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An Outline of American
History Public Affairs Section Stockholm Sweden CHAPTER THREE: THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE United States Information Agency May 1994 |
"The revolution was effected before the war commenced.
The revolution was in the hearts and minds of the people."
Former President John Adams, 1818
Although some believe that the history of the American
Revolution began long before the first shots were fired in 1775,
England and America did not begin an overt parting of the ways
until 1763, more than a century and a half after the founding of
the first permanent settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. The
colonies had grown vastly in economic strength and cultural
attainment, and virtually all had long years of self-government
behind them. In the 1760s their combined population exceeded
1,500,000--a sixfold increase since 1700.
A NEW COLONIAL SYSTEM
In the aftermath of the French and Indian War, Britain needed
a new imperial design, but the situation in America was anything
but favorable to change. Long accustomed to a large measure of
independence, the colonies were demanding more, not less,
freedom, particularly now that the French menace had been
eliminated. To put a new system into effect, and to tighten
control, Parliament had to contend with colonists trained in
self-government and impatient with interference.
One of the first things that British attempted was the organization of the interior. The conquest of Canada and of the
Ohio Valley necessitated policies that would not alienate the
French and Indian inhabitants. But here the Crown came into
conflict with the interests of the colonies. Fast increasing in
population, and needing more land for settlement, various
colonies claimed the right to extend their boundaries as far west
as the Mississippi River.
The British government, fearing that settlers migrating into
the new lands would provoke a series of Indian wars, believed
that the lands should be opened to colonists on a more gradual
basis. Restricting movement was also a way of ensuring royal
control over existing settlements before allowing the formation
of new ones. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 reserved all the
western territory between the Alleghenies, Florida, the
Mississippi River and Quebec for use by Native Americans. Thus
the Crown attempted to sweep away every western land claim of the
13 colonies and to stop westward expansion. Though never
effectively enforced, this measure, in the eyes of the colonists,
constituted a high-handed disregard of their most elementary
right to occupy and settle western lands.
More serious in its repercussions was the new financial policy
of the British government, which needed more money to support its
growing empire. Unless the taxpayer in England was to supply all
money for the colonies' defense, revenues would have to be
extracted from the colonists through a stronger central
administration, which would come at the expense of colonial
self-government.
The first step in inaugurating the new system was the
replacement of the Molasses Act of 1733, which placed a
prohibitive duty, or tax, on the import of rum and molasses from
non-English areas, with the Sugar Act of 1764. This act forbade
the importation of foreign rum; put a modest duty on molasses
from all sources and levied duties on wines, silks, coffee and a
number of other luxury items. The hope was that lowering the duty
on molasses would reduce the temptation to smuggle it from the
Dutch and French West Indies for processing in the rum
distilleries of New England. To enforce the Sugar Act, customs
officials were ordered to show more energy and effectiveness.
British warships in American waters were instructed to seize
smugglers, and "writs of assistance," or warrants,
authorized the king's officers to search suspected premises.
Both the duty imposed by the Sugar Act and the measures to
enforce it caused consternation among New England merchants. They
contended that payment of even the small duty imposed would be
ruinous to their businesses. Merchants, legislatures and town
meetings protested the law, and colonial lawyers found in the
preamble of the Sugar Act the first intimation of "taxation
without representation," the slogan that was to draw many to
the American cause against the mother country.
Later in 1764, Parliament enacted a Currency Act "to
prevent paper bills of credit hereafter issued in any of His
Majesty's colonies from being made legal tender." Since the
colonies were a deficit trade area and were constantly short of
hard currency, this measure added a serious burden to the
colonial economy. Equally objectionable from the colonial
viewpoint was the Quartering Act, passed in 1765, which required
colonies to provide royal troops with provisions and barracks.
STAMP ACT
The last of the measures inaugurating the new colonial system
sparked the greatest organized resistance. Known as the
"Stamp Act," it provided that revenue stamps be affixed
to all newspapers, broadsides, pamphlets, licenses, leases or
other legal documents, the revenue (collected by American customs
agents) to be used for "defending, protecting and
securing" the colonies.
The Stamp Act bore equally on people who did any kind of
business. Thus it aroused the hostility of the most powerful and
articulate groups in the American population: journalists,
lawyers, clergymen, merchants and businessmen, North and South,
East and West. Soon leading merchants organized for resistance
and formed non-importation associations.
