thesis of the american revolution

149 American Revolution Essay Topics & Examples

If you’re looking for American Revolution topics for research paper or essay, you’re in the right place. This article contains everything you might need to write an essay on Revolutionary war

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American Revolution, also known as Revolutionary War, occurred in the second half of the 18th century. Among its causes was a series of acts established by the Crown. These acts placed taxes on paint, tea, glass, and paper imported to the colonies. As a result of the war, the thirteen American colonies gained independence from the British Crown, thereby creating the United States of America. Whether you need to write an argumentative, persuasive, or discussion paper on the Revolutionary War, this article will be helpful. It contains American Revolution essay examples, titles, and questions for discussion. Boost your critical thinking with us!

Townshend Acts and the Tea Act as the causes of the American Revolution
Ideological roots of the American Revolution
English government and the American colonies before the Revolutionary war
Revolutionary War: the main participants
The American Revolution: creating the new constitutions
Causes and effects of the American Revolution
Revolutionary War: the key battles

Signifying a cornerstone moment for British colonial politics and the creation of a new, fully sovereign nation, the events from 1765 to 1783 were unusual for the 18th century. Thus, reflecting all the crucial moments within a single American Revolution Essay becomes troublesome to achieve. However, if you keep in mind certain historical events, then you may affect the quality of your paper for the better.

All American Revolution essay topics confine themselves to the situation and its effects. Make sure that you understand the chronology by searching for a timeline, or even create one yourself! Doing so should help you easily trace what date is relevant to which event and, thus, allow you to stay in touch with historical occurrences. Furthermore, understand the continuity of the topic, from the creation of the American colony until the Declaration of Independence. Creating a smooth flowing narrative that takes into consideration both the road to revolution and its aftereffects will demonstrate your comprehensive understanding of the issue.

When writing about the pre-history of the Revolution, pay special attention to ongoing background mechanisms of the time. The surge of patriotism, a strong desire for self-governed democracy, and “Identity American” all did not come into existence at the Boston Tea Party but merely demonstrated themselves most clearly at that time. Linking events together will become more manageable if you can understand the central motivation behind them.

Your structure is another essential aspect of essay writing, with a traditional outline following the events in chronological order, appropriately overviewing them when necessary. Thus, an excellent structure requires that your introduction should include:

An American Revolution essay hook, which will pique your readers’ interest and make them want to read your work further. Writing in unexpected facts or giving a quote from a contemporary actor of the events, such as one of the founding fathers, are good hook examples because they grab your readers’ attention.
A brief overview of the circumstances. It should be both in-depth enough to get your readers on the same level of knowledge as you, the writer, and short enough to engage them in your presented ideas.
An American Revolution essay thesis that will guide your paper from introduction to conclusion. Between overviewing historical information and interest-piquing hooks, your thesis statement should be on-point and summarize the goal of your essay. When writing, you should often return to it, assessing whether the topics you are addressing are reflective of your paper’s goals.

Whatever issues you raise in your introduction and develop in your main body, you should bring them all together in your conclusion. Summarize your findings and compare them against your thesis statement. Doing so will help you carry out a proper verdict regarding the problem and its implications.

The research you have carried out and the resulting compiled bibliography titles will help you build your essay’s credibility. However, apart from reading up on the problem you are addressing, you should think about reading other sample essays. These may not only help you get inspired but also give excellent American Revolution essay titles and structure lessons. Nevertheless, remember that plagiarizing from these papers, or anywhere else, is not advisable! Avoid committing academic crimes and let your own ideas be representative of your academism.

Want to sample some essays to get your essay started? Kick-start your writing process with IvyPanda and its ideas!

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Women and politics in the era of the american revolution.

Sheila L. Skemp Sheila L. Skemp Department of History, The University of Mississippi
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.216
Published online: 09 June 2016

Historians once assumed that, because women in the era of the American Revolution could not vote and showed very little interest in attaining the franchise, they were essentially apolitical beings. Scholars now recognize that women were actively engaged in the debates that accompanied the movement toward independence, and that after the war many sought a more expansive political role for themselves. Moreover, men welcomed women’s support for the war effort. If they saw women as especially fit for domestic duties, many continued to seek women’s political guidance and help even after the war ended.

Granted, those women who wanted a more active and unmediated relationship to the body politic faced severe legal and ideological obstacles. The common law system of coverture gave married women no control over their bodies or to property, and thus accorded them no formal venue to express their political opinions. Religious convention had it that women, the “weaker sex,” were the authors of original sin. The ideology associated with “republicanism” argued that the attributes of independence, self-reliance, physical strength, and bravery were exclusively masculine virtues. Many observers characterized women as essentially selfish and frivolous creatures who hungered after luxuries and could not contain their carnal appetites. Nevertheless, some women carved out political roles for themselves.

In the lead up to the war, many women played active, even essential roles in various non-consumption movements, promising to refrain from purchasing English goods, and attacking those merchants who refused to boycott prohibited goods. Some took to the streets, participating in riots that periodically disturbed the tranquility of colonial cities. A few published plays and poems proclaiming their patriotic views. Those women, who would become loyalists, were also active, never reluctant, to express their disapproval of the protest movement.

During the war, many women demonstrated their loyalty to the patriot cause by shouldering the burdens of absent husbands. They managed farms and businesses. First in Philadelphia, and then in other cities, women went from door to door collecting money for the Continental Army. Some accompanied husbands to the battlefront, where they tended to the material needs of soldiers. A very few disguised themselves as men and joined the army, exposing as a lie the notion that only men had the capacity to sacrifice their lives for the good of the country. Loyalist women continued to express their political views, even though doing so brought them little more than physical suffering and emotional pain. African American women took advantage of wartime chaos to run away from their masters and forge new, independent lives for themselves.

After the war, women marched in parades, lobbied and petitioned legislators, attended sessions of Congress, and participated in political rallies—lending their support to particular candidates or factions. Elite women published novels, poems, and plays. Some hosted salons where men and women gathered to discuss political issues. In New Jersey, single property-owning women voted.

By the end of the century, however, proponents of women’s political rights lost ground, in part because new “scientific” notions of gender difference prepared the way for the concept of “separate spheres.” Politics became more organized, leaving little room for women to express their views “out of doors,” even as judges and legislators defined women as naturally dependent. Still, white, middle class women in particular took advantage of better educational opportunities, finding ways to influence the public sphere without demanding formal political rights. They read, wrote, and organized benevolent societies, laying the groundwork for the antebellum reform movements of the mid-19th century.

American Revolution
Deborah Sampson
republicanism
Abigail Adams
Mercy Otis Warren
citizenship
Mary Wollstonecraft

The Meaning of Political Activity

Until recently, historians equated political activity with the right to vote, and thus characterized American women as having no political voice until the mid-19th century, when a few brave souls demanded (among other things) the franchise. Politics, citizenship, and voting were so linked in the minds of then modern Americans that few imagined disfranchised women as political actors. The Declaration of Independence may have proclaimed that “all men are created equal,” but few scholars suggested that women believed Jefferson’s soaring rhetoric applied to them. Beginning in the 1980s, however, historians began to re-examine their understanding of what it meant to be a political person, or, in the era of the American Revolution, to be a patriot or a loyalist. Instead of simply assuming that views of political activity were the same in the 18th century as they are modern times, scholars looked at the past anew, defining political activity within a distinctly historical context. The results of that endeavor—which remain open ended and contested—introduced historians to a world that was profoundly different from their own.

No one denies that women before, during, and after the Revolution faced severe limits to their ability to act as political beings. Nor does anyone deny that even the most self-consciously public-spirited women defined their relationship to the state in ways that differed from the experiences of men. Indeed, white women were actually losing political power throughout the 18th century. In the 17th century, social standing, not gender identity, was the key determinant for the distribution of political rights. In England, under certain circumstances, aristocratic women could vote and hold office. In America, no one questioned the right of an elite woman to express her opinions on political issues and to exercise authority over lower class men. By the 18th century, gender had become more important than status. Any woman, however well born, was deemed “naturally” unfit for the public or political realm. In virtually every arena, women, simply by virtue of their sex, were excluded from formal—and even informal—political activity. 1

Legally, married women were enmeshed in the system of “coverture,” a common law doctrine that denied them any independent civic identity. The husband represented his wife to the outside world. He controlled her work and her body, made all political decisions, and controlled any property his wife brought to the marriage. Because the ownership of property was the prime requisite for political rights at the time, if a woman had no property, she had no political existence. A wife’s loyalty was to her husband, not to the state. He might exercise his power with a light hand, discussing politics with his wife and even listening to her views, but the decision to do so was his alone. Legally speaking, at least, women had only one right, the right to choose a spouse. Having “freely” made that choice, they were subject to the benevolence of their husbands.

It was not the law alone that relegated white women—even if they were single—to a non-political status. Convention questioned women’s ability to participate in the political process on a variety of fronts. Many continued to use the story of Eve to prove that women were enslaved to their passions and their sexual desires. They were fickle and frivolous, and above all irrational, and thus not suited to make the decisions that a healthy polity required. “Republican” ideology emphasized propertied independence, self-reliance, physical strength, and bravery—all framed as manly characteristics, as “virtue”—as the essential requisites for political rights. At least some men could sacrifice their own interests to support the public good. But virtually all women, many insisted, “naturally” spent too much on luxuries, driving their husbands into debt, and weakening the entire social fabric. How then could women call themselves patriots if they were too weak to resist their penchant for luxuries, even when the national interest demanded it?

The evidence nevertheless indicates that, despite the limitations they faced, women seldom ignored the political issues of the day. This was especially true in the era of the American Revolution. But in what ways were women “political”? In what sorts of political activities did they engage? What activities remained closed to them? What, if anything, changed? Did women’s understanding of their relationship to the state alter in some fundamental way as a result of a movement founded upon profoundly egalitarian principles?

Clearly the answers to those questions vary. Elite, white women (like their male counterparts) were more likely to reap the benefits of revolutionary change than were lower class white or African American women, especially in terms of their ability to influence the male political world. Urban women had more options than their counterparts in rural America. Quakers accorded women more authority than did other denominations. New England women were, as a whole, more literate and had more access to education than did their southern sisters.

Scholars who focus on women’s formal political activity have good reason to argue that the American Revolution did not alter women’s roles in any meaningful way. The vast majority still could not vote. Those few who were enfranchised quickly lost that right. Nor were women able to hold political office, even at the local level. Nevertheless, they were never divorced from the world outside the home, and they often expressed their views publicly. Even post-war women who had no interest in politics defined themselves as members of the republic, as rights-bearing citizens who were proud to be patriotic actors.

It is possible, moreover, to broaden the definition of “the political,” to view the social and sexual in political terms. If, as one scholar argues, “the family, in its patriarchal structure and values is a microcosmic representation of ‘the state’,” domestic concerns are the purview of political historians. 2 Women applied revolutionary rhetoric to their own circumstances. Some declared their independence from abusive husbands, pursuing their own versions of happiness. Others took control of their bodies, limiting the number of children they brought into the world. White, middle class girls attended the growing number of female academies, asserting that they were rational beings who were able to make reasoned political decisions. They read, they wrote, they published, they formed literary societies, improving their own lives as well as the lives of less fortunate members of society. Elite women hosted salons where they discussed the political issues of the day, creating a sociable environment that softened the rough edges of cantankerous politicians. If, as feminists in the 1970s argued, “the personal is political,” then these women were acting politically. Whether they cared about “high” politics, saw themselves as “republican mothers or wives,” laid claim to “domestic citizenship” or membership in “civil society,” these women’s lives were profoundly affected by the American Revolution. 3

The Coming of the Revolution

Men and women alike were engaged in the debate over America’s relationship to England in the decade preceding the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Colonial women surely cared about public affairs. They had opinions about the Great Awakening, the French and Indian War, and the political quarrels that erupted over local issues in individual provinces. They were interested, as wives, mothers, daughters, even as humans, in the world outside the home. But this time it was somewhat different. This time, a political structure controlled by men appealed directly to women for support, giving them a role to play in the drama that led to the American Revolution. Some women supported the protest movements that led ultimately to independence. Others opposed those same movements, remaining loyal to the King, fearing the chaos and disruption they believed would result if the ties binding the Empire together were broken. In either case, many women were becoming engaged in the public issues of the day.

Granted, nothing in the run-up to independence altered women’s political, social, or legal status. Nevertheless, once colonial leaders decided to employ non-consumption as the best device for securing their ends, they realized that they needed women’s support. Women made most household purchases. Thus they had to be persuaded to refrain from indulging in English luxury items and depend instead on their own spinning and weaving to produce homespun for their families. They would not, of course, engage in formal political activity, but the choices they made in the domestic realm would, by definition, become political.

Women responded to the challenge. Especially in New England, those who supported the protest movement gathered in public to take part in spinning bees, proudly exhibiting their womanly talents, feeling, as one young participant noted, “Nationly” into the bargain. 4 Throughout the colonies, women of every social status signed non-consumption agreements. In 1774 , fifty-one women in Edenton, North Carolina went even further, signing such an agreement, specifically claiming to do so in the name of the public good, thus declaring that they understood and cared about the implications of the political debates swirling about them.

Single women acted still more forcefully. In 1765 , five Philadelphia women shopkeepers signed a non-importation agreement, signaling their opposition to the Stamp Act. As single property owners they were legally able to act politically—not as producers of cloth or consumers of manufactured goods, but as members of the mercantile community. A few already had some political authority. If none could vote at the colony level, in Philadelphia, they were “freemen,” who could help elect council members. They also could lobby lawmakers and could sign the same petitions and make the same political decisions made by their male counterparts. 5

Other women, perhaps more circumspect, perhaps simply putting their talents to good use, entered the public realm by becoming a part of the republic of letters. Quaker poet Hannah Griffits supported the boycott in defiance of the Townshend Duties in 1768 , saying,

And tho’ we’ve no Voice, but a negative here, The use of the Taxables, let us forbear, Then Merchants import till yr. Traffick be dull, Stand firmly resolved bid Grenville to see That rather than Freedom, we’ll part with our Tea. 6

Women might not be able to vote, but they did have a “negative.” And they could use it whenever merchants refused to do their patriotic duty.

Mercy Otis Warren, sister of James Otis and wife of James Warren, also picked up her pen to support the patriot cause. Her first published play, The Adulateur , ( 1772 ) viciously attacked Massachusetts’s governor, Thomas Hutchinson, portraying him as a tyrant bent upon destroying the liberties of innocent Americans. The play urged colonists to be on their guard against a leader who would stop at nothing to achieve his ends.

