CHAPTER 5
Wars for Independence
1764 - 1783
"What do we mean by the Revolution? The war? That was no part of
the Revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The
Revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected
from 1760 to 1775, in the course of fifteen years before a drop of
blood was shed at Lexington. The records of thirteen legislature, the
pamphlets, newspapers in all the colonies, ought to be consulted during
that period to ascertain the steps by which the public opinion was
enlightened and informed concerning the authority of Parliament over the
colonies." John Adams
"Democracy is government 'by the people,' but the responsibility for
the survival of democracy rests on the shoulders of elites. This is
the irony of democracy: Elites must govern wisely if government 'by the
people' is to survive. If the survival of the American system depended
upon an active, informed, and enlightened citizenry, then democracy
in America would have disappeared long ago; for the masses of
America are apathetic and ill-informed about politics and public
policy, and they have a surprisingly weak commitment to democratic
values - individual dignity, equality of opportunity, the right to
dissent, freedom of speech and press, religious toleration, due
process of law. But fortunately for these values and for American
democracy, the American masses do not lead, they follow. They
respond to the attitudes, proposals, and behavior of elites."
Dye, Thomas R. and Zeigler, L. Harmon. The Irony of Democracy.
[Proponents of the “elite” theory of democracy]
“Republicanism declared that the truly just society provided the
greatest possible liberty to individuals. As the power of the state, by
its very nature, was antithetical to liberty, it had to be limited. John
Locke argued that the authority of a ruler should be conditional
rather than absolute and that the people had the inherent right to
select their own form of governance and to withdraw their support if
the government did not fulfill its trust. The best guarantee of good
government, then, was the broad distribution of power to the people,
who would not only select their own leaders but vote them out as well. In
this view, republican government depended on the virtue of the
people, their willingness to make the health and stability of the
political community their first priority, and was possible only for an
“independent” population that controlled its own affairs.
AS Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “. . . dependence begets subservience
and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares it tools for the
designs of ambition.” Individual ownership of property, especially
land, he argued, was the foundation of an independent and virtuous
people.”
The Irony of Democracy
"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine
whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves. . . .The fate of
unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and
conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us no
choice but a brave resistance or the most abject submission. We have
therefore to resolve to conquer or die." George Washington, general
orders, July 2, 1776
"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and
the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the services of
their country; but he that stands it NOW deserves the love and
thanks of man and woman." Thomas Paine, The American Crisis,
Dec. 23, 1776
"I have not yet begun to fight." John Paul Jones (Sept 23, 1779)
"Father Serra, president of the California missions, prescribed a weekly
prayer for American victory.
"It is a common observation here [in Paris, France] that our cause is the
cause of all mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in
defending our own." Benjamin Franklin, 1777
"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and
judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and
whether hereditary, self appointed, or elective, may justly be
pronounced the very definition of tyranny."
James Madison Federalist #47
"I desired as many as could to join together in fasting and prayer, that
God would restore the spirit of love and of a sound mind to the poor
deluded rebels in America." John Wesley (Journal, August 1, 1777)
"By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze
unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot
heard round the world." Ralph Waldo Emerson, Concord Hymn,
1837
"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.
. . The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the
blood of patriots and tyrants. It is there natural manure." Thomas
Jefferson to Col. William S. Smith, 1787
"Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that
his justice cannot sleep forever." Thomas Jefferson
"Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." Jefferson's motto found
among his papers
"A subject comes into my head. . . . The question whether one
generation of men has a right to bind another. . . . I set out on this
ground which I suppose to be self evident: 'that the earth belongs in
usufruct to the living: that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it'."
Thomas Jefferson to Madison, Sept. 6, 1789
"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels
were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on
government would be necessary. . . . you must first enable the
government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it
to control itself." James Madison
"I know not whether any man in the world has had more influence on its
inhabitant or affairs for the last thirty years than Paine."
John Adams
"In the end I was convinced that the fear of a comprehensive
conspiracy against liberty throughout the English-speaking world - a conspiracy believed to have been nourished in corruption, and of
which, it was felt, oppression in America was only the most immediately
visible part -- lay at the heart of the Revolutionary movement."
Bernard Bailyn
“In the older, medieval, ‘corporate’ view of society, economic life
ideally operated according to what was equitable, not what was
profitable. Citizens usually agreed that government should provide
for the general welfare by regulating prices and wages, setting
quality controls, licensing providers of service. . . and supervising
public markets where all food was sold. Such regulation seemed
natural because a community was defined not as a collection of
individuals, each entitled to pursue separate interests, but as a
single body of interrelated parts where individual rights and
responsibilities formed a seamless web. . . .”
“According to the new view, if people were allowed to pursue their
own material desires competitively, they would collectively form a
natural, impersonal market of producers and consumers that would
operate to everyone’s advantage.” Historian Gary Nash
"Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man
must be connected with the constitution rights of the place. It may be a
reflection on human nature that such deices should be necessary to
control the abuses of government. But what is government itself by the
greatest of all reflections on human nature. If men were angels, no
government would be necessary." Madison Federalist #51
"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels
were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on
government would be necessary. . . . you must first enable the
government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it
to control itself." James Madison
“The word republic means the public good of the whole, in
contradistinction to the despotic form which makes the good of the
sovereign, or of one man, the only object of government.” Thomas
Paine
When rotated, Franklin's snake imitated the North American coastline; he
omitted Georgia, which was newly founded and inhabited largely by
convicts freed from British prisons.
Chapter Review
 What were the major campaigns of the Revolutionary War?
 What were the major turning points of the war?
 Why did the American colonies begin a war for independence?