Trade with the mother country fell off sharply in the summer
of 1765, as prominent men organized themselves into the
"Sons of Liberty"--secret organizations formed to
protest the Stamp Act, often through violent means. From
Massachusetts to South Carolina, the act was nullified, and mobs,
forcing luckless customs agents to resign their offices,
destroyed the hated stamps.
Spurred by delegate Patrick Henry, the Virginia House of
Burgesses passed a set of resolutions in May denouncing taxation
without representation as a threat to colonial liberties. The
House of Burgesses declared that Virginians had the rights of
Englishmen, and hence could be taxed only by their own
representatives. On June 8, the Massachusetts Assembly invited
all the colonies to appoint delegates to the so-called Stamp Act
Congress in New York, held in October 1765, to consider appeals
for relief from the king and Parliament. Twenty-seven
representatives from nine colonies seized the opportunity to
mobilize colonial opinion against parliamentary interference in
American affairs. After much debate, the congress adopted a set
of resolutions asserting that "no taxes ever have been or
can be constitutionally imposed on them, but by their respective
legislatures," and that the Stamp Act had a "manifest
tendency to subvert the rights and liberties of the
colonists."
TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION
The issue thus drawn centered on the question of
representation. From the colonies' point of view, it was
impossible to consider themselves represented in Parliament
unless they actually elected members to the House of Commons. But
this idea conflicted with the English principle of "virtual
representation," according to which each member of
Parliament represented the interests of the whole country, even
the empire, despite the fact that his electoral base consisted of
only a tiny minority of property owners from a given district.
The rest of the community was seen to be "represented"
on the ground that all inhabitants shared the same interests as
the property owners who elected members of Parliament.
Most British officials held that Parliament was an imperial
body representing and exercising the same authority over the
colonies as over the homeland. The American leaders argued that
no "imperial" Parliament existed; their only legal
relations were with the Crown. It was the king who had agreed to
establish colonies beyond the sea and the king who provided them
with governments. They argued that the king was equally a king of
England and a king of the colonies, but they insisted that the
English Parliament had no more right to pass laws for the
colonies than any colonial legislature had the right to pass laws
for England.
The British Parliament was unwilling to accept the colonial
contentions. British merchants, however, feeling the effects of
the American boycott, threw their weight behind a repeal
movement, and in 1766 Parliament yielded, repealing the Stamp Act
and modifying the Sugar Act. However, to mollify the supporters
of central control over the colonies, Parliament followed these
actions with passage of the Declaratory Act. This act asserted
the authority of Parliament to make laws binding the colonies
"in all cases whatsoever."
TOWNSHEND ACTS
The year 1767 brought another series of measures that stirred
anew all the elements of discord. Charles Townshend, British
chancellor of the exchequer, was called upon to draft a new
fiscal program. Intent upon reducing British taxes by making more
efficient the collection of duties levied on American trade, he
tightened customs administration, at the same time sponsoring
duties on colonial imports of paper, glass, lead and tea exported
from Britain to the colonies. The so-called Townshend Acts were
based on the premise that taxes imposed on goods imported by the
colonies were legal while internal taxes (like the Stamp Act)
were not.
The Townshend Acts were designed to raise revenue to be used
in part to support colonial governors, judges, customs officers
and the British army in America. In response, Philadelphia lawyer
John Dickinson, in Letters of a Pennsylvania Farmer, argued that
Parliament had the right to control imperial commerce but did not
have the right to tax the colonies, whether the duties were
external or internal.
The agitation following enactment of the Townshend duties was
less violent than that stirred by the Stamp Act, but it was
nevertheless strong, particularly in the cities of the Eastern
seaboard. Merchants once again resorted to non-importation
agreements, and people made do with local products. Colonists,
for example, dressed in homespun clothing and found substitutes
for tea. They used homemade paper and their houses went
unpainted. In Boston, enforcement of the new regulations provoked
violence. When customs officials sought to collect duties, they
were set upon by the populace and roughly handled. For this
infraction, two British regiments were dispatched to protect the
customs commissioners.
The presence of British troops in Boston was a standing
invitation to disorder. On March 5, 1770, antagonism between
citizens and British soldiers again flared into violence. What
began as a harmless snowballing of British soldiers degenerated
into a mob attack. Someone gave the order to fire. When the smoke
had cleared, three Bostonians lay dead in the snow. Dubbed the
"Boston Massacre," the incident was dramatically
pictured as proof of British heartlessness and tyranny.