Not every woman signed a petition, wrote a poem, or spun cloth for the good of the “nation.” Even those women who did express themselves politically did not challenge traditional gender norms. No one denied that a married woman’s obligations were to her family, or demanded the franchise for women. Nevertheless, if many women were—like their male counterparts—indifferent to the issues dividing England and America, many others began to think politically. Some disdained the movement toward independence, refusing to sign non-consumption agreements, defiantly drinking British tea, and declaring their continued loyalty to the Crown. Others made sacrifices for the rights of colonial Americans, even if they did not seem to recognize that their own rights were very limited.

According to Republican ideology, willingness to sacrifice one’s life for the public good proved one’s patriotism. If citizens were to demand rights, they had to perform the duties that accompanied those rights. From this perspective, women were excluded from any claims to citizenship, for no one expected a woman to pick up a musket to fight for the King or to defend American liberties. Nothing divided men from women more than the onset of war. War reinforced gender differences, reminding everyone that the battlefield was a male preserve, an arena in which men risked everything and thereby earned the adulation of their countrymen.

Women, too, made sacrifices throughout the war, but their sacrifices were taken for granted and seldom noticed. They lost husbands and brothers, fathers and sons. They fended for themselves when men left home to fight. White, middle class women, in particular, made ends meet at a time when inflation put the barest necessities out of reach. They struggled to manage family businesses and farms, fending off creditors, disciplining recalcitrant slaves or servants, and making financial decisions. Many floundered, failed, and ended up living off the charity of family or friends. Even those, like Abigail Adams, who discovered a talent for business, longed for a time when life would return to “normal.” 7 Still, at least, some women grew more confident in their ability to handle traditionally male affairs, as they made independent decisions that were every bit as rational as those their husbands would have made.

Many African American women seized upon wartime activity to declare their own independence, running away from their masters, fleeing either to the British army, to Canada, or to American cities where they could blend in with the free black population. They were clearly taken by the language of liberty and equality that white patriots used in their fight against the British, using that language for their own purposes. Phillis Wheatley, an African American slave from Massachusetts, published poems that explicitly used white Americans’ demands for their own liberty to challenge the institution of slavery.

Women took an active part in the Revolutionary struggle, whether they wanted to or not. A war fought in America, where the lines between the “battlefront” and the “home front” were blurred or non-existent, disrupted the lives of many women at one time or another. Some, especially those who lived along the coast, fled to the interior, where they hoped to be safe from marauding Redcoats. Benjamin Franklin’s sister, Jane Mecom, was one of thousands of women who abandoned Boston in 1775 , living a peripatetic existence for years as she sought refuge from the ravages of war. 8 Others did not, or could not, leave their homes. South Carolina’s Eliza Wilkinson, for example, endured more than one “day of terror” at the hands of British soldiers who entered her home, confiscated her clothes and her jewelry, and implicitly threatened her life. 9 Loyalist women endured even more traumatic hardships because of their political views. Ostracized by their neighbors, they watched as the families’ property was confiscated by the state, and they were often forced into exile.

Some white women, especially those of lower status, had little choice but to accompany their husbands to the battlefront, where their services to the Army were invaluable. They washed clothes and bedding, cooked and sewed, tended to the sick and wounded, and occasionally picked up a musket and fired at the enemy. 10 These women never won much praise, even when they put their lives in danger, challenging the assumption that men were brave and public spirited, while women were weak and selfish.

Women usually performed their patriotic duties as wives and mothers. Few, even those who accompanied their husbands to war, abandoned their domestic role. Some, however, took a more active and less “womanly” approach. In 1780 , for instance, Esther DeBerdt Reed of Philadelphia published a broadside, The Sentiments of an American Woman , to argue that America’s female patriots should act as citizens, not simply as women, in the service of their country. She urged women to sell their jewels and ornaments and to donate the proceeds to the Continental Army. Thirty-six Philadelphia women—all elite—responded. Not only did they sell their own luxury items, but they also went door-to-door, collecting money from strangers and friends, from rich and poor. Such “unfeminine” activity was shocking to some, admired by others. In Philadelphia alone, they amassed over $7,000 in specie. Significantly, the Philadelphia women organized their counterparts in other cities, proving that women were capable of unmediated patriotism.

Women were also spies, often employing gender stereotypes to their own ends, convincing the enemy that a “mere woman” knew nothing about war or politics. A few defied gender conventions altogether, joining the Continental Army disguised as men. None was more successful in this regard than Deborah Sampson, who enlisted after the Battle of Yorktown and kept her identity secret for seventeen months. The response to the revelation that “Robert Shurtliff” was indeed Deborah Sampson is revealing. The New York Gazette praised Sampson for her “virtue” as a “ female soldier ,” emphasizing her “chastity,” her aversion to liquor, and her patriotism. Apparently a woman could be a “patriot” even as she maintained her purity and gentility. In fact, Sampson probably enlisted so that she could get the bounty offered to all volunteers. Still, if some observers believed that a woman was capable of military virtue, they were implicitly admitting that the lines dividing humans along gender lines were becoming blurred. 11

Women of the Republic

At war’s end, Americans faced a world where, at least temporarily, the old verities seemed open to question. The traditional order did not collapse. Racial slavery survived the Revolution, even if it began to disappear in some parts of the country. Men with no property remained disenfranchised, although the link between property and the vote was becoming obsolete. Some Americans began to question traditional definitions of gender, participating in a transatlantic conversation about gender identities and roles, as they wondered how Americans could justify the legal, economic, and social dependence of women in a nation founded upon the premise of equality. Granted, none of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence intended to relinquish their domestic authority, nor did they envision a world where women would be truly equal or independent. Still, arguments about women’s political rights filled the air. Now that the new nation was composed of citizens instead of subjects, some questioned the relationship of white women to the state. Could women be citizens? And if so, did they experience citizenship in the same way that men did? The answers to those questions varied, but they did reveal that gender definitions were in flux.

Female Politicians

Many patriot women came out of the Revolution with a sense of worth and political importance. They had been praised for their patriotism in the days leading up to the war; they had sacrificed for the cause. Some had run businesses, operated farms, and taken care of their families, proving that they need not be dependent upon their husbands. They had followed the political debates before and during the war, and continued to do so at war’s end. Thus they could be excused for assuming that they were citizens who might not be equal to or the same as men, but who nevertheless had some political rights.

Nor did all men disagree. Men praised women for their loyalty. A few even admitted that there was no rationale for excluding property-owning women from the vote. Virginia’s Richard Henry Lee, for instance, had no answer to his widowed sister when she complained that she was being taxed without representation. While he thought women did not really need to vote, he promised he “would at any time give my consent to establish their right” to do so. 12 In New Jersey, single women worth fifty pounds actually voted between 1776 and 1807 . Some scholars argue that the decision to enfranchise women was neither an accident nor an anomaly. Rather, they insist, New Jersey “simply stood at the cutting edge of the political continuum, and its laws represented the furthest reach of possibilities for female citizenship,” taking “Revolutionary doctrine to its furthest—but logical—extreme, at least for white women.” 13 The state’s lawmakers accepted the implications of revolutionary rhetoric, welcoming white, property-owning women into the body politic, even courting them at election time. They withdrew their support only when the men in power began to see women’s votes as a liability rather than an asset.

If most women did not vote, few saw women’s exclusion from the franchise in exclusively gendered terms. Many white men, even those who had served in the Continental Army, did not meet the property qualifications for voting. Increasingly, however, with the expansion of the franchise to all white men, it became apparent that women could not vote simply because they were women. Even single, property-owning women were seen as dependents at a time when independence was accorded the highest value, and dependence was framed in pejorative terms. 14

That never meant that women were not citizens. The Constitution made it clear that, while slaves were only three fifths of a person, white women were fully counted in the census, thus helping determine how many representatives each state would have in Congress. As one historian points out, “In some clear, if unspecified way, women were members of political society in ways that slaves simply were not.” 15 Women, moreover, expected to enjoy many of the same rights as men. They were not excluded from the protections offered by the Bill of Rights, and they assumed that their property was protected under the law.

Post-war women were not simply passive recipients of the government’s protection. They expressed their views on the political issues of the day in a variety of ways. Lower class women could be found in the streets, participating in celebratory rituals that gave patriotic meaning to their connection to the new nation. They marched in parades, attended public festivals, and marked election days with demonstrations for their favorite candidates. Independence Day commemorations were especially inclusive. Many towns even called upon women to make speeches to “promiscuous” audiences in honor of the nation’s birthday. 16

Women of the middling sort and the elite also participated in these celebrations. Others performed their political roles more circumspectly, remaining at home, but imbuing their ordinary domestic duties with political meaning. Some saw themselves as “republican mothers,” who raised their sons to be virtuous citizens, thus doing their part to keep the new nation from sliding into decay. 17 Others emphasized their roles as “republican wives,” whose influence on their husbands was essential to the survival of the republic. 18 In either case, women used their newfound importance to demand more and better education for their daughters. Young women throughout the country attended the growing number of women’s academies, gaining confidence in their ability to think rationally and to express their opinions on public affairs.

Some elite women were political actors in more rarified ways. If they lived close to the center of government—in New York, Philadelphia, or ultimately in Washington City—they hosted or attended salons, where men and women gathered to discuss political issues. Martha Washington held regular levees in New York, serving as a broker between formal politics and the domestic realm. New Jersey’s Annis Boudinot Stockton and Philadelphia’s Anne Willing Bingham were only two of those women who helped bridge the division between public and private, providing an informal setting for political conversations. Their contributions were accepted because women emphasized their traditionally feminine attributes as sociable human beings who were adept at cultivating civility and reforming the manners of the men who in fact ruled the world. Moreover, they could “speak to power, but they could not exercise it.” 19 Still, they saw themselves as political beings. In Washington, they attended sessions of Congress and arguments before the Supreme Court. 20 To be sure, they mattered only because of their relationships to powerful men. They were simply engaged in the “family business—in this case, however, the family business was politics.” 21 Some, like Margaret Bayard Smith, privately resented the “‘limited circle which it is prescribed for women to tread’” and longed for the “‘unlimited sphere of man.’” Even if women did not demand the vote, many envisioned an active role for themselves in the new republic. 22

Women of Letters

Some women used their pens to directly challenge the gender conventions of the day. In their own minds, they were acting politically, even as they maintained their respectability. They wrote in the privacy of their own homes, yet they were part of the “public sphere,” that fictive space between the formal world of politics and the domestic realm. They were disembodied voices speaking to a disembodied audience. Actress, novelist, and playwright Susanna Rowson was a partial exception to that rule. Not only did she write plays extolling women’s virtues, but she also appeared on stage, forthrightly exhibiting her sexualized body to the audience. At the conclusion of her play, Slaves in Algiers , she stood before the audience proclaiming:

Women were born for universal sway; Men to adore, be silent, and obey. 23

Most women writers were not so bold—or so desperate to make money. They carefully guarded their reputations, even as they argued that women were reasonable creatures who had a political role. Many combed the history books, seeking examples of political women in the past, to make their case. They often wrote about queens, not because they saw monarchs as representative women, but because queens provided examples of real women who had successfully exercised political power. They studied educated women for the same reason, pointing out that women could be as rational and erudite as any man. They looked, above all, to the classics—especially to the Roman Empire, for examples of women who were both virtuous and patriotic. They extolled the “Roman Matron” who influenced public events through connections to their husbands. They admired the women of Sparta, who bore strong sons and prepared them for the battlefield. 24

Massachusetts’s Judith Sargent Murray was especially adept at using history to support the argument for women’s political rights. Proud to proclaim her affinity for English feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, Murray was at the forefront of those who claimed that women were intellectually equal to men. In “Observations on Female Abilities,” which appeared in her three-volume “miscellany” The Gleaner ( 1798 ), she argued that women were naturally rational, intelligent, brave, and patriotic. History proved, she insisted, that women were capable of leading armies, ruling kingdoms, and contributing to the intellectual life of the nation. If they failed to do so, their environment, not their nature, was at fault. According to Murray, women were “circumscribed in their education within very narrow limits, and constantly depressed by their occupations.” She insisted, “ The idea of the incapability of women is, we conceive, in this enlightened age , totally inadmissible .” Given half a chance, she cried, the “daughters of Columbia” could soar to the loftiest heights. 25

Even Murray pulled her punches. She never asked for the vote. Although she longed to be taken seriously, she desired influence, not power. Consequently, while she argued that women could hold office or lead armies, she did not believe they should do so, unless they had no other choice. Nevertheless, she made a case for women’s political abilities that could probably not have been made in pre-Revolutionary America.

Murray’s argument was based on her belief that men and women were essentially the same, at least where important (intellectual) matters were concerned. She claimed that “the mind has no sex,” and thus she sought to blur gender differences. Mercy Otis Warren, who published her History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution in 1805 , justified her entry into the republic of letters on quite different grounds. She did not deny that women were different from men. Rather, she argued that because women were different they had a “valuable perspective” on political matters that the new nation would ignore at its peril. Women, she said were especially religious and morally perceptive, nor were they so wedded to military values as men were. Women, in essence, could be political because of their unique characteristics, not in spite of them. In essence, Warren was helping to prepare the way for the notion of “separate spheres.” 26

Toward Separate Spheres

Judith Sargent Murray was by no means the only person in the late 18th century—male or female—who thought that men and women were intellectually alike. Few challenged coverture directly, but neither did many people automatically dismiss the notion that women could be patriotic citizens with views of their own. Nevertheless, fears of “disorderly women” always lurked just beneath the surface. The French Revolution exacerbated those fears, leading many on both sides of the Atlantic, to adopt the language of a new scientific discourse linking women’s bodily and emotional traits. They argued that men and women were not only different, but opposites. Because women were naturally—essentially—weak, emotional, and irrational, they belonged in the home. Their involvement in the increasingly vituperative and dirty business of politics would undermine the nation. While some argued that women remained equal, even if they occupied a separate sphere, others sensed that the egalitarian promise of the Revolution was disappearing. 27

Mary Wollstonecraft’s fall from grace was both a symptom and a cause of the growing hostility toward women’s political rights. Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman ( 1792 ) received a largely positive response when it first appeared on American bookshelves. Not everyone viewed the work with approbation, but many women saw Wollstonecraft as a kindred spirit. All that changed in 1798 . Wollstonecraft died in childbirth, and her husband, William Godwin, rushed his Memoirs , a tribute to his wife, into print. Godwin described Wollstonecraft’s three-year affair with Gilbert Imlay, portraying his wife as a passionate being who followed her heart rather than submitting to the strictures of convention. Overnight, Wollstonecraft’s detractors used her story as proof of the dangers of what passed for feminism in the 18th century. The equality of women, which had once been open to debate, was now characterized as “unnatural.”

