American Revolution, also called United States War of Independence or

American Revolutionary War, Surrender of Lord Cornwallis, The [Credit:

The Granger Collection, New York](177583), insurrection by which 13 of
Great Britains North American colonies won political independence and
went on to form the United States of America. The war followed more than
a decade of growing estrangement between the British crown and a large
and influential segment of its North American colonies that was caused by
British attempts to assert greater control over colonial affairs (for
background see United States). Until early in 1778 the conflict was a civil
war within the British Empire; afterward it became an international war as
France (in 1778), Spain (in 1779), and the Netherlands (in 1780) joined the
colonies against Britain. From the beginning sea power was vital in
determining the course of the war, lending to British strategy a flexibility
that helped compensate for the comparatively small numbers of troops sent
to America and ultimately enabling the French to help bring about the final
British surrender at Yorktown.... (173 of 4,530 words)
The American Revolution was a political upheaval that took place between
1765 and 1783 during which the Thirteen American Colonies broke from the
British Empire and formed an independent nation, the United States of
America. The American Revolution was the result of a series of social,
political, and intellectual transformations in American society, government
and ways of thinking. Starting in 1765 the Americans rejected the authority
of Parliament to tax them without elected representation; protests
continued to escalate, as in the Boston Tea Party of 1773, and the British
imposed punitive lawsthe Intolerable Actson Massachusetts in 1774. In
1774 the Patriots suppressed the Loyalists and expelled all royal officials.
Each colony now had a new government that took control. The British
responded by sending combat troops to re-establish royal control. Through
the Second Continental Congress, the Patriots fought the British in the
American Revolutionary War (17751783).

The British sent invasion armies and used their powerful navy to blockade
the coast. Former Virginia militia soldier George Washington became the
Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, working with Congress and
the states to raise armies and neutralize the influence of Loyalists. While
precise proportions are not known, about 40% of the colonists were
Patriots, 20% were Loyalists and the rest were neutral or did not reveal
loyalties. As the war continued some changed their loyalties. Claiming
British rule was tyrannical and violated the rights of Englishmen, the Patriot
leadership professed the political philosophies of liberalism and
republicanism to reject monarchy and aristocracy, and proclaimed that all
men are created equal. The Continental Congress declared independence in
July 1776, when Thomas Jefferson as the primary author, and the Congress
unanimously approved an edited version, of the United States Declaration
of Independence. Congress rejected British proposals for compromise that
would keep them under the king. The British were forced out of Boston in
1776, but then captured and held New York City for the duration of the war,
nearly capturing General Washington and his army. The British blockaded
the ports and captured other cities for brief periods, but 90% of the
inhabitants were in rural areas.

In early 1778, after an invading British army from Canada was captured by
the Americans, the French entered the war as allies of the United States.
The naval and military power of the two sides were about equal, and France
had allies in the Netherlands and Spain, while Britain had no major allies in
this large-scale war. The war later turned to the American South, where the
British captured an army at South Carolina, but failed to enlist enough
volunteers from Loyalist civilians to take effective control. A combined
AmericanFrench force captured a second British army at Yorktown in 1781,
effectively ending the war in the United States. A peace treaty in 1783
confirmed the new nation's complete separation from the British Empire.
The United States took possession of nearly all the territory east of the
Mississippi River and south of the Great Lakes, with the British retaining
control of Canada and Spain taking Florida. Among the significant results of
the revolution was the creation of a democratically-elected representative
government responsible to the will of the people.

The period after the peace treaty came in 1783 involved debates between
nationally-minded men like Washington who wanted a strong national
government, and leaders who wanted strong states but a weak national
government. The former group won out the ratification of a new United
States Constitution in 1788. It replaced the weaker Articles of Confederation
and Perpetual Union. The new Constitution established a relatively strong
federal national government that included a strong elected president,
national courts, a bicameral Congress that represented both states in the
Senate and population in the House of Representatives. Congress had
powers of taxation that were lacking under the old Articles. The United
States Bill of Rights of 1791 comprised the first ten amendments to the
Constitution, guaranteeing many "natural rights" that were influential in
justifying the revolution, and attempted to balance a strong national
government with strong state governments and broad personal liberties.
The American shift to liberal republicanism, and the gradually increasing
democracy, caused an upheaval of traditional social hierarchy and gave
birth to the ethic that has formed a core of political values in the
UnitePolitical Effects Of The Revolution
The 1783 Treaty of Paris ended the Revolutionary War, and the world would
never be the same. The contagion of liberty spread, inspiring people to
revolt against their leadership in France, Haiti, Ireland, Poland, the
Netherlands, and throughout the Spanish empire. New colonies and nations
emerged, and many of them formed democratic governments. But the
greatest effects were felt within the 13 former colonies of the new United
States of America. Politically, the Marquis de Layafette summed it up this
way: 'Humanity has won its battle. Liberty now has a country.'

