursued policies of the kind embodied in the proclamation of the 1763 and the Quebec act that gave Quebec the right to many Indian lands claimed by the American colonists […]
• Women Status after the American Revolution This revolution enabled women to show men that females could participate in the social life of the society. Clearly, in the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century women were given only […]
• American Revolution of 1774 First of all, one of the main causes of the conflict and the following confrontation between the British power and the colonies was the disagreement about the way these colonies should be treated and viewed.
• Impact of Rebellion on the American Revolution The rebellion was retrogressive to the cause of the American Revolution because it facilitated the spread of the ruling class and further hardened the position of the ruling class regarding the hierarchical arrangement of slavery.
• Liberty! The American Revolution The thirteen colonies were not strangers to the oppressions and intolerable acts of the British parliament. The oppressions of the colonies by the British became a regular occurrence and the people sought a solution.
• Was the American Revolution Really Revolutionary? The nature of the American Revolution is considered to be better understandable relying on the ideas offered by Wood because one of the main purposes which should be achieved are connected with an idea of […]
• The American Struggle for Rights and Equal Treatment To begin with, the Americans had been under the rule of the British for a very long time. On the same note, the British concentrated on taxing various establishments and forgot to read the mood […]
• African American Soldier in American Revolution It was revealed that the blacks were behind the American’s liberation from the British colonial rule, and this was witnessed with Ned Hector’s brevity to salvage his army at the battle of Brandywine.
• The Revolutionary War Changes in American Society The Revolution was started by the breakaway of the 13 American Colonies from the British Crown. A significant consequence of the American Revolution is that it led to the drafting of the Declaration of Independence […]
• American Revolution and the Crisis of the Constitution of the USA In whole, the American people paving the way to independence have to face challenges in the form of restricted provisions of Constitution, wrong interpretation and understanding of the American Revolution, and false representation of conservative […]
• American Revolutionary War: Causes and Outcomes The colonists vehemently objected to all the taxes, and claimed that Parliament had no right to impose taxes on the colonies since the colonists were not represented in the House of Commons.
• Effects of the American Revolution on Society In order for the women to fulfill, the role they needed to be educated first thus the emphasis of education for them in what came to be known as Republican Motherhood. Women faced limitations in […]
• The Ideas of Freedom and Slavery in Relation to the American Revolution Although many Founders discussed the phenomenon of slavery as violating the appeals for freedom and liberty for the Americans, the concepts of slavery and freedom could develop side by side because the Founders did not […]
• French and Indian War, the American Revolution, and the War of 1812 In the course of the war, a peace treaty was signed in 1763 where the Britons acquired most of the territory that belonged to the French.
• The American Revolution and Independence Day Celebration This article will help us understand the American Revolution and determine whether Americans have a reason to celebrate Independency Day every Fourth of July or not, whether all American supported the war, and whether the […]
• American Women and the American Revolution Women’s standing, as much as they, in point of fact, turned out to be narrower and inflexibly defined subsequent to the war, was enhanced.
• The American War of Independence The American Revolution denotes the social, political and intellectual developments in the American states, which were characterized by political upheaval and war. The move by the colonizers seemed unpopular to the colonists and a violation […]
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• The Reasons Why People Chose to Be Loyalist During the American Revolution
• Identity: American Revolution and Colonies
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• The Men Who Started the American Revolution
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• Cultural Differences, the Ineffectiveness of England’s Colonial Policy, and the Effects of the French and Indian War as the Causes of the American Revolution
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• George Washington and the American Revolution
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• British and American Strengths in the American Revolution
• American Revolution and How the Colonists Achieved Victory
• What Was The Catalyst Of The American Revolution?
• Was the American Revolution a Conservative Movement?
• How Inevitable Was the American Revolution?
• Was the American Revolution Inevitable?
• Was the American Civil War and Reconstruction a Second American Revolution?
• How did the French and Indian War shape the American Revolution?
• What Were the Origins of the American Revolution?
• Why Did Tensions Between Great Britain and their North American Colonies Escalate so Quickly in the Wake of the French and Indian War?
• How the American Revolution Changed American Society?
• Was the American Revolution About Freedom and Political Liberty, or Just About Paying Fewer Taxes?
• Why Was American Revolution Unjust?
• How America and Great Britain Benefited from the American Revolution?
• Was The American Revolution A British Loss or An American Victory?
• How Did the American Revolution Impact Concordians, and Americans, not just Physically but Emotionally and Politically?
• Was the American Revolution Moderate or Radical?
• How Radical Was the American Revolution?
• Did the American Revolution Follow the Broad Pattern of Revolutions?
• How Did The American Revolution Affect Slaves And Women?
• How Did the American Revolution Get Started?
• How England Instigated the American Revolution?
• Who Benefited Most from the American Revolution?
• How Did People Contribute to the Political and Grassroots Areas to Gain Support of the American Revolution?
• Was the American Revolution the Fault of the United States or England?
• Was the American Revolution a Genuine Revolution?
• How Did Labor Change After The American Revolution?
• Did The American Revolution Help Spur The French Revolution?
• How Freemasonry Steered the American Revolution and the Revolutionary War?
• How Outrageous Taxation Lead to the American Revolution?
• How American Revolution Affect Natives?
• Is British Oppression: The Cause of the American Revolution?
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American Revolution - List of Essay Samples And Topic Ideas

