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The American Revolution was an upheaval that ended British control of middle North America, resulting ultimately in the formation of the United States of America. An account of the military actions of the American Revolutionary War appears in a separate article.

The Revolution was also a series of broad social shifts that occurred in American society as democratic and republican ideals took hold in the population. In some states (especially Pennsylvania) sharp political debates broke out over the role democracy should play in government. The American shift to republicanism and gradually expanding democracy was an upheaval of the traditional social hierarchy; the new republican ethic (augmented by classical liberalism) formed the core of American political values.

Historians usually agree that the revolutionary era began in 1763 as Britain defeated France in the French and Indian War, and the military threat to the colonies from France ended. The end of the period is usually marked by as Treaty of Paris in 1783. However, references to the "revolutionary era" sometimes stretch to 1789, when a new national government under George Washington began operating.

Interpretations about the effect of the revolution vary. At one end of the spectrum is the older view that the American Revolution was not "revolutionary" at all, that it did not radically transform colonial society, but simply replaced a distant government with a local one. The more recent view pioneered by historians such as Bernard Bailyn, Gordon Wood and Edmund Morgan is that the American Revolution was a unique and radical event, based on an increasing belief in republicanism that produced deep changes that had a profound impact on world history.

Another stream of thought, distinct from republicanism, was the liberalism of John Locke. It also had a major impact, emphasizing the rights of citizens. Much of the rhetoric was an insistence on Lockean rights to life, liberty and property (or in Jefferson's version, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"). Historians find little trace of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's influence in America. In terms of writing state and national constitutions, the Americans used Montesquieu's analysis of the ideally "balanced" British Constitution. But first and last came a commitment to republicanism, as shown by many historians such as Bernard Bailyn and Gordon S. Wood.

Road to rebellion

After the French and Indian War and Pontiac's Rebellion, the British government sought to tax its vast North American possessions. In order to make the Empire more stable and profitable, new economic and tax policies were implemented. Specifically, the new British policies included the desire of the crown that the colonists would shoulder a greater share of the burdens of war and the cost of their own defense, as well as the curtailment of smuggling with the colonies of the West Indies, the payment of royal tariffs and exclusive trade with the British homeland.

Western land dispute

The Proclamation of 1763 sought to limit the conflicts between Native Americans and the American settlers by restricting settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains. However, groups of settlers, led for example by Daniel Boone, continued to move into the region beyond the Proclamation Line and fought with the Shawnees and other tribes inhabiting the area. The Proclamation was soon modified and was no longer a hindrance to settlement, but its promulgation without consulting Americans angered the colonists. The Quebec Act of 1774, extended Quebec's boundaries to the Ohio River, and seemed to turn the west over to the Catholics in Quebec. By then, however, the Americans had scant regard for new laws from London-—they were organizing at the local and colonial level for war.

Crises, 1772–1775

While there were many causes of the American Revolution, it was a series of specific events, or crises, that finally triggered the outbreak of war.

The first of these was the Gaspée Affair. The HMS Gaspée, a British ship that had been vigorously enforcing unpopular trade regulations (the Navigation Acts), ran aground on June 9, 1772, off of Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island, while chasing the packet boat Hannah. In an act of defiance that gained considerable notoriety, the ship was attacked, boarded, stripped of valuables and torched by American patriots, who later denied knowing anything about the entire affair.

The next crisis was a result of the "Tea Act", passed by the British Parliament in 1773. This act allowed the British East India Company to sell tea to the British colonies without the usual colonial tax, thereby allowing it to undercut the prices of the colonial merchants. To help pay for its colony in India, the British government intended to give the East India Company a monopoly on tea imports to the colonies; this, however, backfired. Because many American merchants earned their living from smuggling, this act would take away their livelihood. The result was widespread boycotts of tea throughout the colonies, and, eventually, to the Boston Tea Party where American colonists, believed to be the Sons of Liberty, dressed up like Indians and threw crates of tea from the East India Company ships into the Boston harbor.

The Intolerable Acts, called by the British the "Coercive Acts" or "Punitive Acts", were a series of laws, passed by the British Parliament in 1774, in response to the growing unrest in the thirteen colonies, particularly in Massachusetts with its Boston Tea Party. Enforcement of the Acts played a major role in the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War and the establishment of the First Continental Congress.