For two decades, Americans had been focused on their rights,
Enlightenment ideals and the proper role of government. Now that the war
was over, they had to create this perfect government in which talent and
hard work were supposed to be more important than hereditary privilege.
They succeeded.

One of the most dramatic effects of the Revolution was to include more
men in the formal political process. Yeoman farmers and urban artisans
made up a majority of elected officials in northern states and significant
minorities elsewhere. In many ways, those two groups of people have come
to represent the ideal citizen even today: honest, hard-working,
independent, talented laborers. John Crockett was a poor frontier farmer
whose participation with the Overmountain Men helped him become a
magistrate in the newly created Tennessee Territory. His son, the famed
Davy Crockett, was elected to Congress.


Map of the former colonies comprising the new United States
Map of British Colonies
Effects Of The Revolution On Political Minorities
While it may seem that white men got everything they wanted, the impact
of the Revolution was a different story for women, African Americans and
Native Americans. An enlightened government would succeed only if the
men in charge were well educated. This elevated the role of mothers in a
family, who were the primary teachers for most American children. The
concept was called republican motherhood, and it became an ideal for
middle and upper class white families. To properly instruct her sons in
classical subjects, as well as the bible and republican virtues, a woman
needed proper schooling herself, and so there were expanded educational
opportunities for girls.

The publishing market responded by releasing novels written by, for and
about women. The war had helped to equalize the genders, as women had
run farms and homes and businesses in their husbands' absence. They had
served as spies and nurses, and at least two women disguised themselves
and joined the fight. Yet women gained no legal rights.

How do you suppose Abigail Adams felt? Her husband John had consulted
her on many issues. When she heard that Congress was thinking about
declaring independence, she asked him to pay attention to women's rights.
John Adams scoffed at her idea, suggesting that women would quickly
subject men to the so-called 'despotism of the petticoat.'

Similarly, many African Americans had fully believed the new government
would defend their rights as well. Unfortunately, it would be 80 years
before the Civil War and the Constitution prohibited slavery outright, but
the seeds of change had been planted. Rhode Island initiated a policy of
gradual emancipation beginning in 1784, and many northern states
followed suit. Even in the South, declining profits from tobacco resulted in
large-scale emancipation. Planters like George Washington began to grow
less labor-intensive crops, such as wheat.

If the institution provided no economic benefit, many people began to
suspect that slavery would simply fizzle out. As much as 10% of the enslaved
population had been emancipated by the armies during the war, and free
blacks kindled the abolitionist movement that had started during the war.
Many whites - especially Quakers - were sympathetic to their cause.

Other institutions emerged to serve the social needs of thousands of free
African Americans. The most notable and lasting of these was, perhaps, the
black church movement. After purchasing his own freedom, Richard Allen
became a Methodist minister. But he was only allowed to have services for
black parishioners. They had to be very early in the morning, and they
weren't even allowed to meet in the same sanctuary as the whites. He left
the church and formed the Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal
Church. In 1816, he and other ministers consolidated several black
congregations into the African Methodist Episcopal Church denomination
(or, simply, the AME) which is still active today.

To imagine the Native Americans' situation after the war, picture this: You
and a friend are driving out in the middle of nowhere, and he gets stuck in a
muddy ditch. The two of you work together and get the car out, but when
the job is done, he just takes off and leaves you there stranded on the side
of the road. That's how the Native Americans felt.

Four of the six nations in the Iroquois Confederacy supported the British and
had their land, towns, and farms systematically destroyed by the
Continental Army. Their confederacy, which had been active for as many as
300 years, came to an abrupt end, and many of them were forced to move
to Canada. But the Native Americans weren't even invited to the peace
talks, and the British totally ignored their interests. Though the land west of
the Appalachian Mountains had been closed to American settlement since
the Royal Proclamation of 1763, the Treaty of Paris granted all of that land
to the new United States. As whites poured into the territory, even the
nations who had supported the Patriots found their rights trampled. A
coalition of Indian nations, under the leadership of Mohawk leader and
British officer Joseph Brant, formed the Western Confederacy to resist U.S.
expansion.d States.[1][2]