Faced with such opposition, Parliament in 1770 opted for a
strategic retreat and repealed all the Townshend duties except
that on tea, which was a luxury item in the colonies, imbibed
only by a very small minority. To most, the action of Parliament
signified that the colonists had won a major concession, and the
campaign against England was largely dropped. A colonial embargo
on "English tea" continued but was not too scrupulously
observed. Prosperity was increasing and most colonial leaders
were willing to let the future take care of itself.
SAMUEL ADAMS
During a three-year interval of calm, a relatively small
number of radicals strove energetically to keep the controversy
alive, however. They contended that payment of the tax
constituted an acceptance of the principle that Parliament had
the right to rule over the colonies. They feared that at any time
in the future, the principle of parliamentary rule might be
applied with devastating effect on all colonial liberties.
The radicals' most effective leader was Samuel Adams of
Massachusetts, who toiled tirelessly for a single end:
independence. From the time he graduated from Harvard College in
1740, Adams was a public servant in some capacity--inspector of
chimneys, tax-collector and moderator of town meetings. A
consistent failure in business, he was shrewd and able in
politics, with the New England town meeting his theater of
action.
Adams's goals were to free people from their awe of social and
political superiors, make them aware of their own power and
importance and thus arouse them to action. Toward these
objectives, he published articles in newspapers and made speeches
in town meetings, instigating resolutions that appealed to the
colonists' democratic impulses.
In 1772 he induced the Boston town meeting to select a
"Committee of Correspondence" to state the rights and
grievances of the colonists. The committee opposed a British
decision to pay the salaries of judges from customs revenues; it
feared that the judges would no longer be dependent on the
legislature for their incomes and thus no longer accountable to
it--thereby leading to the emergence of "a despotic form of
government." The committee communicated with other towns on
this matter and requested them to draft replies. Committees were
set up in virtually all the colonies, and out of them grew a base
of effective revolutionary organizations. Still, Adams did not
have enough fuel to set a fire.
BOSTON "TEA PARTY"
In 1773, however, Britain furnished Adams and his allies with
an incendiary issue. The powerful East India Company, finding
itself in critical financial straits, appealed to the British
government, which granted it a monopoly on all tea exported to
the colonies. The government also permitted the East India
Company to supply retailers directly, bypassing colonial
wholesalers who had previously sold it. After 1770, such a
flourishing illegal trade existed that most of the tea consumed
in America was of foreign origin and imported, illegally, duty-
free. By selling its tea through its own agents at a price well
under the customary one, the East India Company made smuggling
unprofitable and threatened to eliminate the independent colonial
merchants at the same time. Aroused not only by the loss of the
tea trade but also by the monopolistic practice involved,
colonial traders joined the radicals agitating for independence.
In ports up and down the Atlantic coast, agents of the East
India Company were forced to resign, and new shipments of tea
were either returned to England or warehoused. In Boston,
however, the agents defied the colonists and, with the support of
the royal governor, made preparations to land incoming cargoes
regardless of opposition. On the night of December 16, 1773, a
band of men disguised as Mohawk Indians and led by Samuel Adams
boarded three British ships lying at anchor and dumped their tea
cargo into Boston harbor. They took this step because they feared
that if the tea were landed, colonists would actually comply with
the tax and purchase the tea. Adams and his band of radicals
doubted their countrymen's commitment to principle.
A crisis now confronted Britain. The East India Company had
carried out a parliamentary statute, and if the destruction of
the tea went unpunished, Parliament would admit to the world that
it had no control over the colonies. Official opinion in Britain
almost unanimously condemned the Boston Tea Party as an act of
vandalism and advocated legal measures to bring the insurgent
colonists into line.
THE COERCIVE ACTS
Parliament responded with new laws that the colonists called
the "Coercive or Intolerable Acts." The first, the
Boston Port Bill, closed the port of Boston until the tea was
paid for--an action that threatened the very life of the city,
for to prevent Boston from having access to the sea meant
economic disaster. Other enactments restricted local authority
and banned most town meetings held without the governor's
consent. A Quartering Act required local authorities to find
suitable quarters for British troops, in private homes if
necessary. Instead of subduing and isolating Massachusetts as
Parliament intended, these acts rallied its sister colonies to
its aid.