Less than ten years later, New Jersey women lost their right to vote. If the actual motive for that loss had everything to do with partisan politics, the rationale for the decision partook of the rhetoric of gender difference. Thus, men argued that even single, property-owning women, were, by definition, “persons who do not even pretend to any judgment.” The mere idea of women voting, said one New Jersey observer, was “disgusting” and contrary to “the nature of things.” 28

Courts throughout the nation reinforced the notion that all women were dependents, incapable of making their own political decisions. In Massachusetts, James Martin appealed to the Supreme Judicial Court, demanding the return of properties confiscated from his mother’s estate. Anna, James’s mother, had married a British soldier, and had accompanied him when he fled to New York during the war. The state viewed husband and wife as loyalists, and confiscated their property. Throughout the war, political leaders had told women to act politically, even to “rebel” against their husbands if those husbands chose the “wrong” side. They had assumed, in other words, that women had an independent voice and could—indeed should—use that voice to support the Revolution. In 1801 , the Massachusetts court decided differently. It maintained that a wife had no choice but to follow her husband’s wishes. Indeed, for a woman to rebel against her husband would be unnatural, and destructive of all social order. Women, claimed Judge Theodore Sedgewick, had no political relationship to the state. In effect, the court “chose common law over natural law,” indicating that the doctrine of coverture had survived the Revolution unscathed. 29

Everywhere the signs of a backlash against women’s political activity became apparent. In Philadelphia, sexual behavior that had once been tolerated became criminalized and racialized. 30 Also in Philadelphia, single, property-owning women were increasingly viewed as anomalous—even though their numbers actually increased. Tax officials “wrote women out of the polity,” either assessing them at lower rates than they should have paid, or excusing them altogether. 31 When Congress passed the Embargo Act during the Jefferson administration, and Americans were once again urged to forego English goods, no one asked women to spin, to weave, to be good patriots. The Embargo act was controversial, but the controversy was played out in a male political arena. Women’s views were irrelevant. Only the opinions of men mattered. 32 As politics became more organized, politicians had less need to turn to the “people out of doors,” where men and women could make their views known in informal and porous settings, thus closing off yet another venue for women to express their opinions. Ironically, the more white men’s power expanded, the more egalitarian male society became, and the more white women were marginalized. As Andrew Cayton points out, white men, often as not, used their power “to deny citizenship to millions on the basis of an essential identity created by the nature of their bodies. An American citizen in the early republic was a white man remarkably uninterested in the liberty of anyone but himself.” 33

Granted, as some historians have pointed out, women continued to be interested in the world outside the home. White, middle class women organized same-sex benevolent clubs and literary societies, employing their skills to improve society without venturing into the formal political arena. If they generally exercised their power over other women—the poor, the orphaned, the sexually deviant—they were nevertheless preparing the way for the reform movements of the antebellum era. 34 If the premise of the Revolution was not realized for women, neither did it go completely unfulfilled.

Discussion of the Literature

Until 1980 , historians generally viewed early American women as apolitical. Women did not vote (everyone ignored the single women of New Jersey who briefly exercised the franchise), and thus they had no political rights. Two path-breaking books, Mary Beth Norton’s Liberty’s Daughters and Linda Kerber’s Women of the Republic laid that perspective to rest. Norton documented the many ways that women engaged in political debates throughout the Revolutionary era. Less optimistically, Kerber emphasized the challenges that women continued to face, even as she pointed out that the Revolution did lead some to struggle with the contradiction between the Revolution’s egalitarian ideals and the reality of women’s lives. Since 1980 , historians have mined the sources, examining women’s political engagement during the last half of the 18th century.

Some historians remain skeptical about claims that the Revolution fundamentally changed women’s lives. Joan Hoff Wilson insists that women were actually worse off after the Revolution, and that the decline in women’s economic and political position was not a direct result of the Revolution, but rather the consequence of trends long in the making. Women, she claims, were so far removed from political affairs, so lacking in anything approaching a consciousness of themselves as women, that for them, the Revolution was simply irrelevant. A few asked for privileges, not rights. Even they “could not conceive of a society whose standards were not set by male, patriarchal institutions.” 35 Elaine Foreman Crane points out that demands for women’s educational opportunities, and notions of “republican motherhood” and “companionate marriage” had intellectual roots stretching back to the 17th century and beyond. 36 Joan Gundersen argues that women declined in political importance after the Revolution. Before the war, “dependence” was the lot of virtually everyone—men as well as women. After the war, however, independence took on a new importance, while dependence acquired a pejorative, and gendered meaning. 37 Laurel Thatcher Ulrich maintains that those New England spinning bees that made one young woman feel “Nationly” were often conducted to support churches and ministers, not the non-importation movements. 38

Nevertheless, other historians continue to emphasize the way in which the Revolution allowed women a political voice they had not previously enjoyed. They have approached the subject in two general ways. Some have emphasized the explicitly political, even partisan, role women embraced after the Revolution. Rosemarie Zagarri has spearheaded that approach, offering compelling evidence that women imbibed the “rights talk” pervading America in the wake of the Revolution. 39

Alternatively, scholars have taken their cue from Jurgen Habermas—significantly modifying his original analysis—pointing to new ways to look at women’s political activities. 40 They talk in terms of a “public sphere” that was neither formally political nor exclusively domestic. In particular, they have analyzed the world of print and the creation of a salon culture in terms of the ways in which at least some—white, elite—women behaved politically without transgressing the strictures of gentility. Arguing that a “republican court,” similar to the salon culture of late 18th-century France, existed in post-Revolutionary America, historians such as David S. Shields and Fredrika J. Teute have led the way in blurring the lines between public and private, political and domestic in the New Republic. 41

While historians have advanced the study of early American women in ways that scholars in the early 1980s could scarcely have imagined, much remains to be done. A cursory glance at the biographies of individual women says a great deal in this regard. These monographs have focused on elite, white, women. Very few historians have analyzed the experiences of “ordinary” women. Alfred F. Young’s story of Deborah Sampson, Ulrich’s depiction of Martha Ballard, and David Waldstreicher’s study of African American poet Phillis Wheatley are fine exceptions to this rule. 42 Significantly, these historians do not focus directly on the relationship between gender and the Revolution. Sampson is more interested in monetary reward than politics or patriotism. Martha Ballard seems to ignore politics altogether. Wheatley’s focus is on the institution of slavery rather than on women’s rights.

Nevertheless, these monographs indicate that it is possible to bring the lives of lower class and minority women into the political narrative. Young’s brief comments in his “Afterward” to Beyond the Revolution offer historians an excellent place to start. 43 Susan Klepp and Clare Lyons have mapped out an alternative approach, expanding the meaning of the political for ordinary women. They suggest that women’s willingness to divorce their husbands, bear fewer children, and challenge patriarchy in any way expressed a new political consciousness that can be traced to the egalitarian rhetoric of the Revolution. 44

Further exploring the meaning of the “political,” expanding the purview of historical debate beyond white, elite women, and linking the Revolution explicitly to changes in women’s lives in the late 18th and early 19th centuries remain to be done.

Primary Sources

There are no historical societies or libraries that focus specifically on women’s history. The diligent scholar will have to do a great deal of digging to find useful sources, and will no doubt visit many institutions and go on many fishing expeditions to find the bits and pieces they will need to complete their work. In effect, there are no “must reads” as far as primary sources are concerned. The Massachusetts Historical Society, the American Antiquarian Society, the American Philosophical Society, the New York Historical Society, the University of Virginia Library, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and the Library Company are all fine venues, housing a wide variety of sources. Not quite so rich, but nevertheless useful, are historical societies in Virginia, Maryland, and North and South Carolina. Both the Boston Public Library and the New York Public Library have surprisingly useful collections. Scholars interested in social history should consult the court records of each colony or state. The Library of Congress Manuscript Division has numerous relevant collections, as does the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. Scholars focusing on loyalist women should consult the Loyalist Claims files at the National Archives in London. Transcripts are available at the New York Public Library.

For historians interested in literary women, possibilities are quite promising. The post-war period was known for the proliferation of journals, most of them short-lived, some of them actively encouraging women readers and writers. Most can be found on line, or attained on microfilm via interlibrary loan. A by-no-means-exhaustive list would include the Massachusetts Magazine, Gentleman and Lady’s Town and Country Magazine, The Boston Magazine, The New York Magazine , the Port Folio , and the Philadelphia Repository . Early American newspapers also grew exponentially in the post-war era, even though many died after just a few issues. They often included poems and essays that commented—positively or negatively—on women’s political activity. A thorough list of available newspapers can be found on the Library of Congress website, and again, many are available on line.

Educated people in the 18th and 19th centuries wrote letters, and while those letters were often performative, and thus not always “true,” they can be very revealing, nevertheless. Judith Sargent Murray kept copies of most of the letters she sent. The originals are available at the Mississippi Archives, in Jackson, Mississippi. They are also available on microfilm. Other elite women whose private writing is accessible include Mercy Otis Warren, Abigail Adams, Deborah Franklin, and Elizabeth Drinker. The Massachusetts Historical Society holds the originals of the Mercy Otis Warren Papers, which are also available on microfilm. Susanna Rowson’s papers are in the Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Special Collections, at the University of Virginia Library. Elizabeth Drinker’s Diary is available in a beautifully edited print edition. 45 Virtually all of Abigail Adams’s letters are in print, either in books devoted to Abigail, herself, or in the Adams Papers, available on microfilm at the Massachusetts Historical Society. 46 Similarly, Deborah Franklin’s letters to her husband are in the Franklin Papers . 47

Women also wrote for public consumption. Their novels, in particular, are easily accessible. See in particular, Susanna Rowson’s Charlotte Temple , Hanna Foster’s Coquette , and Tabitha Tenney’s Female Quixotism . 48

In this Book

Stephen G. Kurtz
Published by: The University of North Carolina Press
Series: Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia

Title page, Copyright
pp. vii-viii
Introduction
1. The Central Themes of the American Revolution: An Interpretation
BERNARD BAILYN
2. An Uneasy Connection: An Analysis of the Preconditions of the American Revolution
JACK P. GREENE
3. Violence and the American Revolution
RICHARD MAXWELL BROWN
4. The American Revolution: The Military Conflict Considered as a Revolutionary War
pp. 121-156
5. The Structure of Politics in the Continental Congress
H. JAMES HENDERSON
pp. 157-196
6. The Role of Religion in the Revolution: Liberty of Conscience and Cultural Cohesion in the New Nation
WILLIAM G. McLOUGHLIN
pp. 197-255
7. Feudalism, Communalism, and the Yeoman Freeholder: The American Revolution Considered as a Social Accident
ROWLAND BERTHOFF AND JOHN M. MURRIN
pp. 256-288
8. Conflict and Consensus in the American Revolution
EDMUND S. MORGAN
pp. 289-310
pp. 311-318
Notes on the Contributors
pp. 319-320

Additional Information

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Thesis Statements

What is a thesis statement.

Your thesis statement is one of the most important parts of your paper. It expresses your main argument succinctly and explains why your argument is historically significant. Think of your thesis as a promise you make to your reader about what your paper will argue. Then, spend the rest of your paper–each body paragraph–fulfilling that promise.

Your thesis should be between one and three sentences long and is placed at the end of your introduction. Just because the thesis comes towards the beginning of your paper does not mean you can write it first and then forget about it. View your thesis as a work in progress while you write your paper. Once you are satisfied with the overall argument your paper makes, go back to your thesis and see if it captures what you have argued. If it does not, then revise it. Crafting a good thesis is one of the most challenging parts of the writing process, so do not expect to perfect it on the first few tries. Successful writers revise their thesis statements again and again.

A successful thesis statement:

makes an historical argument
takes a position that requires defending
is historically specific
is focused and precise
answers the question, “so what?”

How to write a thesis statement:

Suppose you are taking an early American history class and your professor has distributed the following essay prompt:

“Historians have debated the American Revolution’s effect on women. Some argue that the Revolution had a positive effect because it increased women’s authority in the family. Others argue that it had a negative effect because it excluded women from politics. Still others argue that the Revolution changed very little for women, as they remained ensconced in the home. Write a paper in which you pose your own answer to the question of whether the American Revolution had a positive, negative, or limited effect on women.”

Using this prompt, we will look at both weak and strong thesis statements to see how successful thesis statements work.

While this thesis does take a position, it is problematic because it simply restates the prompt. It needs to be more specific about how the Revolution had a limited effect on women and why it mattered that women remained in the home.

Revised Thesis: The Revolution wrought little political change in the lives of women because they did not gain the right to vote or run for office. Instead, women remained firmly in the home, just as they had before the war, making their day-to-day lives look much the same.

This revision is an improvement over the first attempt because it states what standards the writer is using to measure change (the right to vote and run for office) and it shows why women remaining in the home serves as evidence of limited change (because their day-to-day lives looked the same before and after the war). However, it still relies too heavily on the information given in the prompt, simply saying that women remained in the home. It needs to make an argument about some element of the war’s limited effect on women. This thesis requires further revision.

Strong Thesis: While the Revolution presented women unprecedented opportunities to participate in protest movements and manage their family’s farms and businesses, it ultimately did not offer lasting political change, excluding women from the right to vote and serve in office.

Few would argue with the idea that war brings upheaval. Your thesis needs to be debatable: it needs to make a claim against which someone could argue. Your job throughout the paper is to provide evidence in support of your own case. Here is a revised version:

Strong Thesis: The Revolution caused particular upheaval in the lives of women. With men away at war, women took on full responsibility for running households, farms, and businesses. As a result of their increased involvement during the war, many women were reluctant to give up their new-found responsibilities after the fighting ended.

Sexism is a vague word that can mean different things in different times and places. In order to answer the question and make a compelling argument, this thesis needs to explain exactly what attitudes toward women were in early America, and how those attitudes negatively affected women in the Revolutionary period.

Strong Thesis: The Revolution had a negative impact on women because of the belief that women lacked the rational faculties of men. In a nation that was to be guided by reasonable republican citizens, women were imagined to have no place in politics and were thus firmly relegated to the home.