The American Revolution, a pivotal period from 1765 to 1783, led to the thirteen American colonies’ independence from British rule. Essays could delve into the various factors that contributed to the revolution, the key battles, and notable figures who played significant roles. They might also explore the ideological underpinnings of the revolutionaries, the impact of Enlightenment thought, and the subsequent formulation of a new governmental system. Discussions might further extend to the revolution’s global repercussions, its effect on American society, and the enduring legacy of the values and institutions established during this period. A vast selection of complimentary essay illustrations pertaining to American Revolution you can find in Papersowl database. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

Women after the American Revolution

Although the Revolutionary War provided a new perspective of women’s roles in politics and the household, there was not lasting change after the end of the war. Coverture is the status that a woman is essentially property of her husband, and is to remain under his command. During the post-revolutionary era, ideas of coverture still existed in America, even if new rights given to women began to spark their want for equality. Before the American Revolution, women had a very […]

Was the American Revolution Really Revolutionary?

During the Age of Revolution (1774-1849), many revolutionary movements occurred in Europe and the Americas. One of the most revolutionary revolutions was the French Revolution, a period of social and political upheaval in France that resulted in an upswing of nationalism, as well as the decline of monarchies and the rise of Democracy. The entire political and social structure of France was overthrown as a result of The French Revolution, making it one of the most radical revolutions of its […]

Was the Revolutionary War Actually Revolutionary?

The Revolutionary War could perhaps be called the greatest thing to ever happen to us. But, was it really? Just how revolutionary was the Revolutionary War? Some may say it was extremely revolutionary but, was it even revolutionary at all? This subject is very contradictory to various groups of people . To some it was very revolutionary but to others at just a glance it was revolutionary but, once you take a deeper look you'd find it was not very […]

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Why was the American Revolution a Conservative Movement?

The American Revolution is often analyzed by historians as a conservative movement to maintain the status quo. However, the American Revolution was partially conservative and partially liberal, contributing to the nuance of the issue. Politically, the revolution was revolutionary because the governmental institutions that resulted from it were radically different than the inherited governmental systems of Great Britain. These governmental establishments amplified Enlightenment ideas and divided sovereignty (federalism), notably different from Britain’s political system. Additionally, the Bill of Rights was […]

Role of Women in the American Revolutionary War

The achievements of men usually overshadow the role of women in the history of America. However, women have been very important in establishing liberal America that people live in today. The accomplishments of women in the American revolutionary war is hardly reported in historical books. During the American Revolution (1775-1783), women played a role in a variety of ways, including the creation of organizations, becoming camp followers, and by gathering intelligence for the Patriot cause. One of the roles of […]