The Intolerable Acts included:

• The Massachusetts Government Act, which altered the Massachusetts charter and restricted town meetings;
• The Administration of Justice Act, which ordered that all redcoats to be tried be arraigned in Britain, not the colonies;
• The Boston Port Act, which closed the port of Boston until the British had been compensated for the tea lost in the Boston Tea Party (the price was never paid); and
• The Quartering Act of 1774, which impaired Boston to house hundreds upon thousands of British regulars sent in to control the vicinity.
• The Quebec Act, while technically not one of the Coercive Acts, further upset the colonists by nullifying land claims and sending in Roman Catholics to the country outside of the Protestant colonies.

The First Continental Congress was convened in 1774 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and endorsed the Suffolk Resolves, which declared the Intolerable Acts to be unconstitutional, called for the people to form militias, and for Massachusetts to form a Patriot government.

In response, primarily to the Massachusetts Government Act, the people of Worcester set up an armed picket line in front of the local courthouse and refused to allow the British magistrates to enter. Similar events occurred, soon after, all across the colony. British troops were sent from England, but, by the time they arrived, the entire colony of Massachusetts, with the exception of the heavily garrisoned city of Boston, had thrown off British control of local affairs.

The Battle of Lexington and Concord took place April 19, 1775, when the British sent a regiment to confiscate arms and arrests revolutionaries in Concord. It was the first fighting of the American Revolutionary War, and immediately news aroused the 13 colonies to call out their militias and send troops to besiege Boston. By late spring 1776, the Americans forced the British to evacuate Boston. The patriots were in control everywhere in the 13 states (they were no longer colonies), and the states were ready to declare independence. While there still were many Loyalists, they were no longer in control anywhere by July 1776 and all of the Royal officials had fled.

The Second Continental Congress convened in 1775, after the war had started. While creating the Continental Army, it also extended the Olive Branch Petition to the crown as an attempt at reconciliation. King George refused to receive it. There would be no negotiations whatsoever until 1783.

Patriots

The revolutionaries, known as Patriots, Whigs, Congress Men or Americans included a full range of social and economic classes, but a unanimity regarding the need to defend the rights of Americans. After the War, Patriots such as George Washington, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, for example, were deeply devoted to republicanism while also eager to build a rich and powerful nation, while Patriots such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine represented democratic impulses and the agrarian plantation element that wanted a localized society with greater political equality.

Loyalists and neutrals

Between 20% to 30% of the colonists remained loyal to the British Crown; these became known as Loyalists (or 'Tories', or 'King's men'). Loyalists were older, less willing to break with old loyalties, often connected to the Anglican church, and included many established merchants with business connections across the Empire, for example Thomas Hutchinson of Boston. Recent immigrants who had not been fully Americanized were also inclined to support the King, including recent Scottish settlers in the back country.

Native Americans mostly rejected American pleas that they remain neutral. Most groups aligned themselves with the Empire. There were also incentives provided by both sides that helped to secure the affiliations of regional peoples and leaders, and the tribes that depended most heavily upon colonial trade tended to side with the revolutionaries, though political factors were important as well. The most prominent Native American leader siding with the Loyalists was Mohawk Joseph Brant, who led frontier raids on isolated settlements in Pennsylvania and New York until an American army under John Sullivan secured New York in 1779, forcing the enemy permanently into Canada. As was the case in most early modern wars, the military failure of the Native Americans was seen as a forfeiture of their lands, many of which were subsequently peopled with Americans.

After the war, the great majority of Loyalists remained in America and resumed normal lives. Some, such as Samuel Seabury, became prominent American leaders. A minority of about 50,000 to 75,000 Loyalists relocated to Canada, Britain or the West Indies. When the Loyalists left the South in 1783, they took about 75,000 of their slaves with them to the British West Indies.