This thesis addresses too large of a topic for an undergraduate paper. The terms “social,” “political,” and “economic” are too broad and vague for the writer to analyze them thoroughly in a limited number of pages. The thesis might focus on one of those concepts, or it might narrow the emphasis to some specific features of social, political, and economic change.

Strong Thesis: The Revolution paved the way for important political changes for women. As “Republican Mothers,” women contributed to the polity by raising future citizens and nurturing virtuous husbands. Consequently, women played a far more important role in the new nation’s politics than they had under British rule.

This thesis is off to a strong start, but it needs to go one step further by telling the reader why changes in these three areas mattered. How did the lives of women improve because of developments in education, law, and economics? What were women able to do with these advantages? Obviously the rest of the paper will answer these questions, but the thesis statement needs to give some indication of why these particular changes mattered.

Strong Thesis: The Revolution had a positive impact on women because it ushered in improvements in female education, legal standing, and economic opportunity. Progress in these three areas gave women the tools they needed to carve out lives beyond the home, laying the foundation for the cohesive feminist movement that would emerge in the mid-nineteenth century.

Thesis Checklist

When revising your thesis, check it against the following guidelines:

Does my thesis make an historical argument?
Does my thesis take a position that requires defending?
Is my thesis historically specific?
Is my thesis focused and precise?
Does my thesis answer the question, “so what?”

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Home — Essay Samples — History — History of the United States — American Revolution

Essays on American Revolution

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How Did The War Between Britain and America Benefit Others

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22 March 1765 – 14 January 1784

Thirteen Colonies (United States)

Dutch Republic, France, Loyalist, Spain, United Kingdom, United States, American colonies

The Boston Tea Party (1773), The Battles of Lexington and Concord (1775), The Declaration of Independence (1776), The Battle of Saratoga (1777), The Siege of Yorktown (1781)

George Washington: As the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, George Washington emerged as a central figure in the revolution. His strategic brilliance, perseverance, and moral character helped inspire and lead the troops through challenging times, ultimately leading to victory. Thomas Jefferson: Known for his eloquence and intellect, Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence. His ideas and ideals, including the belief in natural rights and self-governance, greatly influenced the revolutionary cause. Benjamin Franklin: A polymath and influential statesman, Benjamin Franklin played a vital role in rallying support for the revolution. He traveled to Europe as a diplomat, securing crucial aid from France and other countries, and his scientific discoveries further enhanced his reputation. John Adams: A passionate advocate for independence, John Adams was instrumental in driving the revolutionary movement forward. He served as a diplomat, including as a representative to France and as the second President of the United States, and his contributions to shaping the nation were significant. Abigail Adams: Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, was an influential figure in her own right. Her letters to her husband and other prominent figures provided valuable insights and perspectives on the revolution, and she became an early advocate for women's rights and equality.

In the 18th century, the thirteen American colonies were under British rule. Over time, tensions began to rise as the colonists developed a distinct identity and desired greater autonomy. Several key factors contributed to the buildup of resentment and ultimately led to the revolution. One crucial prerequisite was the concept of colonial self-government. The colonists enjoyed a degree of self-rule, which allowed them to develop their own institutions and local governments. However, as British policies, such as the Stamp Act and Townshend Acts, imposed new taxes and regulations on the colonies, the sense of self-government and individual liberties were threatened. Another significant factor was the Enlightenment era, which spread ideas of natural rights, individual freedoms, and representative government. Influential thinkers like John Locke and Thomas Paine advocated for the rights of the people and challenged the legitimacy of monarchy. The causes of the American Revolution were diverse and multifaceted. The colonists' grievances included taxation without representation, restrictions on trade, and the presence of British troops in the colonies. The Boston Massacre in 1770 and the Boston Tea Party in 1773 further heightened tensions and solidified the resolve for independence. Ultimately, the outbreak of armed conflict in 1775 at Lexington and Concord marked the beginning of the Revolutionary War. The Declaration of Independence, adopted on July 4, 1776, served as a powerful statement of the colonists' grievances and their determination to establish a free and sovereign nation. The historical context of the American Revolution reflects the culmination of colonial aspirations for self-government, Enlightenment ideas of individual rights, and a series of grievances against British rule.

Establishment of the United States as a sovereign nation; the creation of a new form of government based on democratic principles; adoption of the United States Constitution; redefinition of citizenship; abolition of feudalism; expansion of territorial boundaries, etc.

One of the major effects of the American Revolution was the establishment of a new form of government based on the principles of democracy and individual rights. The United States Constitution, born out of the revolution, served as a model for constitutional governments around the world. The idea of a government by the people and for the people spread, inspiring future revolutions and movements for independence. The revolution also challenged the existing colonial powers, particularly the British Empire, and set in motion a wave of decolonization throughout the world. The success of the American colonies in breaking free from British rule demonstrated that colonies could successfully achieve independence, fueling nationalist movements in other parts of the world and ultimately leading to the dissolution of empires. The American Revolution also had significant economic effects. It established the United States as a new economic power and opened up opportunities for trade and commerce. The revolution encouraged the development of industry and innovation, setting the stage for the industrial revolution that would follow. Furthermore, the American Revolution had a profound impact on the institution of slavery. While the revolution did not immediately abolish slavery, it planted the seeds of abolitionism and sparked debates on the issue of human rights and equality. Lastly, the American Revolution inspired and influenced subsequent revolutions and movements for independence, such as the French Revolution, which drew inspiration from the ideals of liberty, equality, and popular sovereignty championed by the American colonists.

Public opinion on the American Revolution varied greatly during the time period and continues to be interpreted differently today. In the 18th century, support for the revolution was not unanimous. Some colonists were loyal to the British Crown and opposed the revolutionary movement, while others actively supported the cause of independence. Public opinion shifted over time as events unfolded and more people became aware of the grievances and aspirations of the revolutionaries. Many colonists, especially those who felt oppressed by British policies, embraced the ideals of liberty, self-determination, and representation. They saw the revolution as a necessary step towards achieving these principles and securing their rights as free individuals. Others were motivated by economic factors, such as trade restrictions and taxation without representation, which fueled their support for independence. However, there were also segments of the population that remained loyal to Britain. Some believed in the benefits of British rule, such as protection and stability, while others feared the potential chaos and uncertainty that could result from a revolution. In modern times, public opinion on the American Revolution tends to be positive, with many viewing it as a pivotal moment in history that laid the foundation for democratic governance and individual freedoms. The ideals and principles that emerged from the revolution continue to shape American identity and influence public discourse on issues of liberty, equality, and self-governance.

1. The American Revolution lasted for eight years, from 1775 to 1783, making it one of the longest and most significant conflicts in American history. 2. The American Revolution had a profound impact on the world stage. It inspired other countries and movements seeking independence and democracy, such as the French Revolution that followed in 1789. 3. While often overlooked, women made significant contributions to the American Revolution. They served as spies, messengers, nurses, and even soldiers. Some notable examples include Deborah Sampson, who disguised herself as a man to join the Continental Army, and Abigail Adams, who advocated for women's rights.

The topic of the American Revolution holds immense importance for academic exploration and essay writing due to its profound impact on the world and the enduring legacy it left behind. Firstly, the American Revolution marked a pivotal moment in history where thirteen colonies fought for their independence from British rule, leading to the formation of the United States of America. It represents a significant event in the development of democracy and self-governance, serving as an inspiration for subsequent revolutions worldwide. Studying the American Revolution allows us to understand the principles and ideals that shaped the nation's foundation, such as liberty, equality, and the pursuit of happiness. It sheds light on the struggles and sacrifices made by individuals who fought for their rights and paved the way for the establishment of a democratic government. Furthermore, exploring this topic provides insights into the complexities of colonial society, the causes of the revolution, the role of key figures, and the social, economic, and political consequences of the conflict.

1. Bailyn, B. (1992). The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Belknap Press. 2. Ellis, J. J. (2013). American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic. Vintage. 3. Ferling, J. E. (2015). Whirlwind: The American Revolution and the War That Won It. Bloomsbury Publishing. 4. Fischer, D. H. (2006). Washington's Crossing. Oxford University Press. 5. Maier, P. (1997). American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence. Vintage. 6. Middlekauff, R. (2005). The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789. Oxford University Press. 7. Middlekauff, R. (2007). The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789. Oxford University Press. 8. Nash, G. B. (2006). The Unknown American Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America. Penguin Books. 9. Tuchman, B. W. (1989). The First Salute: A View of the American Revolution. Random House. 10. Wood, G. S. (1992). The Radicalism of the American Revolution. Vintage.

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Essays on the American Revolution

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Theses on the American Revolution

James p. cannon.

Drafted: 1946 Source: Fighting for Socialism in the “American Century”; Reprinted from Fourth International (c) Resistance Books 2001 Published by Resistance Books 23 Abercrombie St, Chippendale NSW 2008, Permission for on-line publication provided by Resistance Books for use by the James P. Cannon Internet Archive in 2003. Transcription\HTML Markup: David Walters

The “Theses on the American Revolution” were drafted by Cannon and adopted by the 12th National Convention of the SWP, November 1946.

They affirm that, despite all the power of US imperialism, fresh from its victory in World War II, the “American Century” will fail. They reject any idea that the US is immune from the laws of the class struggle. The “American Theses” are a ringing declaration of confidence in the prospects for a socialist transformation in the United States and the ability of the working class to carry it through. The decisive intrument in this struggle is the leadership of a revolutionary workers party, the essential nucleus of which already existed in the SWP.

This not a conjunctural document. It is only concerned with presenting the most fundamental aspects of the question. In his convention report, Cannon stressed that “secondary questions of tactics and even of strategy, with all their importance, are left out ... The theses deal only with analysis and perspectives—and these only in the broadest sense—because that is the fundamental basis from which we proceed...Our theses ... proceed in accord with the Marxist method and the Marxist tradition by analysing and emphasising first of all the objective factors that are making for revolution. These are primary. These are fundamental.”

Developments in the US at the end of World War II certainly seemed to confirm the revolutionary optimism of the “Theses” and the expectation of the SWP convention that the US class struggle was moving toward a revolutionary situation.

The country experienced the greatest strike wave in its history—far greater than that of the 1930s. In the 1930s, the greatest number of workers on strike in any single year never exceeded two million but in 1945 some 6.5 million workers took part in strike action. The average yearly working days on strike in 1935-39 was 17 million; in 1945 it was 36 million—jumping to 116 million in 1946!

The SWP experienced rapid growth in this period. It built union fractions in key sections of industry. Its racial composition altered dramatically, with African-American workers constituting a quarter to a third of its membership. With a strong base of worker cadres, the party began to think and plan in terms of developing from a propaganda group addressing itself to the most politically advanced workers into a party that could undertake to lead large numbers of workers in action.

The “American Theses” was drafted with the aim of educating the wave of new SWP recruits in the party’s fundamental revolutionary perspectives.

However, with great rapidity, the strike wave ended. By the spring of 1947, industrial action was at its lowest ebb since the formation of the CIO in the mid-1930s.

The US ruling class was eventually able to stabilise the situation after the war for three main reasons:

The very real revolutionary prospects in Europe were derailed by the Stalinist and social-democratic misleaders. Furthermore, US imperialism provided large-scale aid for the reconstruction of West European and Japanese capitalism.

The survival of capitalism thus assured, a long capitalist boom began in the imperialist countries.

The Cold War anti-communist witch-hunt in the US had a chilling effect on political and cultural life. Getting underway in earnest in 1947, it penetrated deeply into the labour movement, resulting in the purging of all oppositional currents and intensifying the bureaucratisation of the union leaderships.

However, the ending of the postwar upsurge and the conservatism of the later 1940s and ’50s do not invalidate the basic revolutionary perspective outlined in the “American Theses”.

The United States, the most powerful capitalist country in history, is a component part of the world capitalist system and is subject to the same general laws. It suffers from the same incurable diseases and is destined to share the same fate. The overwhelming preponderance of American imperialism does not exempt it from the decay of world capitalism, but on the contrary acts to involve it ever more deeply, inextricably, and hopelessly. US capitalism can no more escape from the revolutionary consequences of world capitalist decay than the older European capitalist powers. The blind alley in which world capitalism has arrived, and the US with it, excludes a new organic era of capitalist stabilisation. The dominant world position of American imperialism now accentuates and aggravates the death agony of capitalism as a whole.

American imperialism emerged victorious from the Second World War, not merely over its German and Japanese rivals, but also over its “democratic” allies, especially Great Britain. Today Wall Street unquestionably is the dominant world imperialist centre. Precisely because it has issued from the war vastly strengthened in relation to all its capitalist rivals, US imperialism seems indomitable. So overpowering in all fields—diplomatic, military, commercial, financial, and industrial—is Wall Street’s preponderance that consolidation of its world hegemony seems to be within easy reach. Wall Street hopes to inaugurate the so-called “American Century”.

In reality, the American ruling class faces more insurmountable obstacles in “organising the world” than confronted the German bourgeoisie in its repeated and abortive attempts to attain a much more modest goal, namely: “organising Europe”.

The meteoric rise of US imperialism to world supremacy comes too late. Moreover, American imperialism rests increasingly on the foundations of world economy, in sharp contrast to the situation prevailing before the First World War, when it rested primarily on the internal market—the source of its previous successes and equilibrium. But the world foundation is today shot through with insoluble contradictions; it suffers from chronic dislocations and is mined with revolutionary powder kegs.

American capitalism, hitherto only partially involved in the death agony of capitalism as a world system, is henceforth subject to the full and direct impact of all the forces and contradictions that have debilitated the old capitalist countries of Europe.

The economic prerequisites for the socialist revolution are fully matured in the US. The political premises are likewise far more advanced than might appear on the surface.

The US emerged from the Second World War, just as it did in 1918, as the strongest part of the capitalist world. But here ends the resemblance in the impact and consequences of the two wars upon the country’s economic life. For in other major aspects the situation has in the meantime drastically altered.

In 1914-18 continental Europe was the main theatre of war; the rest of the world, especially the colonial countries, was left virtually untouched by the hostilities. Thus, not only sections of continental Europe and England but the main framework of the world market itself remained intact. With all its European competitors embroiled in the war, the way was left clear for American capitalism to capture markets.