Nation-state Building in the United States

Nation-state Building in the United States from the American Revolution to the Civil War Era A major component of Nation-state building in the U.S included and started with westward expansion. There was a collective belief that God had foreordained the United States to cover the entire continent, thus began the territorial expansion of the U.S.; which was pursued under the doctrine of manifest destiny. The initial westward expansion conquest, beyond the original thirteen colonies, was the Ohio River Valley, but […]

Three Phases of American Revolution

What were the three phases of American revolution? What were the developments in the three phases of American revolution during the seventeenth century? How did the three phases of American revolution evolve? In 1754, war erupted on the North American continent which was known as the French and Indian War. The fighting lasted until 1763, when Britain and its colonists emerged victorious and seized nearly all French land in North America. The victory, however, only led to growing tensions between […]

Is the American Revolution Radical?

Radical is a word that means change. If something is radical it means a change has occurred. The American Revolution was a war that broke that began in 1775. There was conflict between the colonies and Great Britain. War broke out when the 13 colonies revolted against the Britain rulers. There were many events that made up the revolution. There was chaos all over the 13 colonies. The American revolution brought a lot of change and shaped a new nation. […]

A War of the Thirteen Colonies against Great Britain

Parliament's passage of the Intolerable Acts in 1774 intensified the conflict between the colonies and Great Britain. Americans came to the conclusion that the only solution to their dilemma with the British government was to sever all ties with it. The American Revolution was the radical breakthrough in which the thirteen colonies fought a war against Great Britain in order to become independent. The initiation that caused the American Revolution was the Lexington and Concord in which British troops and […]

The Major Trigger for the American Revolution

The French-Indian War was the major trigger for the American Revolution for independence also referred to as the Seven Years War', the conflict was between France and Great Britain with both countries believing they were the inhibitors of Ohio River Valley. Subsequent to the seven years of disputes and fights over the ownership, Britain won and took victory over the land (Thompson, 2017). Over the next 15 years, the French government yearned for revenge and recovery of its former colonies. […]

How the American Revolution had Influenced on France

The American Revolution had surfaced from the adversary between the British and the American colonists in the New World who were fighting desperately for their independence. The French and Indian War contributed greatly to this fight for independence, as the cost of the war was abundant and prompted the British to initiate harsh taxes on the American colonists, such as the Sugar Act. Along with the high costs, what additionally resulted from the French and Indian War was the French […]

MYP Individuals in Society

The American Revolution was a war that took place between 1775-1783. During this period of time, the British and the 13 colonies fought. Many soldiers and militiamen died either because of diseases, lack of supplies, natural disasters, or battles. The battle of Lexington and Concord was the battle that started the American Revolution. It all started on April 18 when British troops arrived at Boston. They proceeded to take the militia's goods. Luckily, Paul Revere, a patriot, warned the colonists […]

The American Revolution and the United States of America

The American Revolution was the true beginning of the United States of America. The colonists fought the British long and hard for seven years and gained their independence. Many people doubted the colonists, but they persevered and defeated one of the greatest armies in the world. This allowed the colonists to build a nation based off of four main principles: religious tolerance, economic opportunity, self-government, and individual liberty. In the early 1600's, many people began to migrate to the Americas […]

What Lead to the American Revolution

The American Revolution is a major part of our history today. Without the revolution, we would not be where we are today. The reason our country is what it is today is because of the American Revolution. America is its own country because of the revolution. The first settlers came over here in the name of England, but years after, we were fighting against them to become a separate nation. But it all had to start somewhere. What lead up […]

About Women in American Revolution

In our well-developed, better-than-ever society, we are still fighting for women's rights and equality between genders. Waiting for a police officer or a neurologist to arrive, we are usually surprised when we see a woman approaching. While reading an article about the death toll in the Syrian Civil War, we easily assume all late soldiers were males. Does this approach differ from the one that was two hundred and fifty years ago? The role of women was crucial during the […]