The Quebec Act, passed at nearly the same time, extended the
boundaries of the province of Quebec and guaranteed the right of
the French inhabitants to enjoy religious freedom and their own
legal customs. The colonists opposed this act because, by
disregarding old charter claims to western lands, it threatened
to hem them in to the North and Northwest by a Roman
Catholic-dominated province. Though the Quebec Act had not been
passed as a punitive measure, it was classed by the Americans
with the Coercive Acts, and all became known as the "Five
Intolerable Acts."
At the suggestion of the Virginia House of Burgesses, colonial
representatives met in Philadelphia on September 5, 1774,
"to consult upon the present unhappy state of the
Colonies." Delegates to this meeting, known as the First
Continental Congress, were chosen by provincial congresses or
popular conventions. Every colony except Georgia sent at least
one delegate, and the total number of 55 was large enough for
diversity of opinion, but small enough for genuine debate and
effective action. The division of opinion in the colonies posed a
genuine dilemma for the delegates. They would have to give an
appearance of firm unanimity to induce the British government to
make concessions and, at the same time, they would have to avoid
any show of radicalism or spirit of independence that would alarm
more moderate Americans. A cautious keynote speech, followed by a
"resolve" that no obedience was due the Coercive Acts,
ended with adoption of a set of resolutions, among them, the
right of the colonists to "life, liberty and property,"
and the right of provincial legislatures to set "all cases
of taxation and internal polity."
The most important action taken by the Congress, however, was
the formation of a "Continental Association," which
provided for the renewal of the trade boycott and for a system of
committees to inspect customs entries, publish the names of
merchants who violated the agreements, confiscate their imports,
and encourage frugality, economy and industry.
The Association immediately assumed the leadership in the
colonies, spurring new local organizations to end what remained
of royal authority. Led by the pro-independence leaders, they
drew their support not only from the less well-to-do, but from
many members of the professional class, especially lawyers, most
of the planters of the Southern colonies and a number of
merchants. They intimidated the hesitant into joining the popular
movement and punished the hostile. They began the collection of
military supplies and the mobilization of troops. And they fanned
public opinion into revolutionary ardor.
Many Americans, opposed to British encroachment on American
rights, nonetheless favored discussion and compromise as the
proper solution. This group included Crown-appointed officers,
many Quakers and members of other religious sects opposed to the
use of violence, many merchants--especially from the middle
colonies--and some discontented farmers and frontiersmen from
Southern colonies.
The king might well have effected an alliance with these large
numbers of moderates and, by timely concessions, so strengthened
their position that the revolutionaries would have found it
difficult to proceed with hostilities. But George III had no
intention of making concessions. In September 1774, scorning a
petition by Philadelphia Quakers, he wrote, "The die is now
cast, the Colonies must either submit or triumph." This
action isolated the Loyalists who were appalled and frightened by
the course of events following the Coercive Acts.
THE REVOLUTION BEGINS
General Thomas Gage, an amiable English gentleman with an
American-born wife, commanded the garrison at Boston, where
political activity had almost wholly replaced trade. Gage's main
duty in the colonies had been to enforce the Coercive Acts. When
news reached him that the Massachusetts colonists were collecting
powder and military stores at the town of Concord, 32 kilometers
away, Gage sent a strong detail from the garrison to confiscate
these munitions.
After a night of marching, the British troops reached the
village of Lexington on April 19, 1775, and saw a grim band of 70
Minutemen--so named because they were said to be ready to fight
in a minute--through the early morning mist. The Minutemen
intended only a silent protest, but Major John Pitcairn, the
leader of the British troops, yelled, "Disperse, you damned
rebels! You dogs, run!" The leader of the Minutemen, Captain
John Parker, told his troops not to fire unless fired at first.
The Americans were withdrawing when someone fired a shot, which
led the British troops to fire at the Minutemen. The British then
charged with bayonets, leaving eight dead and 10 wounded. It was,
in the often quoted phrase of Ralph Waldo Emerson, "the shot
heard 'round the world."
Then the British pushed on to Concord. The Americans had taken
away most of the munitions, but the British destroyed whatever
was left. In the meantime, American forces in the countryside
mobilized, moved toward Concord and inflicted casualties on the
British, who began the long return to Boston. All along the road,
however, behind stone walls, hillocks and houses, militiamen from
"every Middlesex village and farm" made targets of the
bright red coats of the British soldiers. By the time the weary
soldiers stumbled into Boston, they suffered more than 250 killed
and wounded. The Americans lost 93 men.
