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American History
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CHAPTER 3: The Road to Independence
An Outline of American History
"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.
SIDEBAR: 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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The U. S. Constitution