American Revolution in United States History

A profound turning point in United States history between the period of 1754-1800 was the American Revolution. It elevated recognition of social inequality, which drove some people and groups to call for the abolition of slavery and greater political democracy in the new state and national governments. This war can be understood in the historical context of Britain's threats to assert stricter authority over the North American colonies, through the imposition of taxes without representation in the British Parliament. This […]

An Eventful Time in American History

An eventful time in American History, full of pride, bloodshed, self-realization, and building of an independent nation. A nation was fought for and built, created things, the very things that make America the great country it is today. A rebellion would change the world, in a matter of nearly a decade of unrest and hostility. The rejection of the British Parliament's authority due to taxation, rising prices of many things needed to sustain life under British rule. Brought about a […]

The American People and the American Revolution

This essay will talk about the main point and details of the American Revolution and American People. Which is where the Americans get Independence from the British. The main topics that it will inform in this essay is the Second Continental Army, the Declaration of Independence, and the Surrender of Yorktown which were important events that lead to Independence of the Americans. Also what the British did to the Americans like taxation with the products they used a lot back […]

American Revolution: Series of Crisis

American Revolution was brought about by a series of crisis between the British colonizers and the Americans. The crisis was caused by various acts made by the colonizers to get taxes from the colonies. This was after the British government was involved in a war between French and Indians which took seven years. The war caused the government to be in a debt because of the soldiers who were employed to fight together with the British government. Imposition of sugar […]

The American Revolution

Role of slaves and Native Americans in the RevolutionThousands of African slaves and the Native American involvement in the fight for independence against the British colonial masters. Most of them were actively involved in the forefront of the war. They refused to stand aside and took the side of the war that they felt had an upper arm in winning and of course the one that offered better terms of their freedom when the war is won. The war was […]

The American Revolution and a Political and Social Partition

It would be agreed that for the British Colonists, the year of 1763 was seen as a great watershed in American History. On that note, throughout the years of 1756-1763, was a time period of salutary neglect that lead to the French and Indian war, in which the British called it the Seven Years War. At first it began as a local war in North America battled by the Colonists against the coalition of the French and Indians, however it […]

Western Constitutionalism and his Influence in the USA

One of the short stories of the West (the American one) appears before us as an exemplary, intense and exalting adventure. In an area of about nine and a half million square kilometers, a handful of men of disparate origins could make their new homeland, the first economic and political power of the planet by dint of determination, heroism and strength. The year 1607 was the year in which the first expeditions were made in Virginia, which did not find […]

About American Revolutionary War

More than two million people lived in the new thirteen original American colonies during the mid-1700s. Some were born naturally in the New World, while others moved to America to create a new home. Many immigrants left Great Britain to come to America. People left for various reasons like religious persecution, war, disease, famine, and some just wanted a fresh start. Many less than fortunate people sold themselves as indentured servants to the wealthy and in return they would receive […]

Many Reasons for the American Revolution

The American Revolution was a very interesting event in American History. It caused many great changes to the way we live. In my opinion, this topic is one of the most fascinating topics in American history because of the many complex pieces that come together to form the story of the revolution and the way that it has affected the way we live our lives today. Although there were many reasons for the American Revolution, a few of the major […]

The American Revolution and Society History

The American Revolution was the thirteen colonies fight for independence from Great Britain that began in 1775 in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. It is considered a revolution because it was the first successful economic and political reformation in a society that served to inspire worldwide revolutions. It occured after the French and Indian War (1745-1763) when a profound feeling of disunity and betrayal was felt among the colonies. During this time the British empire's expansion and large financial debt caused […]

How the American Revolution Led to the French Revolution

In the American Revolution, the thirteen colonies were able to gain independence from Great Britain and an important cause of the victory was the help of the French who made a major impact on the war and were allies of the colonists. They fought together closely and exchanged several ideas, which included thinking that led to the start of the American Revolution. After the war of almost eight years, there were many parts of French culture that had been affected […]