More than this, during the First World War capitalist Europe itself became a vast market for American industry and agriculture. The American bourgeoisie drained Europe of her accumulated wealth of centuries and supplanted their Old World rivals in the world market. This enabled the ruling class to convert the US from a debtor into the world’s banker and creditor, and simultaneously to expand both the heavy (capital goods) and the light (consumer goods) industries. Subsequently this wartime expansion permitted the fullest possible development of this country’s domestic market. Finally, not merely did the American bourgeoisie make vast profits from the war but the country as a whole emerged much richer. The relatively cheap price of imperialist participation in World War I (only a few score billion dollars) was covered many times over by the accruing economic gains.

Profoundly different in its effects is the Second World War. This time only the Western Hemisphere has been left untouched militarily. The Far East, the main prize of the war, has been subjected to a devastation second only to that suffered by Germany and Eastern Europe. Continental Europe as well as England have been bankrupted by the war. The world market has been completely disrupted. Thus culminated the process of shrinking, splintering, and undermining that went on in the interval between the two wars (the withdrawal of one-sixth of the world—the USSR—from the capitalist orbit; the debasement of currency systems, the barter methods of Hitlerite Germany, Japan’s inroads on Asiatic and Latin American markets, England’s Empire Preference System, etc., etc.).

Europe, which defaulted on all its prior war and postwar debts to the US, this time served not as an inexhaustible and highly profitable market, but as a gigantic drain upon the wealth and resources of this country in the shape of lend-lease, overall conversion of American economy for wartime production, huge mobilisation of manpower, large-scale casualties, and so on.

With regard to the internal market, the latter, instead of expanding organically as in 1914-18, experienced in the course of the Second World War only an artificial revival based on war expenditures.

While the bourgeoisie has been fabulously enriched, the country as a whole has become much poorer; the astronomic costs of the war will never be recouped.

In sum, the major factors that once served to foster and fortify American capitalism either no longer exist or are turning into their opposites.

The prosperity that followed the First World War, which was hailed as a new capitalist era refuting all Marxist prognostications, ended in an economic catastrophe. But even this short-lived prosperity of the ’20s was based on a combination of circumstances which cannot and will not recur again. In addition to the factors already listed, it is necessary to stress: (1) that American capitalism had a virgin continent to exploit; (2) that up to a point it had been able to maintain a certain balance between industry and agriculture; and (3) that the main base of capitalist expansion had been its internal market. So long as these three conditions existed—although they were already being undermined—it was possible for US capitalism to maintain a relative stability.

The boom in the ’20s nourished the myth of the permanent stability of American capitalism, giving rise to pompous and hollow theories of a “new capitalism”, “American exceptionalism”, the “American dream”, and so forth and so on. The illusions about the possibilities and future of American capitalism were spread by the reformists and all other apologists for the ruling class not only at home but abroad. “Americanism” was the gospel of all the misleaders of the European and American working class.

What actually happened in the course of the fabulous prosperity of the ’20s was that under these most favourable conditions, all the premises for an unparalleled economic catastrophe were prepared. Out of it came a chronic crisis of American agriculture. Out of it came a monstrous concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands. Correspondingly, the rest of the population became relatively poorer. Thus, while in the decade of 1920-30, industrial productivity increased by 50%, wages rose only 30%. The workers were able to buy—in prosperity—proportionately less than before.

The relative impoverishment of the American people is likewise mirrored in national wealth statistics. By 1928 the workers’ share of the national wealth had dropped to 4.7%; while the farmers retained only 15.4%. At the same time, the bourgeoisie’s share of the national wealth had risen to 79.9%, with most of it falling into the hands of the Sixty Families and their retainers.

The distribution of national income likewise expressed this monstrous disproportion. In 1929, at the peak of prosperity, 36,000 families had the same income as 11 million “lower-bracket” families.

This concentration of wealth was a cardinal factor in limiting the absorbing capacity of the internal market. Compensating external outlets for agriculture and industry could not be found in a constricting world market.

Moreover, the need to export raw materials and agricultural products tended to further unbalance American foreign trade. This inescapably led to a further dislocation of the world market, whose participants were debtor countries, themselves in need of selling more than they bought in order to cover payments on their debts, largely owed to the US.

While appearing and functioning in the role of stabilisers of capitalism, the American imperialists were thus its greatest disrupters both at home and abroad. The US turned out to be the main source of world instability, the prime aggravator of imperialist contradictions.

In the interim between the two wars this manifested itself most graphically in the fact that all economic convulsions began in the Republic of the Dollar, the home of “rugged individualism”. This was the case with the first postwar crisis of 1920-21; this was repeated eight years later when the disproportion between agriculture and industry reached the breaking point and when the internal market had become saturated owing to the impoverishment of the people at one pole and the aggrandisement of the monopolists at the other. The Great American Boom exploded in a crisis which shattered the economic foundations of all capitalist countries.

The economic crisis of 1929 was not a cyclical crisis such as periodically accompanied organic capitalist development in the past, leading to new and higher productive levels. It was a major historical crisis of capitalism in decay, which could not be overcome through the “normal” channels; that is to say, through the blind interplay of the laws governing the market.

Production virtually came to a standstill. National income was cut into less than half, plummeting from 81 billion dollars in 1929 to 40 billion dollars in 1932. Industry and agriculture sagged. The army of unemployed swelled 10-fold “normal”, reaching the dizzy figure of 20 million. According to official estimates, based on 1929 averages, the losses in the years 1930-38 amounted to 43 million man-years of labour, and 133 billion dollars of national income.

By 1939 the national debt soared to 40 billion dollars, or 14 billion more than the highest point at the end of the First World War. The number of unemployed kept hovering at 10 million. Industry and agriculture stagnated. The foreign trade of the US in a reduced world market fell to less than half of its “normal” peacetime share.

What all these figures really express is the fearsome degradation of living standards of the workers and the middle class, and the outright pauperisation of the “underprivileged one-third” of the population. The wafer-thin layer of monopolists, naturally, did not suffer at all, but on the contrary utilised the crisis in order to gobble up even a larger share of the country’s wealth and resources.

The bourgeoisie saw no way out of the crisis. They had no way out. They and their regime remained the main obstacle in the way not only of domestic but of world recovery. In its downward plunge, the American bourgeoisie dragged the rest of the capitalist world with it, and kept it down.

Decisive is the fact that despite all the “pump-priming”, “brain-trusting”, and emergency “reforms”, American capitalism was incapable of solving the crisis. The partial upswing of 1934-37 proved to be temporary and passing in character. The precipitous drop that occurred in 1937 revealed the abyss facing American capitalism. The threatening new downward plunge was cut off only by the huge expenditures made in preparation for the Second World War.

Only the war temporarily resolved the economic crisis which had lasted in both hemispheres for 10 years. The grim reality, however, is that this “solution” has solved exactly nothing. Least of all did it remove or even mitigate a single one of the basic causes for the crisis of 1929.

The basis of the current American postwar prosperity is the artificial expansion of industry and agriculture through unprecedented government spending which is swelling constantly the enormous national debt. In its fictitious character the war and postwar boom of the early ’40s far exceeds the orgy engaged in by European capitalism during 1914-18 and the immediate postwar years. The diversion of production into war industry on an unheard-of scale resulted in temporary shortages of consumer goods. The home and foreign markets seemed to acquire a new absorbing capacity. Universal scarcities and war havoc are acting as temporary spurs to production, especially in the consumers’ goods field.

Overall there is, however, the universal impoverishment, the disrupted economic, fiscal, and government systems—coupled with the chronic diseases and contradictions of capitalism, not softened but aggravated by the war.

If we multiply the condition in which European capitalism, with England at its head, emerged from the First World War by 10 times and in some instances a hundred times—because of the vaster scale of the consequences of World War II—then we will arrive at an approximation of the actual state of American capitalism.

Every single factor underlying the current “peacetime” prosperity is ephemeral. This country has emerged not richer from the Second World War as was the ease in the ’20s, but poorer—in a far more impoverished world. The disproportion between agriculture and industry has likewise increased tremendously, despite the hothouse expansion of agriculture. The concentration of wealth and the polarisation of the American population into rich and poor has continued at a forced pace.

The basic conditions that precipitated the 1929 crisis when American capitalism enjoyed its fullest health not only persist but have grown more malignant. Once the internal market is again saturated, no adequate outlet can be hoped for in the unbalanced world market. The enormously augmented productive capacity of the US collides against the limits of the world market and its shrinking capacity. Ruined Europe herself needs to export. So does the ruined Orient, whose equilibrium has been ruptured by the shattering of Japan, its most advanced sector.

Europe is in dire need of billions in loans. In addition to lend-lease, Wall Street has already pumped almost $5 billion in loans into England; almost $2 billion into France; and smaller sums into the other satellite countries of Western Europe—without however achieving any semblance of stabilisation there. Bankrupt capitalist Europe remains both a competitor on the world market and a bottomless drain. The Orient, too, needs loans, especially China, which, while in the throes of civil war, has already swallowed up as many American dollars as did Germany in the early ’20s.

At home, the explosive materials are accumulating at a truly American tempo. Carrying charges on the huge national debt; the astronomic military “peacetime” budget ($18.5 billion for this year); the inflation, the “overhead expenditures” of Wall Street’s program of world domination, etc., etc.—all this can come from one source and one only: national income. In plain words, from the purchasing power of the masses. Degradation of workers’ living conditions and the pauperisation of the farmers and the urban middle class—that is the meaning of Wall Street’s program.

The following conclusion flows from the objective situation: US imperialism which proved incapable of recovering from its crisis and stabilising itself in the 10-year period preceding the outbreak of the Second World War is heading for an even more catastrophic explosion in the current postwar era. The cardinal factor which will light the fuse is this: The home market, after an initial and artificial revival, must contract. It cannot expand as it did in the ’20s. What is really in store is not unbounded prosperity but a short-lived boom. In the wake of the boom must come another crisis and depression which will make the 1929-32 conditions look prosperous by comparison.

The impending economic paroxysm must, under the existing conditions, pass inexorably into the social and political crisis of American capitalism, posing in its course point-blank the question of who shall be the master in the land. In their mad drive to conquer and enslave the entire world, the American monopolists are today preparing war against the Soviet Union. This war program, which may be brought to a head by a crisis or the fear of a crisis at home, will meet with incalculable obstacles and difficulties. A war will not solve the internal difficulties of American imperialism but will rather sharpen and complicate them. Such a war will meet with fierce resistance not only by the peoples of the USSR, but also by the European and colonial masses who do not want to be the slaves of Wall Street. At home the fiercest resistance will be generated. Wall Street’s war drive, aggravating the social crisis, may under certain conditions actually precipitate it. In any case, another war will not cancel out the socialist alternative to capitalism but only pose it more sharply.

The workers’ struggle for power in the US is not a perspective of a distant and hazy future but the realistic program of our epoch.

The revolutionary movement of the American workers is an organic part of the world revolutionary process. The revolutionary upheavals of the European proletariat which lie ahead will complement, reinforce, and accelerate the revolutionary developments in the US. The liberationist struggles of the colonial peoples against imperialism which are unfolding before our eyes will exert a similar influence. Conversely, each blow dealt by the American proletariat to the imperialists at home will stimulate, supplement, and intensify the revolutionary struggles in Europe and the colonies. Every reversal suffered by imperialism anywhere will in turn produce ever greater repercussions in this country, generating such speed and power as will tend to reduce all time intervals both at home and abroad.

The role of America in the world is decisive. Should the European and colonial revolutions, now on the order of the day, precede in point of time the culmination of the struggle in the US, they would immediately be confronted with the necessity of defending their conquests against the economic and military assaults of the American imperialist monster. The ability of the victorious insurgent peoples everywhere to maintain themselves would depend to a high degree on the strength and fighting capacity of the revolutionary labour movement in America. The American workers would then be obliged to come to their aid, just as the Western European working class came to the aid of the Russian Revolution and saved it by blocking full-scale imperialist military assaults upon the young workers’ republic.

But even should the revolution in Europe and other parts of the world be once again retarded, it will by no means signify a prolonged stabilisation of the world capitalist system. The issue of socialism or capitalism will not be finally decided until it is decided in the US. Another retardation of the proletarian revolution in one country or another, or even one continent or another, will not save American imperialism from its proletarian nemesis at home. The decisive battles for the communist future of mankind will be fought in the US.

The revolutionary victory of the workers in the US will seal the doom of the senile bourgeois regimes in every part of our planet, and of the Stalinist bureaucracy, if it still exists at the time. The Russian Revolution raised the workers and colonial peoples to their feet. The American revolution with its hundredfold greater power will set in motion revolutionary forces that will change the face of our planet. The whole Western Hemisphere will quickly be consolidated into the Socialist United States of North, Central, and South America. This invincible power, merging with the revolutionary movements in all parts of the world, will put an end to the outlived capitalist system as a whole, and begin the grandiose task of world reconstruction under the banner of the Socialist United States of the World.

Whereas the main problem of the workers in the Russian Revolution was to maintain their power once they had gained it, the problem in the United States is almost exclusively the problem of the conquest of power by the workers. The conquest of power in the United States will be more difficult than it was in backward Russia, but precisely for that reason it will be much easier to consolidate and secure.

The dangers of internal counterrevolution, foreign intervention, imperialist blockade, and bureaucratic degeneration of a privileged labour caste—in Russia all of these dangers stemmed from the numerical weakness of the proletariat, the age-long poverty and backwardness inherited from tsarism, and the isolation of the Russian Revolution. These dangers were in the final analysis unavoidable there.

These dangers scarcely exist in the US. Thanks to the overwhelming numerical superiority and social weight of the proletariat, its high cultural level and potential; thanks to the country’s vast resources, its productive capacity and preponderant strength on the world arena, the victorious proletarian revolution in the US, once it has consolidated its power, will be almost automatically secured against capitalist restoration either by internal counterrevolution or by foreign intervention and imperialist blockade.

As for the danger of bureaucratic degeneration after the revolutionary victory—this can only arise from privileges which are in turn based on backwardness, poverty, and universal scarcities. Such a danger could have no material foundation within the US. Here the triumphant workers’ and farmers’ government would from the very beginning be able to organise socialist production on far higher levels than under capitalism, and virtually overnight assure such a high standard of living for the masses as would strip privileges in the material sense of any serious meaning whatever. Mawkish speculations concerning the danger of bureaucratic degeneration after the victorious revolution serve no purpose except to introduce scepticism and pessimism into the ranks of the workers’ vanguard, and paralyse their will to struggle, while providing faint-hearts and snivellers with a convenient pretext for running away from the struggle. The problem in the US is almost exclusively the problem of the workers’ conquest of political power.