While the alarms of Lexington and Concord were still
resounding, the Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, on May 10, 1775. By May 15, the Congress voted to
go to war, inducting the colonial militias into continental
service and appointing Colonel George Washington of Virginia as
commander-in-chief of the American forces. In the meantime, the
Americans would suffer high casualties at Bunker Hill just
outside Boston. Congress also ordered American expeditions to
march northward into Canada by fall. Although the Americans later
captured Montreal, they failed in a winter assault on Quebec, and
eventually retreated to New York.
Despite the outbreak of armed conflict, the idea of complete
separation from England was still repugnant to some members of
the Continental Congress. In July, John Dickinson had drafted a
resolution, known as the Olive Branch Petition, begging the king
to prevent further hostile actions until some sort of agreement
could be worked out. The petition fell on deaf ears, however, and
King George III issued a proclamation on August 23, 1775,
declaring the colonies to be in a state of rebellion.
Britain had expected the Southern colonies to remain loyal, in
part because of their reliance on slavery. Many in the Southern
colonies feared that a rebellion against the mother country would
also trigger a slave uprising against the planters. In November
1775, in fact, Lord Dunmore, the governor of Virginia, offered
freedom to all slaves who would fight for the British. However,
Dunmore's proclamation had the effect of driving to the rebel
side many Virginians who would otherwise have remained Loyalist.
The governor of North Carolina, Josiah Martin, also urged North
Carolinians to remain loyal to the Crown. When 1,500 men answered
Martin's call, they were defeated by revolutionary armies before
British troops could arrive to help. British warships continued
down the coast to Charleston, South Carolina, and opened fire on
the city in early June 1776. But South Carolinians had time to
prepare, and repulsed the British by the end of the month. They
would not return South for more than two years.
COMMON SENSE AND INDEPENDENCE
In January 1776, Thomas Paine, a political theorist and writer
who had come to America from England in 1774, published a 50-page
pamphlet, Common Sense. Within three months, 100,000 copies of
the pamphlet were sold. Paine attacked the idea of hereditary
monarchy, declaring that one honest man was worth more to society
than "all the crowned ruffians that ever lived." He
presented the alternatives--continued submission to a tyrannical
king and an outworn government, or liberty and happiness as a
self- sufficient, independent republic. Circulated throughout the
colonies, Common Sense helped to crystallize the desire for
separation. There still remained the task, however, of gaining
each colony's approval of a formal declaration. On May 10,
1776--one year to the day since the Second Continental Congress
had first met--a resolution was adopted calling for separation.
Now only a formal declaration was needed. On June 7, Richard
Henry Lee of Virginia introduced a resolution declaring
"That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be,
free and independent states...." Immediately, a committee of
five, headed by Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, was appointed to
prepare a formal declaration.
Largely Jefferson's work, the Declaration of Independence,
adopted July 4, 1776, not only announced the birth of a new
nation, but also set forth a philosophy of human freedom that
would become a dynamic force throughout the entire world. The
Declaration draws upon French and English Enlightenment political
philosophy, but one influence in particular stands out: John
Locke's Second Treatise on Government. Locke took conceptions of
the traditional rights of Englishmen and universalized them into
the natural rights of all humankind. The Declaration's familiar
opening passage echoes Locke's social-contract theory of
government:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men
are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty
and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights,
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers
from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of
Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of
the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new
Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and
organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most
likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." In the
Declaration, Jefferson linked Locke's principles directly to the
situation in the colonies. To fight for American independence was
to fight for a government based on popular consent in place of a
government by a king who had "combined with others to
subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and
unacknowledged by our laws...." Only a government based on
popular consent could secure natural rights to life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness. Thus, to fight for American
independence was to fight on behalf of one's own natural rights.