The American and the French Revolutions

The right of revolution was an idea proposed by Enlightenment Philosopher John Locke, which inspired and challenged the colonies in America and the people of France to revolt. Displeased with their current positions with their governments, they mustered up the courage and strength to challenge authority. Through their battles and hardships, both revolutions sought a government that mirrored the Enlightenment beliefs of natural rights, power of the people, and equality. With those goals in mind, they demonstrated the idea that […]

The American Patriots and the American Revolution

Throughout history, many revolutions have occurred and the reasonings behind them are many. Some of these revolutions occur because people want freedom. An example of this type of revolution would be the American Revolution. The American Revolution was a colonial revolt that took place in 1775 through 1783. The American Patriots in the Thirteen Colonies won independence from Great Britain, becoming the United States of America. They defeated the British in the American Revolutionary War which took place between 1775-1783 […]

American Revolution and Nathanael Greene

Nathanael Greene - Nathanael Greene was a Patriot Major General who had extreme military potential from a young age. He was born into a very faithful and determind Quaker family in Rhode Island. Nathanael Greene's family did not believe or agree with military goals. However he ended up choosing the milatary before his family's beliefs. He became the youngest Patriot brigadier general at the age of 34 and reached that rank in one year. Greene was in command of Boston […]

The Effect that the Enlightenment had on the American Revolution

The Declaration of independence, document declaring the US to be independent of the British Crown, signed by the congressional representatives of the Thirteen Colonies, including Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams, and ratified on July 4, 1776. This was just one of the first set of foundation to the united states. Second came the constitution. The Constitution of the United States is a document that embodies the fundamental laws and principles by which the United States is governed. It […]

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How To Write an Essay About American Revolution

Understanding the american revolution.

Before writing an essay about the American Revolution, it is crucial to understand its historical context and significance. The American Revolution, occurring from 1765 to 1783, was a pivotal event in which the Thirteen Colonies in North America won independence from Great Britain and formed the United States. Start by outlining the key events that led to the revolution, including the French and Indian War, the Stamp Act, the Boston Tea Party, and the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Familiarize yourself with the major figures involved, such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and King George III, and understand the ideological underpinnings of the revolution, including concepts of liberty, democracy, and taxation without representation. This foundational knowledge will provide a solid basis for your essay.

Developing a Focused Thesis Statement

A strong essay on the American Revolution should be centered around a clear, concise thesis statement. This statement should present a specific viewpoint or argument about the revolution. For example, you might argue that the American Revolution was primarily a political and ideological revolution rather than just a military conflict, or analyze the impact of the revolution on the development of American political thought. Your thesis will guide the direction of your essay and ensure a structured and coherent analysis.

Gathering Historical Evidence

To support your thesis, gather historical evidence from credible sources. This might include primary sources like letters, speeches, and contemporary accounts, as well as secondary sources like scholarly articles and history books. Analyze this evidence critically, considering the reliability and perspective of each source. Use this evidence to build your argument and provide depth to your analysis of the American Revolution.

Analyzing Key Events and Figures

Dedicate a section of your essay to analyzing key events and figures of the American Revolution. Discuss how these events were pivotal in the progress of the revolution and examine the roles and contributions of significant figures. For example, explore how the Declaration of Independence encapsulated the revolutionary ideals or how diplomatic efforts with foreign nations were crucial to the colonial victory. This analysis will help readers understand the complexities and nuances of the revolution.

Concluding the Essay

Conclude your essay by summarizing the main points of your discussion and restating your thesis in light of the evidence presented. Your conclusion should tie together your analysis and emphasize the significance of the American Revolution in shaping American history and identity. You might also want to reflect on the broader implications of the revolution, such as its impact on global politics or its legacy in contemporary America.

Reviewing and Refining Your Essay

After completing your essay, review and edit it for clarity and coherence. Ensure that your arguments are well-structured and supported by historical evidence. Check for grammatical accuracy and ensure that your essay flows logically from one point to the next. Consider seeking feedback from peers or instructors to further refine your essay. A well-crafted essay on the American Revolution will not only demonstrate your understanding of this pivotal event in history but also your ability to engage critically with historical narratives.

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