A minority of uncertain size tried to stay neutral in the war. The Quakers, prominent especially in Pennsylvania, were one group which was outspoken on its position of neutrality, a stance based on a religious conviction of pacifism that did not endear them to the Patriot population. This conflict was set into additional relief, in 1777, by the executions of Friends John Roberts and Abraham Carlisle for treason, Roberts for an action of protest against the exile of prominent Quakers from Philadelphia and Carlisle for accepting a minor office during the British occupation of the city. As the argument escalated, Quakers were increasingly identified as supporters of British rule, "contrivers and authors of seditious publications" critical of the revolutionary cause. For the Quakers, as for others, neutrality was not always a safe position to maintain. (Gottlieb 2005)

Class differences among the Patriots

Historians in the early 20th century examined the class composition of the Patriot cause, looking for evidence that there was a class war inside the revolution. In the last 50 years historians have largely abandoned that interpretation, emphasizing instead the high level of ideological unity. Just as there were rich and poor Loyalists, the Patriots were a 'mixed lot', with the richer and better educated more likely to become officers in the Army. Ideological demands always came first, as the Patriots viewed independence as a means of freeing themselves from British oppression and taxation and, above all, reasserting what they considered to be their rights. Most yeomen farmers, craftsmen and small merchants joined the patriot cause as well, demanding more political equality. They were especially successful in Pennsylvania and less so in New England where John Adams attacked Thomas Paine's Common Sense for the "absurd democratical notions" it proposed.

Women

The boycott of British goods would have been entirely unworkable without the willing participation of American women: women made the bulk of household purchases, and the boycotted items were largely household items such as tea and cloth. And, as cloth was still a basic necessity, for the boycott to work, women would have to return to spinning and weaving, skills that had fallen into disuse. In 1769, the women of Boston produced 40,000 skeins of yarn, and 180 women in Middletown, Massachusetts wove 20,522 yards of cloth.

As the Revolution progressed and economic disruption deepened, women participated directly in the food riots and tar and feathering that was the people's response to price gouging by merchants, Loyalist and Patriot alike. In August 1777, Thomas Boyleston, a Patriot merchant who was withholding coffee and sugar from the market waiting for prices to rise, was confronted by a crowd of 100 or more women, who seized the keys to his warehouse and distributed the coffee themselves while a large crowd stood by and watched, dumbfounded.

Writing the state constitutions

By summer 1776, the patriots had control of all the territory and population; the Loyalists were powerless. All thirteen states had overthrown their existing governments, closing courts and driving British agents and governors from their homes, and they had elected conventions and "legislatures" that existed outside of any legal framework whatsoever-— new constitutions were needed in each state to replace the superseded royal charters. They were states now-—not colonies.

On January 5, 1776, New Hampshire ratified the first state constitution, six months before the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Then, in May 1776, Congress voted to suppress all forms of crown authority, to be replaced by locally created authority. Virginia, South Carolina, and New Jersey created their constitutions before July 4. Rhode Island and Connecticut simply took their existing royal charters and deleted all references to the crown.

The new states had to decide not only what form of government to create, they first had to decide how to select those who would craft the constitutions and how the resulting document would be ratified. In states where the wealthy exerted firm control over the process, such as Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, New York and Massachusetts, the result was constitutions that featured:

• Substantial property qualifications for voting and even more substantial requirements for elected positions (though New York and Maryland lowered property qualifications);
• Bicameral legislatures, with the upper house as a check on the lower;
• Strong governors, with veto power over the legislature and substantial appointment authority;
• Few or no restraints on individuals holding multiple positions in government;
• The continuation of state-established religion.

In states where the less affluent had organized sufficiently to have significant power, especially Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New Hampshire, the resulting constitutions embodied:

• universal white manhood suffrage, or minimal property requirements for voting or holding office (New Jersey went so far as to enfranchise women, a radical step that they retracted 25 years later);

• strong, unicameral legislatures;
• relatively weak governors, without veto powers, and little appointing authority;
• prohibition against individuals holding multiple government posts;
• disestablishment of religion.

Whether conservatives or radicals held sway in a state did not mean that the side with less power accepted the result quietly. In Pennsylvania, the propertied class was horrified by their new constitution (Benjamin Rush called it "our state dung cart"), while in Massachusetts, voters twice rejected the constitution that was presented for ratification; it was ultimately ratified only as a result of the legislature tinkering with the third vote. The radical provisions of Pennsylvania's constitution were to last only fourteen years-—in 1790, conservatives gained power in the state legislature, called a new constitutional convention, and wrote a new constitution that substantially reduced universal white-male suffrage, gave the governor veto power and patronage appointment authority, and added an upper house with substantial wealth qualifications to the unicameral legislature. Thomas Paine called it a constitution unworthy of America.