DEFEATS AND VICTORIES
Although the Americans suffered severe setbacks for months
after independence was declared, their tenacity and perseverance
eventually paid off. During August 1776, in the Battle of Long
Island in New York, Washington's position became untenable, and
he executed a masterly retreat in small boats from Brooklyn to
the Manhattan shore. British General William Howe twice hesitated
and allowed the Americans to escape. By November, however, Howe
had captured Fort Washington on Manhattan Island. New York City
would remain under British control until the end of the war. By
December, Washington's forces were nearing collapse, as supplies
and promised aid failed to materialize. But Howe again missed his
chance to crush the Americans by deciding to wait until spring to
resume fighting. In the meantime, Washington crossed the Delaware
River, north of Trenton, New Jersey. In the early morning hours
of December 26, his troops surprised the garrison at Trenton,
taking more than 900 prisoners. A week later, on January 3, 1777,
Washington attacked the British at Princeton, regaining most of
the territory formally occupied by the British. The victories at
Trenton and Princeton revived flagging American spirits.
In 1777 Howe defeated the American army at Brandywine in
Pennsylvania and occupied Philadelphia, forcing the Continental
Congress to flee. Washington had to endure the bitterly cold
winter of 1777-1778 at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, lacking
adequate food, clothing and supplies. The American troops
suffered less because of shortages of these items than because
farmers and merchants preferred exchanging their goods for
British gold and silver rather than for paper money issued by the
Continental Congress and the states.
Valley Forge was the lowest ebb for Washington's Continental
Army, but 1777 proved to be the turning point in the war. In late
1776, British General John Burgoyne devised a plan to invade New
York and New England via Lake Champlain and the Hudson River.
Unfortunately, he had too much heavy equipment to negotiate the
wooded and marshy terrain. At Oriskany, New York, a band of
Loyalists and Indians under Burgoyne's command ran into a mobile
and seasoned American force. At Bennington, Vermont, more of
Burgoyne's forces, seeking much-needed supplies, encountered
American troops. The ensuing battle delayed Burgoyne's army long
enough to enable Washington to send reinforcements from the lower
Hudson River near Albany, New York. By the time Burgoyne resumed
his advance, the Americans were waiting for him. Led by Benedict
Arnold--who would later betray the Americans at West Point, New
York--the Americans twice repulsed the British. Burgoyne fell
back to Saratoga, New York, where American forces under General
Horatio Gates surrounded the British troops. On October 17, 1777,
Burgoyne surrendered his entire army. The British lost six
generals, 300 other officers and 5,500 enlisted personnel.
FRANCO-AMERICAN ALLIANCE
In France, enthusiasm for the American cause was high: the
French intellectual world was itself in revolt against feudalism
and privilege. However, the Crown lent its support to the
colonies for geopolitical rather than ideological reasons: the
French government had been eager for reprisal against Britain
ever since France's defeat in 1763. To further the American
cause, Benjamin Franklin was sent to Paris in 1776. His wit,
guile and intellect soon made their presence felt in the French
capital, and played a major role in winning French assistance.
France began providing aid to the colonies in May 1776, when
it sent 14 ships with war supplies to America. In fact, most of
the gun powder used by the American armies came from France.
After Britain's defeat at Saratoga, France saw an opportunity to
seriously weaken its ancient enemy and restore the balance of
power that had been upset by the Seven Years' War (the French and
Indian War). On February 6, 1778, America and France signed a
Treaty of Amity and Commerce, in which France recognized America
and offered trade concessions. They also signed a Treaty of
Alliance, which stipulated that if France entered the war,
neither country would lay down its arms until America won its
independence, that neither would conclude peace with Britain
without the consent of the other, and that each guaranteed the
other's possessions in America. This was the only bilateral
defense treaty signed by the United States or its predecessors
until 1949.
The Franco-American alliance soon broadened the conflict. In
June 1778 British ships fired on French vessels, and the two
countries went to war. In 1779 Spain, hoping to reacquire
territories taken by Britain in the Seven Years' War, entered the
conflict on the side of France, but not as an ally of the
Americans. In 1780 Britain declared war on the Dutch, who had
continued to trade with the Americans. The combination of these
European powers, with France in the lead, was a far greater
threat to Britain than the American colonies standing alone.
THE BRITISH MOVE SOUTH
With the French now involved, the British stepped up their
efforts in the southern colonies since they felt that most
Southerners were Loyalists. A campaign began in late 1778, with
the capture of Savannah, Georgia. Shortly thereafter, British
troops drove toward Charleston, South Carolina, the principal
Southern port. The British also brought naval and amphibious
forces into play there, and they managed to bottle up American
forces on the Charleston peninsula. On May 12 General Benjamin
Lincoln surrendered the city and its 5,000 troops, the greatest
American defeat of the war.