In the coming struggle for power the main advantages will be on the side of the workers; with adequate mobilisation of their forces and proper direction, the workers will win. If one wishes to deal with stern realities and not with superficial appearances, that is the only way to pose the question. The American capitalist class is strong, but the American working class is stronger.

The numerical strength and social weight of the American working class, greatly increased by the war, is overwhelming in the country’s life. Nothing can stand up against it. The productivity of American labour, likewise greatly increased in wartime, is the highest in the world. This means skill, and skill means power.

The American workers are accustomed to the highest living and working standards. The widely held view that high wages are a conservatising factor tending to make workers immune to revolutionary ideas and actions is one-sided and false. This holds true only under conditions of capitalist stability where the relatively high standard of living can be maintained and even improved. This is excluded for the future, as our whole analysis has shown. On the other hand, the workers react most sensitively and violently to any infringement upon their living standards. This has already been demonstrated by the strike waves in which great masses of “conservative” workers have resorted to the most militant and radical course of action. In the given situation, therefore, the relatively high living standard of the American workers is a revolutionary and not, as is commonly believed, a conservatising factor.

The revolutionary potential of the class is further strengthened by their traditional militancy coupled with the ability to react almost spontaneously in defence of their vital interests, and their singular resourcefulness and ingenuity (the sit-down strikes!).

Another highly important factor in raising the revolutionary potential of the American working class is its greatly increased cohesiveness and homogeneity—a transformation accomplished in the last quarter of a century. Previously, large and decisive sections of the proletariat in the basic industries were recruited by immigration. These foreign-born workers were handicapped and divided by language barriers, treated as social pariahs, and deprived of citizenship and the most elementary civil rights. All these circumstances appeared to be insuperable barriers in the way of their organisation and functioning as a united labour force. In the intervening years, however, these foreign-born workers have been assimilated and “Americanised”. They and their sons today constitute a powerful, militant, and articulate detachment of the organised labour movement.

An equally significant and profound development is represented by the transformation that has taken place in the position occupied by the Negroes. Formerly barred and deprived of the rights and benefits of organisation by the dominant reactionary craft unions and, on the other hand, regarded and sometimes utilised by the employers as a reserve for strikebreaking purposes, masses of Negroes have since the ’20s penetrated into the basic industries and into the unions. Not less than two million Negroes are members of the CIO, AFL, and independent unions. They have demonstrated in the great strike struggles that they stand in the front lines of progressiveness and militancy.

The American workers have the advantage of being comparatively free, especially among the younger and most militant layers, from reformist prejudices. The class as a whole has not been infected with the debilitating poison of reformism, either of the classic “socialist” variety or the latter-day Stalinist brand. As a consequence, once they proceed to action, they more readily accept the most radical solutions. No important section of the class, let alone the class as a whole, has been demoralised by defeats. Finally, this young and mighty power is being drawn into the decisive phases of the class struggle at a tempo that creates unparalleled premises for mass radicalisation.

Much has been said about the “backwardness” of the American working class as a justification for a pessimistic outlook, the postponement of the socialist revolution to a remote future, and withdrawal from the struggle. This is a very superficial view of the American workers and their prospects.

It is true that this class, in many respects the most advanced and progressive in the world, has not yet taken the road of independent political action on a mass scale. But this weakness can be swiftly overcome. Under the compulsion of objective necessity not only backward peoples but backward classes in advanced countries find themselves driven to clear great distances in single leaps. As a matter of fact, the American working class has already made one such leap which has advanced it far ahead of its old positions.

The workers entered the 1929 crisis as an unorganised, atomised mass imbued with illusions concerning “rugged individualism”, “private initiative”, “free enterprise”, “the American Way”, etc., etc. Less than 10% of the class as a whole was organised on the trade union field (fewer than 3 million out of 33 million in 1929). Moreover, this thin layer embraced primarily the highly skilled and privileged workers, organised in antiquated craft unions. The main and most decisive section of the workers knew unionism only as “company unionism”, remaining without the benefit, the experience, and even the understanding of the most elementary form of workers’ organisation—the trade union. They were regarded and treated as mere raw material for capitalist exploitation, without rights or protection or any security of employment.

As a consequence, the 1929 crisis found the working class helpless and impotent. For three years the masses remained stunned and disoriented by the disaster. Their resistance was extremely limited and sporadic. But their anger and resentment accumulated. The next five years (1933-37), coincident with a partial revival of industry, witnessed a series of gigantic clashes, street fights and sit-down strikes—an embryonic civil war—the end result of which was a leap, a giant leap, for millions of workers from non-existence as an organised force to trade union consciousness and organisation. Once fairly started, the movement for unionism snowballed, embracing today almost 15 million in all the basic industries.

In one leap—in a brief decade—the American workers attained trade union consciousness on a higher plane and with mightier organisations than in any other advanced country. In the study and analysis of this great transformation, rather than in vapid ruminations over the “backwardness” of the American workers, one can find the key to prospective future developments. Under the impact of great events and pressing necessities the American workers will advance beyond the limits of trade unionism and acquire political class consciousness and organisation in a similar sweeping movement.

The decisive instrument of the proletarian revolution is the party of the class conscious vanguard. Failing the leadership of such a party, the most favourable revolutionary situations, which arise from the objective circumstances, cannot be carried through to the final victory of the proletariat and the beginnings of planned reorganisation of society on socialist foundations. This was demonstrated most conclusively—and positively—in the 1917 Russian Revolution. This same principled lesson derives no less irrefutably—even though negatively—from the entire world experience of the epoch of wars, revolutions, and colonial uprisings that began with the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.

However, this basic conclusion from the vast and tragic experience of the last third of a century can be and has been given a reactionary interpretation by a school of neo-revisionism, represented by the ideologues, philosophers, and preachers of prostration, capitulation, and defeat. They say in effect: “Since the revolutionary party is small and weak it is idle to speak of revolutionary possibilities. The weakness of the party changes everything.” The authors of this “theory” reject and repudiate Marxism, embracing in its place the subjective school of sociology. They isolate the factor of the revolutionary party’s relative numerical weakness at a particular moment from the totality of objective economic and political developments which creates all the necessary and sufficient conditions for the swift growth of the revolutionary vanguard party.

Given an objectively revolutionary situation, a proletarian party—even a small one—equipped with a precisely worked out Marxist program and firm cadres can expand its forces and come to the head of the revolutionary mass movement in a comparatively brief span of time. This too was proved conclusively—and positively—by the experiences of the Russian Revolution in 1917. There the Bolshevik Party, headed by Lenin and Trotsky, bounded forward from a tiny minority, just emerging from underground and isolation in February to the conquest of power in October—a period of nine months.

Numerical weakness, to be sure, is not a virtue for a revolutionary party but a weakness to be overcome by persistent work and resolute struggle. In the US all the conditions are in the process of unfolding for the rapid transformation of the organised vanguard from a propaganda group to a mass party strong enough to lead the revolutionary struggle for power.

The hopeless contradictions of American capitalism, inextricably tied up with the death agony of world capitalism, are bound to lead to a social crisis of such catastrophic proportions as will place the proletarian revolution on the order of the day.

In this crisis, it is realistic to expect that the American workers, who attained trade union consciousness and organisation within a single decade, will pass through another great transformation in their mentality, attaining political consciousness and organisation. If in the course of this dynamic development a mass labour party based on the trade unions is formed, it will not represent a detour into reformist stagnation and futility, as happened in England and elsewhere in the period of capitalist ascent. From all indications, it will rather represent a preliminary stage in the political radicalisation of the American workers, preparing them for the direct leadership of the revolutionary party.

The revolutionary vanguard party, destined to lead this tumultuous revolutionary movement in the US, does not have to be created. It already exists, and its name is the SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY. It is the sole legitimate heir and continuator of pioneer American Communism and the revolutionary movements of the American workers from which it sprang. Its nucleus has already taken shape in three decades of unremitting work and struggle against the stream. Its program has been hammered out in ideological battles and successfully defended against every kind of revisionist assault upon it. The fundamental core of a professional leadership has been assembled and trained in the irreconcilable spirit of the combat party of the revolution.

The task of the SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY consists simply in this: to remain true to its program and banner; to render it more precise with each new development and apply it correctly in the class struggle; and to expand and grow with the growth of the revolutionary mass movement, always aspiring to lead it to victory in the struggle for political power.

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American Revolution - List of Essay Samples And Topic Ideas

The American Revolution, a pivotal period from 1765 to 1783, led to the thirteen American colonies’ independence from British rule. Essays could delve into the various factors that contributed to the revolution, the key battles, and notable figures who played significant roles. They might also explore the ideological underpinnings of the revolutionaries, the impact of Enlightenment thought, and the subsequent formulation of a new governmental system. Discussions might further extend to the revolution’s global repercussions, its effect on American society, and the enduring legacy of the values and institutions established during this period. A vast selection of complimentary essay illustrations pertaining to American Revolution you can find in Papersowl database. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

Women after the American Revolution

Although the Revolutionary War provided a new perspective of women’s roles in politics and the household, there was not lasting change after the end of the war. Coverture is the status that a woman is essentially property of her husband, and is to remain under his command. During the post-revolutionary era, ideas of coverture still existed in America, even if new rights given to women began to spark their want for equality. Before the American Revolution, women had a very […]

Was the American Revolution Really Revolutionary?

During the Age of Revolution (1774-1849), many revolutionary movements occurred in Europe and the Americas. One of the most revolutionary revolutions was the French Revolution, a period of social and political upheaval in France that resulted in an upswing of nationalism, as well as the decline of monarchies and the rise of Democracy. The entire political and social structure of France was overthrown as a result of The French Revolution, making it one of the most radical revolutions of its […]

Was the Revolutionary War Actually Revolutionary?

The Revolutionary War could perhaps be called the greatest thing to ever happen to us. But, was it really? Just how revolutionary was the Revolutionary War? Some may say it was extremely revolutionary but, was it even revolutionary at all? This subject is very contradictory to various groups of people . To some it was very revolutionary but to others at just a glance it was revolutionary but, once you take a deeper look you'd find it was not very […]

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Why was the American Revolution a Conservative Movement?

The American Revolution is often analyzed by historians as a conservative movement to maintain the status quo. However, the American Revolution was partially conservative and partially liberal, contributing to the nuance of the issue. Politically, the revolution was revolutionary because the governmental institutions that resulted from it were radically different than the inherited governmental systems of Great Britain. These governmental establishments amplified Enlightenment ideas and divided sovereignty (federalism), notably different from Britain’s political system. Additionally, the Bill of Rights was […]

Role of Women in the American Revolutionary War

The achievements of men usually overshadow the role of women in the history of America. However, women have been very important in establishing liberal America that people live in today. The accomplishments of women in the American revolutionary war is hardly reported in historical books. During the American Revolution (1775-1783), women played a role in a variety of ways, including the creation of organizations, becoming camp followers, and by gathering intelligence for the Patriot cause. One of the roles of […]

Nation-state Building in the United States

Nation-state Building in the United States from the American Revolution to the Civil War Era A major component of Nation-state building in the U.S included and started with westward expansion. There was a collective belief that God had foreordained the United States to cover the entire continent, thus began the territorial expansion of the U.S.; which was pursued under the doctrine of manifest destiny. The initial westward expansion conquest, beyond the original thirteen colonies, was the Ohio River Valley, but […]

Three Phases of American Revolution

What were the three phases of American revolution? What were the developments in the three phases of American revolution during the seventeenth century? How did the three phases of American revolution evolve? In 1754, war erupted on the North American continent which was known as the French and Indian War. The fighting lasted until 1763, when Britain and its colonists emerged victorious and seized nearly all French land in North America. The victory, however, only led to growing tensions between […]

Is the American Revolution Radical?

Radical is a word that means change. If something is radical it means a change has occurred. The American Revolution was a war that broke that began in 1775. There was conflict between the colonies and Great Britain. War broke out when the 13 colonies revolted against the Britain rulers. There were many events that made up the revolution. There was chaos all over the 13 colonies. The American revolution brought a lot of change and shaped a new nation. […]

A War of the Thirteen Colonies against Great Britain

Parliament's passage of the Intolerable Acts in 1774 intensified the conflict between the colonies and Great Britain. Americans came to the conclusion that the only solution to their dilemma with the British government was to sever all ties with it. The American Revolution was the radical breakthrough in which the thirteen colonies fought a war against Great Britain in order to become independent. The initiation that caused the American Revolution was the Lexington and Concord in which British troops and […]

The Major Trigger for the American Revolution

The French-Indian War was the major trigger for the American Revolution for independence also referred to as the Seven Years War', the conflict was between France and Great Britain with both countries believing they were the inhibitors of Ohio River Valley. Subsequent to the seven years of disputes and fights over the ownership, Britain won and took victory over the land (Thompson, 2017). Over the next 15 years, the French government yearned for revenge and recovery of its former colonies. […]

How the American Revolution had Influenced on France

The American Revolution had surfaced from the adversary between the British and the American colonists in the New World who were fighting desperately for their independence. The French and Indian War contributed greatly to this fight for independence, as the cost of the war was abundant and prompted the British to initiate harsh taxes on the American colonists, such as the Sugar Act. Along with the high costs, what additionally resulted from the French and Indian War was the French […]

MYP Individuals in Society

The American Revolution was a war that took place between 1775-1783. During this period of time, the British and the 13 colonies fought. Many soldiers and militiamen died either because of diseases, lack of supplies, natural disasters, or battles. The battle of Lexington and Concord was the battle that started the American Revolution. It all started on April 18 when British troops arrived at Boston. They proceeded to take the militia's goods. Luckily, Paul Revere, a patriot, warned the colonists […]

The American Revolution and the United States of America

The American Revolution was the true beginning of the United States of America. The colonists fought the British long and hard for seven years and gained their independence. Many people doubted the colonists, but they persevered and defeated one of the greatest armies in the world. This allowed the colonists to build a nation based off of four main principles: religious tolerance, economic opportunity, self-government, and individual liberty. In the early 1600's, many people began to migrate to the Americas […]

What Lead to the American Revolution

The American Revolution is a major part of our history today. Without the revolution, we would not be where we are today. The reason our country is what it is today is because of the American Revolution. America is its own country because of the revolution. The first settlers came over here in the name of England, but years after, we were fighting against them to become a separate nation. But it all had to start somewhere. What lead up […]