 Describe the various revenue raising methods imposed by Britain
after the French and Indian War, and give the American response.
 Explain the division within the American colonies regarding resistance
to British taxation policies, and trace the emergence of the Whig and
Tory factions.
 Describe the major events of the American Revolution, from the
beginning at Lexington and Concord to the peace settlement.
 Explain the impact of the American Revolution on the status of
women, African Americans and Native Americans.
Battles in Eastern Massachusetts
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Concord, Lexington, and Bunker Hill
The War in the North, 1776–1777
Most of the fighting
between the British
and Americans
during the first part
of the war occurred
in the North, partly
because British
authorities assumed
that the New
England colonies
were the most
rebellious.
The War on the Frontier, 1778–1779
Significant battles in the Mississippi Valley and the frontiers of the
seaboard states added to the ferocity of the fighting and
strengthened some American claims to western lands.
The War in the South, 1778–1781
During the latter part of
the war, most of the
major engagements
occurred in the South.
British forces won most
of the early ones but
could not control the
immense territory
involved and eventually
surrendered at
Yorktown. here Tahoma
18 pt
Bibliography
Bailyn, Bernard. Faces of Revolution: Personalities and
Themes in the Struggle for American Independence [1990]
Dershowitz, Alan, America Declares Independence [2003]
Fischer, David Hackett. Liberty and Freedom [2005]
Mary Beth Norton, Liberty's Daughters: The Revolutionary
Experience of American Women (1980)
Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution
(1961)
Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic
(1969)
Alfred Young, ed., The American Revolution: Explorations
in American Radicalism (1976)
Concepts
Battles of Lexington and Concord, 1775
Committee of Safety
Continental Army
Contract theory of government
Declaration of Independence
Minute Men
Olive Branch Petition
Peace of Paris
Republicanism
Valley Forge
Saratoga
Stamp Act, Sugar Act
Benedict Arnold
Yorktown
unitary, confederation, federal
1/3 Patriots, 1/3 Loyalists, 1/3 not involved
Phyllis Wheatley
George Washington's Revolutionary War Account Book
George Washington received no
salary, but did have his
expenses reimbursed, while
Commander in Chief of the
Continental Army. This image
shows page 49 of his original
account book, submitted in 1783
to the Continental Congress.
When Washington submitted his
expenses to Congress, he left
the door open to future claims:
''July 1, 1783: Amount of the
Expenditures for the Years 1777,
8 + 9, and 1780, 1 + 2, and to
the pres't date[:] 160,074
[dollars] [;] 7070 [pounds
sterling], 15 [shillings], 4 [pence]''
Yorktown 1781
American soldiers at Yorktown in 1781 as drawn by a young officer in the
French army, Jean-Baptiste-Antoine de Verger. The African American on the
left is an infantryman of the First Rhode Island Regiment; the next, a
musketeer; the third, with the fringed jacket, a rifleman. The man on the
right is a Continental artilleryman, holding a lighted match used to fire
cannons.
North America after the Peace of Paris, 1783
The results of the American Revolution redrew the map of North America, confining
Britain to Canada and giving the United States most of the area east of the
Mississippi River, though Spain controlled its mouth for most of the next twenty
years.
I.
Realignments in the Spanish Borderlands
 Britain gains Florida after Seven Years’ War, but Spain
retains Louisiana and port city of New Orleans
 Spanish forts in Southwest grow in number, as Spain
faces more threats from Apaches and Comanches
II.
The British Colonies Resist Imperial
Reform
 Sugar Act attempts to end smuggling by lowering tariffs,
and Currency Act forbids colonists from producing paper
money
 Stamp Act angers colonists and leads to formation of
Sons of Liberty
 Colonists in lower South are unhappy with both
Parliament and their own colonial elite
 Townshend Revenue Act worsens feelings
 Raises revenue without representation
 Results in Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, uniting
colonists
 Result is series of non-importation agreements
 Boston becomes center of conflict – 1770 “Boston
Massacre” and Paul Revere
 Burning of Gaspée and formation of Committees of
Correspondence show colonial unrest
 Boston Tea Party of 1773 demonstrates colonial
defiance



Tea Act designed to protect British East India Company by
removing duties on its tea
Bostonians dump tea to protest manipulation
Britain responds with Coercive Acts, designed to get
Boston under control
 First Continental Congress meets in Philadelphia
in fall of 1774
III.
Resistance Becomes a War for
Independence
 First shots fired in April 1775, at Lexington and
Concord
 Second Continental Congress meets in May, selecting
George Washington to command the new Continental
Army
 Battle of Bunker Hill leads George III to declare colonies
in rebellion
 Colonists find themselves having to choose sides
 Loyalists usually wealthy
 Patriots resort to conscription
 Women support cause in many ways
 Continental Congress declares independence in July
1776 and begins forming Articles of Confederation
IV.
War in the North, 1776-1779
 Britain invades New York and achieves victories
until loss at Saratoga in October
 British occupy Philadelphia during winter of 177778, but Washington turns troops into effective army
at Valley Forge
 Battle of Saratoga brings French into war on side of
colonists
 Patriots continue to suffer from economic problems
Northern Campaigns,
1776-1778
V. The War Moves West and South
 Fighting intensifies on frontier
 Britain invades South, hoping to enlist Loyalist support
there, but plan backfires


Southerners fight mainly for Patriots
Lord Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown, October 1781
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Southern Campaigns,
1778-1781
 Treaty of Paris ends hostilities but leaves problems
 New nation extends from Atlantic coast to Mississippi
River, and from Canada to 31st parallel
 Britain agrees to remove troops promptly, then fail to do so
 Loyalists are assured of protection, but many face
discrimination and leave country