But the reversal in fortune only emboldened the American
rebels. Soon, South Carolinians began roaming the countryside,
attacking British supply lines. By July, American General Horatio
Gates, who had assembled a replacement force of untrained
militiamen, rushed to Camden, South Carolina, to confront British
forces led by General Charles Cornwallis. But the untrained
soldiers of Gates's army panicked and ran when confronted by the
British regulars. Cornwallis's troops met the Americans several
more times, but the most significant battle took place at
Cowpens, South Carolina, in early 1781, where the Americans
soundly defeated the British. After an exhausting, but
unproductive chase through North Carolina, Cornwallis set his
sights on Virginia.
VICTORY AND INDEPENDENCE
In July 1780 France's Louis XVI had sent to America an
expeditionary force of 6,000 men under the Comte Jean de
Rochambeau. In addition, the French fleet harassed British
shipping and prevented reinforcement and resupply of British
forces in Virginia by a British fleet sailing from New York City.
French and American armies and navies, totaling 18,000 men,
parried with Cornwallis all through the summer and into the fall.
Finally, on October 19, 1781, after being trapped at Yorktown
near the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, Cornwallis surrendered his army
of 8,000 British soldiers.
Although Cornwallis's defeat did not immediately end the
war--which would drag on inconclusively for almost two more
years--a new British government decided to pursue peace
negotiations in Paris in early 1782, with the American side
represented by Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and John Jay. On
April 15, 1783, Congress approved the final treaty, and Great
Britain and its former colonies signed it on September 3. Known
as the Treaty of Paris, the peace settlement acknowledged the
independence, freedom and sovereignty of the 13 former colonies,
now states, to which Great Britain granted the territory west to
the Mississippi River, north to Canada and south to Florida,
which was returned to Spain. The fledgling colonies that Richard
Henry Lee had spoken of more than seven years before, had finally
become "free and independent states." The task of
knitting together a nation yet remained.
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SIDE BAR: LOYALISTS DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Americans today think of the War for Independence as a
revolution, but in important respects it was also a civil war.
American Loyalists, or "Tories" as their opponents
called them, opposed the Revolution, and many took up arms
against the rebels. Estimates of the number of Loyalists range as
high as 500,000, or 20 percent of the white population of the
colonies.
What motivated the Loyalists? Most educated Americans, whether
Loyalist or Revolutionary, accepted John Locke's theory of
natural rights and limited government. Thus, the Loyalists, like
the rebels, criticized such British actions as the Stamp Act and
the Coercive Acts. Loyalists wanted to pursue peaceful forms of
protest because they believed that violence would give rise to
mob rule or tyranny. They also believed that independence would
mean the loss of economic benefits derived from membership in the
British mercantile system.
Loyalists came from all walks of life. The majority were small
farmers, artisans and shopkeepers. Not surprisingly, most British
officials remained loyal to the Crown. Wealthy merchants tended
to remain loyal, as did Anglican ministers, especially in Puritan
New England. Loyalists also included some blacks (to whom the
British promised freedom), Indians, indentured servants and some
German immigrants, who supported the Crown mainly because George
III was of German origin.
The number of Loyalists in each colony varied. Recent
estimates suggest that half the population of New York was
Loyalist; it had an aristocratic culture and was occupied
throughout the Revolution by the British. In the Carolinas,
back-country farmers were Loyalist, whereas the Tidewater
planters tended to support the Revolution.
During the Revolution, most Loyalists suffered little from
their views. However, a minority, about 19,000 Loyalists, armed
and supplied by the British, fought in the conflict.
The Paris Peace Treaty required Congress to restore property
confiscated from Loyalists. The heirs of William Penn in
Pennsylvania, for example, and those of George Calvert in
Maryland received generous settlements. In the Carolinas, where
enmity between rebels and Loyalists was especially strong, few of
the latter regained their property. In New York and the
Carolinas, the confiscations from Loyalists resulted in something
of a social revolution as large estates were parceled out to
yeoman farmers.
About 100,000 Loyalists left the country, including William Franklin, the son of Benjamin, and John Singleton Copley, the greatest American painter of the period. Most settled in Canada. Some eventually returned, although several state governments excluded the Loyalists from holding public office. In the decades after the Revolution, Americans preferred to forget about the Loyalists. Apart from Copley, the Loyalists became nonpersons in American history. .
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