About Women in American Revolution

In our well-developed, better-than-ever society, we are still fighting for women's rights and equality between genders. Waiting for a police officer or a neurologist to arrive, we are usually surprised when we see a woman approaching. While reading an article about the death toll in the Syrian Civil War, we easily assume all late soldiers were males. Does this approach differ from the one that was two hundred and fifty years ago? The role of women was crucial during the […]

American Revolution in United States History

A profound turning point in United States history between the period of 1754-1800 was the American Revolution. It elevated recognition of social inequality, which drove some people and groups to call for the abolition of slavery and greater political democracy in the new state and national governments. This war can be understood in the historical context of Britain's threats to assert stricter authority over the North American colonies, through the imposition of taxes without representation in the British Parliament. This […]

An Eventful Time in American History

An eventful time in American History, full of pride, bloodshed, self-realization, and building of an independent nation. A nation was fought for and built, created things, the very things that make America the great country it is today. A rebellion would change the world, in a matter of nearly a decade of unrest and hostility. The rejection of the British Parliament's authority due to taxation, rising prices of many things needed to sustain life under British rule. Brought about a […]

The American People and the American Revolution

This essay will talk about the main point and details of the American Revolution and American People. Which is where the Americans get Independence from the British. The main topics that it will inform in this essay is the Second Continental Army, the Declaration of Independence, and the Surrender of Yorktown which were important events that lead to Independence of the Americans. Also what the British did to the Americans like taxation with the products they used a lot back […]

American Revolution: Series of Crisis

American Revolution was brought about by a series of crisis between the British colonizers and the Americans. The crisis was caused by various acts made by the colonizers to get taxes from the colonies. This was after the British government was involved in a war between French and Indians which took seven years. The war caused the government to be in a debt because of the soldiers who were employed to fight together with the British government. Imposition of sugar […]

The American Revolution

Role of slaves and Native Americans in the RevolutionThousands of African slaves and the Native American involvement in the fight for independence against the British colonial masters. Most of them were actively involved in the forefront of the war. They refused to stand aside and took the side of the war that they felt had an upper arm in winning and of course the one that offered better terms of their freedom when the war is won. The war was […]

The American Revolution and a Political and Social Partition

It would be agreed that for the British Colonists, the year of 1763 was seen as a great watershed in American History. On that note, throughout the years of 1756-1763, was a time period of salutary neglect that lead to the French and Indian war, in which the British called it the Seven Years War. At first it began as a local war in North America battled by the Colonists against the coalition of the French and Indians, however it […]

Western Constitutionalism and his Influence in the USA

One of the short stories of the West (the American one) appears before us as an exemplary, intense and exalting adventure. In an area of about nine and a half million square kilometers, a handful of men of disparate origins could make their new homeland, the first economic and political power of the planet by dint of determination, heroism and strength. The year 1607 was the year in which the first expeditions were made in Virginia, which did not find […]

About American Revolutionary War

More than two million people lived in the new thirteen original American colonies during the mid-1700s. Some were born naturally in the New World, while others moved to America to create a new home. Many immigrants left Great Britain to come to America. People left for various reasons like religious persecution, war, disease, famine, and some just wanted a fresh start. Many less than fortunate people sold themselves as indentured servants to the wealthy and in return they would receive […]

Many Reasons for the American Revolution

The American Revolution was a very interesting event in American History. It caused many great changes to the way we live. In my opinion, this topic is one of the most fascinating topics in American history because of the many complex pieces that come together to form the story of the revolution and the way that it has affected the way we live our lives today. Although there were many reasons for the American Revolution, a few of the major […]

The American Revolution and Society History

The American Revolution was the thirteen colonies fight for independence from Great Britain that began in 1775 in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. It is considered a revolution because it was the first successful economic and political reformation in a society that served to inspire worldwide revolutions. It occured after the French and Indian War (1745-1763) when a profound feeling of disunity and betrayal was felt among the colonies. During this time the British empire's expansion and large financial debt caused […]

How the American Revolution Led to the French Revolution

In the American Revolution, the thirteen colonies were able to gain independence from Great Britain and an important cause of the victory was the help of the French who made a major impact on the war and were allies of the colonists. They fought together closely and exchanged several ideas, which included thinking that led to the start of the American Revolution. After the war of almost eight years, there were many parts of French culture that had been affected […]

The American and the French Revolutions

The right of revolution was an idea proposed by Enlightenment Philosopher John Locke, which inspired and challenged the colonies in America and the people of France to revolt. Displeased with their current positions with their governments, they mustered up the courage and strength to challenge authority. Through their battles and hardships, both revolutions sought a government that mirrored the Enlightenment beliefs of natural rights, power of the people, and equality. With those goals in mind, they demonstrated the idea that […]

The American Patriots and the American Revolution

Throughout history, many revolutions have occurred and the reasonings behind them are many. Some of these revolutions occur because people want freedom. An example of this type of revolution would be the American Revolution. The American Revolution was a colonial revolt that took place in 1775 through 1783. The American Patriots in the Thirteen Colonies won independence from Great Britain, becoming the United States of America. They defeated the British in the American Revolutionary War which took place between 1775-1783 […]

American Revolution and Nathanael Greene

Nathanael Greene - Nathanael Greene was a Patriot Major General who had extreme military potential from a young age. He was born into a very faithful and determind Quaker family in Rhode Island. Nathanael Greene's family did not believe or agree with military goals. However he ended up choosing the milatary before his family's beliefs. He became the youngest Patriot brigadier general at the age of 34 and reached that rank in one year. Greene was in command of Boston […]

The Effect that the Enlightenment had on the American Revolution

The Declaration of independence, document declaring the US to be independent of the British Crown, signed by the congressional representatives of the Thirteen Colonies, including Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams, and ratified on July 4, 1776. This was just one of the first set of foundation to the united states. Second came the constitution. The Constitution of the United States is a document that embodies the fundamental laws and principles by which the United States is governed. It […]

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How To Write an Essay About American Revolution

Understanding the american revolution.

Before writing an essay about the American Revolution, it is crucial to understand its historical context and significance. The American Revolution, occurring from 1765 to 1783, was a pivotal event in which the Thirteen Colonies in North America won independence from Great Britain and formed the United States. Start by outlining the key events that led to the revolution, including the French and Indian War, the Stamp Act, the Boston Tea Party, and the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Familiarize yourself with the major figures involved, such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and King George III, and understand the ideological underpinnings of the revolution, including concepts of liberty, democracy, and taxation without representation. This foundational knowledge will provide a solid basis for your essay.

Developing a Focused Thesis Statement

A strong essay on the American Revolution should be centered around a clear, concise thesis statement. This statement should present a specific viewpoint or argument about the revolution. For example, you might argue that the American Revolution was primarily a political and ideological revolution rather than just a military conflict, or analyze the impact of the revolution on the development of American political thought. Your thesis will guide the direction of your essay and ensure a structured and coherent analysis.

Gathering Historical Evidence

To support your thesis, gather historical evidence from credible sources. This might include primary sources like letters, speeches, and contemporary accounts, as well as secondary sources like scholarly articles and history books. Analyze this evidence critically, considering the reliability and perspective of each source. Use this evidence to build your argument and provide depth to your analysis of the American Revolution.

Analyzing Key Events and Figures

Dedicate a section of your essay to analyzing key events and figures of the American Revolution. Discuss how these events were pivotal in the progress of the revolution and examine the roles and contributions of significant figures. For example, explore how the Declaration of Independence encapsulated the revolutionary ideals or how diplomatic efforts with foreign nations were crucial to the colonial victory. This analysis will help readers understand the complexities and nuances of the revolution.

Concluding the Essay

Conclude your essay by summarizing the main points of your discussion and restating your thesis in light of the evidence presented. Your conclusion should tie together your analysis and emphasize the significance of the American Revolution in shaping American history and identity. You might also want to reflect on the broader implications of the revolution, such as its impact on global politics or its legacy in contemporary America.

Reviewing and Refining Your Essay

After completing your essay, review and edit it for clarity and coherence. Ensure that your arguments are well-structured and supported by historical evidence. Check for grammatical accuracy and ensure that your essay flows logically from one point to the next. Consider seeking feedback from peers or instructors to further refine your essay. A well-crafted essay on the American Revolution will not only demonstrate your understanding of this pivotal event in history but also your ability to engage critically with historical narratives.

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THE AMERICAN YAWP

5. the american revolution.

Paul Revere's sketch, Landing of the Troops, c. 1770. Courtesy American Antiquarian Society. Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

Paul Revere, Landing of the Troops, c. 1770. Courtesy American Antiquarian Society . Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

*The American Yawp is an evolving, collaborative text. Please click here to improve this chapter.*

I. Introduction

Ii. the origins of the american revolution, iii. the causes of the american revolution, iv. independence, v. the war for independence, vi. the consequences of the american revolution, vii. conclusion, viii. primary sources, ix. reference material.

In the 1760s, Benjamin Rush, a native of Philadelphia, recounted a visit to Parliament. Upon seeing the king’s throne in the House of Lords, Rush said he “felt as if he walked on sacred ground” with “emotions that I cannot describe.” 1 Throughout the eighteenth century, colonists had developed significant emotional ties with both the British monarchy and the British constitution. The British North American colonists had just helped to win a world war and most, like Rush, had never been more proud to be British. And yet, in a little over a decade, those same colonists would declare their independence and break away from the British Empire. Seen from 1763, nothing would have seemed as improbable as the American Revolution.

The Revolution built institutions and codified the language and ideas that still define Americans’ image of themselves. Moreover, revolutionaries justified their new nation with radical new ideals that changed the course of history and sparked a global “age of revolution.” But the Revolution was as paradoxical as it was unpredictable. A revolution fought in the name of liberty allowed slavery to persist. Resistance to centralized authority tied disparate colonies ever closer together under new governments. The revolution created politicians eager to foster republican selflessness and protect the public good but also encouraged individual self-interest and personal gain. The “founding fathers” instigated and fought a revolution to secure independence from Britain, but they did not fight that revolution to create a “democracy.” To successfully rebel against Britain, however, required more than a few dozen “founding fathers.” Common colonists joined the fight, unleashing popular forces that shaped the Revolution itself, often in ways not welcomed by elite leaders. But once unleashed, these popular forces continued to shape the new nation and indeed the rest of American history.

The American Revolution had both long-term origins and short-term causes. In this section, we will look broadly at some of the long-term political, intellectual, cultural, and economic developments in the eighteenth century that set the context for the crisis of the 1760s and 1770s.

Between the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the middle of the eighteenth century, Britain had largely failed to define the colonies’ relationship to the empire and institute a coherent program of imperial reform. Two factors contributed to these failures. First, Britain was at war from the War of the Spanish Succession at the start of the century through the Seven Years’ War in 1763. Constant war was politically consuming and economically expensive. Second, competing visions of empire divided British officials. Old Whigs and their Tory supporters envisioned an authoritarian empire, based on conquering territory and extracting resources. They sought to eliminate Britain’s growing national debt by raising taxes and cutting spending on the colonies. The radical (or patriot) Whigs based their imperial vision on trade and manufacturing instead of land and resources. They argued that economic growth, not raising taxes, would solve the national debt. Instead of an authoritarian empire, “patriot Whigs” argued that the colonies should have equal status with the mother country. There were occasional attempts to reform the administration of the colonies, but debate between the two sides prevented coherent reform. 2

Colonists developed their own understanding of how they fit into the empire. They saw themselves as British subjects “entitled to all the natural, essential, inherent, and inseparable rights of our fellow subjects in Great-Britain.” The eighteenth century brought significant economic and demographic growth in the colonies. This success, they believed, resulted partly from Britain’s hands-off approach to the colonies, an approach that has been called salutary neglect. By midcentury, colonists believed that they held a special place in the empire, which justified Britain’s hands-off policy. In 1764, James Otis Jr. wrote, “The colonists are entitled to as ample rights, liberties, and privileges as the subjects of the mother country are, and in some respects to more .” 3

In this same period, the colonies developed their own local political institutions. Samuel Adams, in the Boston Gazette , described the colonies as each being a “separate body politic” from Britain. Almost immediately upon each colony’s settlement, they created a colonial assembly. These assemblies assumed many of the same duties as the Commons exercised in Britain, including taxing residents, managing the spending of the colonies’ revenue, and granting salaries to royal officials. In the early 1700s, colonial leaders unsuccessfully lobbied the British government to define their assemblies’ legal prerogatives, but Britain was too occupied with European wars. In the first half of the eighteenth century, royal governors tasked by the Board of Trade attempted to limit the power of the assemblies, but the assemblies’ power only grew. Many colonists came to see their assemblies as having the same jurisdiction over them that Parliament exercised over those in England. They interpreted British inaction as justifying their tradition of local governance. The Crown and Parliament, however, disagreed. 4

Political culture in the colonies also developed differently than that of the mother country. In both Britain and the colonies, land was the key to political participation, but because land was more easily obtained in the colonies, a higher proportion of male colonists participated in politics. Colonial political culture drew inspiration from the “country” party in Britain. These ideas—generally referred to as the ideology of republicanism—stressed the corrupting nature of power and the need for those involved in self-governing to be virtuous (i.e., putting the “public good” over their own self-interest). Patriots would need to be ever vigilant against the rise of conspiracies, centralized control, and tyranny. Only a small fringe in Britain held these ideas, but in the colonies, they were widely accepted. 5

In the 1740s, two seemingly conflicting bodies of thought—the Enlightenment and the Great Awakening—began to combine in the colonies and challenge older ideas about authority. Perhaps no single philosopher had a greater impact on colonial thinking than John Locke. In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding , Locke argued that the mind was originally a tabula rasa (or blank slate) and that individuals were formed primarily by their environment. The aristocracy then were wealthy or successful because they had greater access to wealth, education, and patronage and not because they were innately superior. Locke followed this essay with Some Thoughts Concerning Education , which introduced radical new ideas about the importance of education. Education would produce rational human beings capable of thinking for themselves and questioning authority rather than tacitly accepting tradition. These ideas slowly came to have far-reaching effects in the colonies and, later, the new nation.

At the same time that Locke’s ideas about knowledge and education spread in North America, the colonies also experienced an unprecedented wave of evangelical Protestant revivalism. Between 1739 and 1740, the Rev. George Whitefield, an enigmatic, itinerant preacher, traveled the colonies preaching Calvinist sermons to huge crowds. Unlike the rationalism of Locke, his sermons were designed to appeal to his listeners’ emotions. Whitefield told his listeners that salvation could only be found by taking personal responsibility for one’s own unmediated relationship with God, a process that came to be known as a “conversion” experience. He also argued that the current Church hierarchies populated by “unconverted” ministers only stood as a barrier between the individual and God. In his wake, new traveling preachers picked up his message and many congregations split. Both Locke and Whitefield had empowered individuals to question authority and to take their lives into their own hands.