War for independence, 1775–83

Main article: American Revolutionary War

On January 10, 1776, Thomas Paine published a political pamphlet entitled Common Sense arguing that the only solution to the problems with Britain was republicanism and independence from Great Britain.

On July 4, 1776, the United States Declaration of Independence was ratified by the Second Continental Congress. Note that the war began in 1775, while the declaration was issued in 1776. Until this point, the colonies sought favorable peace terms; a majority did not approve of an outright push for independence.

The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, commonly known as the Articles of Confederation, formed the first governing document of the United States of America, combining the colonies of the American Revolutionary War into a loose confederation of sovereign states. The second Continental Congress adopted the Articles on November 15, 1777.

America after the war

The American Revolution saw several noteworthy political innovations that reflected the new republican ideology: the separation of church and state, which ended the special privileges of the Church of England. Even more important was the widespread assertion of liberty, individual rights and equality which would prove core values to Americans and were highly appealing also in western Europe; the idea that government should be by consent of the governed (including the right of rebellion against tyranny); the delegation of power to the government through written constitutions; and the notion that colonial peoples of North and South America could become self-governing nations in their own right.

The peace treaty with Britain, known as the Treaty of Paris (1783) gave the U.S. government control, on paper, of all land east of the Mississippi River and south of the Great Lakes, but the Native American nations actually living in this region were not a party to this treaty and had not been militarily defeated by the Patriots. Further, the British remained in possession of the Great Lakes forts through which they continued to supply their Native American allies with trade items (including weapons) and to otherwise stir up trouble for Americans.

The impact on British North America

For two percent of the inhabitants of the United States, defeat was followed by exile. Approximately fifty thousand United Empire Loyalists fled to the remaining British colonies in North America, such as the Province of Quebec, (concentrating in the Eastern Townships), Upper Canada (now known as Ontario), and Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia (where their presence would result in the creation of New Brunswick). This exodus sowed the seeds for the French-English duality in British North America (now Canada).

Revolution beyond America

The American Revolution was the first wave of the Atlantic Revolutions that would also take hold in the French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, and the Latin American wars of liberation. Aftershocks would also be felt in Ireland in the 1798 rising, in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and in the Netherlands.

The Revolution had a strong, immediate impact in Great Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, and France. Many British and Irish Whigs had been openly indulgent to the Patriots in America, and the Revolution was the first lesson in politics for many European radicals who would later take on active roles during the era of the French Revolution. Jefferson's Declaration had an immediate impact on the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen of 1789.

The American Revolution affected the rest of the world. The thinkers of the Enlightenment only wrote that common people had the right to overthrow unjust governments. The American Revolution was a case of practical success, which provided the rest of the world with a 'working model'.

The American Revolution set an example to the people in Europe and other parts of this world. It encouraged the people to realize they had rights independent of the sovereign; it promoted republicanism to overthrow monarchs. It incited people to fight for their rights, and it showed them that it was possible to win even against the world's foremost power, Great Britain.

Nowhere was the influence of the American Revolution more profound than in Latin America, where American writings and the model of colonies, which actually broke free and thrived decisively, shaped their struggle for independence. Historians of Latin America have identified many links to the U.S. model. See John Lynch, "The Origins of Spanish American Independence," in Cambridge History of Latin America Vol. 3 (1985), pp 45-46

The national debt

The national debt after the American Revolution fell into three categories. The first was the $11 million owed to foreigners-—mostly debts to France that totaled up during the American Revolution. The second and third-— roughly $24 million each-—were debts owed by the national and state governments to Americans who had sold food, guns, and other resources to the revolutionary forces. Congress agreed with some debate that the power and the authority of the new government would pay for the foreign debts. There was also other debts that consisted of promissary notes issued during the Revolutionary War to soldiers, merchants, and farmers who accepted these payments on the premise that the new Constitution would create a government that was likely to pay off the debts of the Revolutionary war.

The war expenses of the individual states were another issue. In the 1790s it was ascertained that the states had contributed $114,407,297 to fighting the war while the central government had contributed but $36,742,599. (Jensen 379). The Nationalists wanted to assume the debts of the states as part of the national debt. This would create the need for taxation. At Hamilton's urging, in 1790, Congress combined the state debts with the foreign and domestic debts into one national debt totalling $80 million. Everyone received face value for wartime certificates, so that the national honor would be sustained and the national credit established.

Film

The Howards of Virginia (1940) Starring: Cary Grant, Director: Frank Lloyd

Revolution (1985) Starring: Al Pacino , Director: Hugh Hudson

The Patriot (2000) Starring: Mel Gibson, Heath Ledger Director: Roland Emmerich

The Crossing (2000) Starring: Jeff Daniels, Roger Rees, Director: Robert Harmon

See also

• Founding Fathers of the United States
• Military leadership in the American Revolutionary War
• Second American Revolution
• Timeline of United States revolutionary history (1760-1789)
• List of Continental Forces in the American Revolutionary War

References

• Bailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Harvard University Press, 1967. ISBN 0-674-44301-2
• Blanco, Richard. The American Revolution: An Encyclopedia 2 vol (1993), 1850 pages
• Boatner, Mark Mayo, III. Encyclopedia of the American Revolution. (1966); revised 1974. ISBN 0-811-70578-1; new expanded edition 2006 ed. by Harold E. Selesky
• Breen, T. H. The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence (2005)
• Cogliano, Francis D. Revolutionary America, 1763-1815; A Political History (2000), British textbook
• Crow, Jeffrey J. and Larry E. Tise, eds. The Southern Experience in the American Revolution (1978)
• Fischer, David Hackett. Washington's Crossing (2004), 1775 campaigns; Pulitzer prize
• Fitzpatrick, Alan. Wilderness War on the Ohio (2004); second edition 2005, 628 pages. ISBN 9-776-1470-0
• Gottlieb, Gabriele. Theater of Death: Capital Punishment in Early America, 1750-1800 (2005) dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
• Greene, Jack P. and J. R. Pole, eds. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of the American Revolution (1991), 845pp; emphasis on political ideas; revised edition (2004) titled A Companion to the American Revolution
• Higginbotham, Don. The War of American Independence: Military Attitudes, Policies, and Practice, 1763-1789 (1983) Online in ACLS History E-book Project.
• Jensen, Merrill. The New Nation: A History of the United States during the Confederation, 1781-1789 (1950)
• Kerber, Linda K. Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America (1979)
• Lecky, William Edward Hartpole. The American Revolution, 1763-1783 (1898), British perspective
• McCullough, David. 1776 (2005). ISBN 0-743-22671-2
• Mackesy, Piers. The War for America: 1775-1783 (1992), British military study
• Middlekauff, Robert. The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789 (1985)
• Miller, John C. Triumph of Freedom, 1775-1783 (1948)
• Miller, John C. Origins of the American Revolution (1943)
• Morison, S. E. ed. Sources and Documents Illustrating the American Revolution, 1764-1788, and the Formation of the Federal Constitution (1923), primary sources
• Nash, Gary B. The Unknown American Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America. (2005). ISBN 0-670-03420-7
• Norton, Mary Beth. Liberty's Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800 (1980)
• Purcell, L. Edward. Who Was Who in the American Revolution (1993); 1500 short biographies
• Saunt, Claudio. A New Order of Things: Property, Power, and the Transformation of the Creek Indians, 1733-1816 (1999); Native American attitudes during years of the revolution.
• Van Tyne, Claude Halstead. American Loyalists: The Loyalists in the American Revolution (1902)
• Volo, James M. and Dorothy Denneen Volo. Daily Life during the American Revolution (2003)
• Wahlke, John C. ed. The Causes of the American Revolution (1967) readings
• Wrong, George M. Washington and His Comrades in Arms: A Chronicle of the War of Independence (1921) online short survey by Canadian scholar
• Wood, Gordon S. The Radicalism of the American Revolution: How a Revolution Transformed a Monarchical Society into a Democratic One Unlike Any That Had Ever Existed. Alfred A. Knopf, 1992. ISBN 0-679-40493-7

External links

• The American Revolution at americanrevolution.com - historical information, documents, pictures, and more
• PBS Television Series
• We the People, a game on the American Revolution
• Smithsonian study unit on Revolutionary Money

• American Revolution
• Rebellions in the United States
• The Enlightenment
• Revolutions