In other ways, eighteenth-century colonists were becoming more culturally similar to Britons, a process often referred to as Anglicization. As colonial economies grew, they quickly became an important market for British manufacturing exports. Colonists with disposable income and access to British markets attempted to mimic British culture. By the middle of the eighteenth century, middling-class colonists could also afford items previously thought of as luxuries like British fashions, dining wares, and more. The desire to purchase British goods meshed with the desire to enjoy British liberties. 6 These political, intellectual, cultural, and economic developments built tensions that rose to the surface when, after the Seven Years’ War, Britain finally began to implement a program of imperial reform that conflicted with colonists’ understanding of the empire and their place in it.

Most immediately, the American Revolution resulted directly from attempts to reform the British Empire after the Seven Years’ War. The Seven Years’ War culminated nearly a half century of war between Europe’s imperial powers. It was truly a world war, fought between multiple empires on multiple continents. At its conclusion, the British Empire had never been larger. Britain now controlled the North American continent east of the Mississippi River, including French Canada. It had also consolidated its control over India. But the realities and responsibilities of the postwar empire were daunting. War (let alone victory) on such a scale was costly. Britain doubled the national debt to 13.5 times its annual revenue. Britain faced significant new costs required to secure and defend its far-flung empire, especially the western frontiers of the North American colonies. These factors led Britain in the 1760s to attempt to consolidate control over its North American colonies, which, in turn, led to resistance.

King George III took the crown in 1760 and brought Tories into his government after three decades of Whig rule. They represented an authoritarian vision of empire in which colonies would be subordinate. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was Britain’s first major postwar imperial action targeting North America. The king forbade settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains in an attempt to limit costly wars with Native Americans. Colonists, however, protested and demanded access to the territory for which they had fought alongside the British.

In 1764, Parliament passed two more reforms. The Sugar Act sought to combat widespread smuggling of molasses in New England by cutting the duty in half but increasing enforcement. Also, smugglers would be tried by vice-admiralty courts and not juries. Parliament also passed the Currency Act, which restricted colonies from producing paper money. Hard money, such as gold and silver coins, was scarce in the colonies. The lack of currency impeded the colonies’ increasingly sophisticated transatlantic economies, but it was especially damaging in 1764 because a postwar recession had already begun. Between the restrictions of the Proclamation of 1763, the Currency Act, and the Sugar Act’s canceling of trials-by-jury for smugglers, some colonists began to fear a pattern of increased taxation and restricted liberties.

In March 1765, Parliament passed the Stamp Act. The act required that many documents be printed on paper that had been stamped to show the duty had been paid, including newspapers, pamphlets, diplomas, legal documents, and even playing cards. The Sugar Act of 1764 was an attempt to get merchants to pay an already existing duty, but the Stamp Act created a new, direct (or “internal”) tax. Parliament had never before directly taxed the colonists. Instead, colonies contributed to the empire through the payment of indirect, “external” taxes, such as customs duties. In 1765, Daniel Dulany of Maryland wrote, “A right to impose an internal tax on the colonies, without their consent for the single purpose of revenue, is denied, a right to regulate their trade without their consent is, admitted.” 7 Also, unlike the Sugar Act, which primarily affected merchants, the Stamp Act directly affected numerous groups throughout colonial society, including printers, lawyers, college graduates, and even sailors who played cards. This led, in part, to broader, more popular resistance.

Resistance to the Stamp Act took three forms, distinguished largely by class: legislative resistance by elites, economic resistance by merchants, and popular protest by common colonists. Colonial elites responded by passing resolutions in their assemblies. The most famous of the anti-Stamp Act resolutions were the Virginia Resolves, passed by the House of Burgesses on May 30, 1765, which declared that the colonists were entitled to “all the liberties, privileges, franchises, and immunities . . . possessed by the people of Great Britain.” When the Virginia Resolves were printed throughout the colonies, however, they often included a few extra, far more radical resolutions not passed by the Virginia House of Burgesses, the last of which asserted that only “the general assembly of this colony have any right or power to impose or lay any taxation” and that anyone who argued differently “shall be deemed an enemy to this his majesty’s colony.” 8 These additional items spread throughout the colonies and helped radicalize subsequent responses in other colonial assemblies. These responses eventually led to the calling of the Stamp Act Congress in New York City in October 1765. Nine colonies sent delegates, who included Benjamin Franklin, John Dickinson, Thomas Hutchinson, Philip Livingston, and James Otis. 9

Men and women politicized the domestic sphere by buying and displaying items that conspicuously revealed their position for or against parliamentary actions. This witty teapot, which celebrates the end of taxation on goods like tea itself, makes clear the owner’s perspective on the egregious taxation. Teapot, Stamp Act Repeal’d, 1786, in Peabody Essex Museum. Salem State University .

The Stamp Act Congress issued a “Declaration of Rights and Grievances,” which, like the Virginia Resolves, declared allegiance to the king and “all due subordination” to Parliament but also reasserted the idea that colonists were entitled to the same rights as Britons. Those rights included trial by jury, which had been abridged by the Sugar Act, and the right to be taxed only by their own elected representatives. As Daniel Dulany wrote in 1765, “It is an essential principle of the English constitution, that the subject shall not be taxed without his consent.” 10 Benjamin Franklin called it the “prime Maxim of all free Government.” 11 Because the colonies did not elect members to Parliament, they believed that they were not represented and could not be taxed by that body. In response, Parliament and the Crown argued that the colonists were “virtually represented,” just like the residents of those boroughs or counties in England that did not elect members to Parliament. However, the colonists rejected the notion of virtual representation, with one pamphleteer calling it a “monstrous idea.” 12

The second type of resistance to the Stamp Act was economic. While the Stamp Act Congress deliberated, merchants in major port cities were preparing nonimportation agreements, hoping that their refusal to import British goods would lead British merchants to lobby for the repeal of the Stamp Act. In New York City, “upwards of two hundred principal merchants” agreed not to import, sell, or buy “any goods, wares, or merchandises” from Great Britain. 13 In Philadelphia, merchants gathered at “a general meeting” to agree that “they would not Import any Goods from Great-Britain until the Stamp-Act was Repealed.” 14 The plan worked. By January 1766, London merchants sent a letter to Parliament arguing that they had been “reduced to the necessity of pending ruin” by the Stamp Act and the subsequent boycotts. 15

The third, and perhaps, most crucial type of resistance was popular protest. Riots broke out in Boston. Crowds burned the appointed stamp distributor for Massachusetts, Andrew Oliver, in effigy and pulled a building he owned “down to the Ground in five minutes.” 16 Oliver resigned the position the next day. The following week, a crowd also set upon the home of his brother-in-law, Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson, who had publicly argued for submission to the stamp tax. Before the evening was over, much of Hutchinson’s home and belongings had been destroyed. 17

Popular violence and intimidation spread quickly throughout the colonies. In New York City, posted notices read:

PRO PATRIA, The first Man that either distributes or makes use of Stampt Paper, let him take care of his House, Person, & Effects. Vox Populi; We dare.” 18

By November 16, all of the original twelve stamp distributors had resigned, and by 1766, groups calling themselves the Sons of Liberty were formed in most colonies to direct and organize further resistance. These tactics had the dual effect of sending a message to Parliament and discouraging colonists from accepting appointments as stamp collectors. With no one to distribute the stamps, the act became unenforceable.

Violent protest by groups like the Sons of Liberty created quite a stir both in the colonies and in England itself. While extreme acts like the tarring and feathering of Boston’s Commissioner of Customs in 1774 propagated more protest against symbols of Parliament’s tyranny throughout the colonies, violent demonstrations were regarded as acts of terrorism by British officials. This print of the 1774 event was from the British perspective, picturing the Sons as brutal instigators with almost demonic smiles on their faces as they enacted this excruciating punishment on the Custom Commissioner. Philip Dawe (attributed), “The Bostonians Paying the Excise-man, or Tarring and Feathering,” Wikimedia .

Pressure on Parliament grew until, in February 1766, it repealed the Stamp Act. But to save face and to try to avoid this kind of problem in the future, Parliament also passed the Declaratory Act, asserting that Parliament had the “full power and authority to make laws . . . to bind the colonies and people of America . . . in all cases whatsoever.” However, colonists were too busy celebrating the repeal of the Stamp Act to take much notice of the Declaratory Act. In New York City, the inhabitants raised a huge lead statue of King George III in honor of the Stamp Act’s repeal. It could be argued that there was no moment at which colonists felt more proud to be members of the free British Empire than 1766. But Britain still needed revenue from the colonies. 19

The colonies had resisted the implementation of direct taxes, but the Declaratory Act reserved Parliament’s right to impose them. And, in the colonists’ dispatches to Parliament and in numerous pamphlets, they had explicitly acknowledged the right of Parliament to regulate colonial trade. So Britain’s next attempt to draw revenues from the colonies, the Townshend Acts, were passed in June 1767, creating new customs duties on common items, like lead, glass, paint, and tea, instead of direct taxes. The acts also created and strengthened formal mechanisms to enforce compliance, including a new American Board of Customs Commissioners and more vice-admiralty courts to try smugglers. Revenues from customs seizures would be used to pay customs officers and other royal officials, including the governors, thereby incentivizing them to convict offenders. These acts increased the presence of the British government in the colonies and circumscribed the authority of the colonial assemblies, since paying the governor’s salary had long given the assemblies significant power over them. Unsurprisingly, colonists, once again, resisted.

Even though these were duties, many colonial resistance authors still referred to them as “taxes,” because they were designed primarily to extract revenues from the colonies not to regulate trade. John Dickinson, in his “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania,” wrote, “That we may legally be bound to pay any general duties on these commodities, relative to the regulation of trade, is granted; but we being obliged by her laws to take them from Great Britain, any special duties imposed on their exportation to us only, with intention to raise a revenue from us only, are as much taxes upon us, as those imposed by the Stamp Act.” Hence, many authors asked: once the colonists assented to a tax in any form , what would stop the British from imposing ever more and greater taxes on the colonists? 20

New forms of resistance emerged in which elite, middling, and working-class colonists participated together. Merchants reinstituted nonimportation agreements, and common colonists agreed not to consume these same products. Lists were circulated with signatories promising not to buy any British goods. These lists were often published in newspapers, bestowing recognition on those who had signed and led to pressure on those who had not.

Women, too, became involved to an unprecedented degree in resistance to the Townshend Acts. They circulated subscription lists and gathered signatures. The first political commentaries in newspapers written by women appeared. 21 Also, without new imports of British clothes, colonists took to wearing simple, homespun clothing. Spinning clubs were formed, in which local women would gather at one of their homes and spin cloth for homespun clothing for their families and even for the community. 22

Homespun clothing quickly became a marker of one’s virtue and patriotism, and women were an important part of this cultural shift. At the same time, British goods and luxuries previously desired now became symbols of tyranny. Nonimportation and, especially, nonconsumption agreements changed colonists’ cultural relationship with the mother country. Committees of Inspection monitored merchants and residents to make sure that no one broke the agreements. Offenders could expect to be shamed by having their names and offenses published in the newspaper and in broadsides.

Nonimportation and nonconsumption helped forge colonial unity. Colonies formed Committees of Correspondence to keep each other informed of the resistance efforts throughout the colonies. Newspapers reprinted exploits of resistance, giving colonists a sense that they were part of a broader political community. The best example of this new “continental conversation” came in the wake of the Boston Massacre. Britain sent regiments to Boston in 1768 to help enforce the new acts and quell the resistance. On the evening of March 5, 1770, a crowd gathered outside the Custom House and began hurling insults, snowballs, and perhaps more at the young sentry. When a small number of soldiers came to the sentry’s aid, the crowd grew increasingly hostile until the soldiers fired. After the smoke cleared, five Bostonians were dead, including one of the ringleaders, Crispus Attucks, a formerly enslaved man turned free dockworker. The soldiers were tried in Boston and won acquittal, thanks, in part, to their defense attorney, John Adams. News of the Boston Massacre spread quickly through the new resistance communication networks, aided by a famous engraving initially circulated by Paul Revere, which depicted bloodthirsty British soldiers with grins on their faces firing into a peaceful crowd. The engraving was quickly circulated and reprinted throughout the colonies, generating sympathy for Boston and anger with Britain.

This iconic image of the Boston Massacre by Paul Revere sparked fury in both Americans and the British by portraying the redcoats as brutal slaughterers and the onlookers as helpless victims. The events of March 5, 1770 did not actually play out as Revere pictured them, yet his intention was not simply to recount the affair. Revere created an effective propaganda piece that lent credence to those demanding that the British authoritarian rule be stopped. Paul Revere (engraver), “The bloody massacre perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th 1770 by a party of the 29th Regt.,” 1770. Library of Congress .

Resistance again led to repeal. In March 1770, Parliament repealed all of the new duties except the one on tea, which, like the Declaratory Act, was left, in part, to save face and assert that Parliament still retained the right to tax the colonies. The character of colonial resistance had changed between 1765 and 1770. During the Stamp Act resistance, elites wrote resolves and held congresses while violent, popular mobs burned effigies and tore down houses, with minimal coordination between colonies. But methods of resistance against the Townshend Acts became more inclusive and more coordinated. Colonists previously excluded from meaningful political participation now gathered signatures, and colonists of all ranks participated in the resistance by not buying British goods and monitoring and enforcing the boycotts.

Britain’s failed attempts at imperial reform in the 1760s created an increasingly vigilant and resistant colonial population and, most importantly, an enlarged political sphere—both on the colonial and continental levels—far beyond anything anyone could have imagined a few years earlier. A new sense of shared grievances began to join the colonists in a shared American political identity.

Tensions between the colonies and England eased for a time after the Boston Massacre. The colonial economy improved as the postwar recession receded. The Sons of Liberty in some colonies sought to continue nonimportation even after the repeal of the Townshend Acts. But in New York, a door-to-door poll of the population revealed that the majority wanted to end nonimportation. 23 Yet Britain’s desire and need to reform imperial administration remained.

In April 1773, Parliament passed two acts to aid the failing East India Company, which had fallen behind in the annual payments it owed Britain. But the company was not only drowning in debt; it was also drowning in tea, with almost fifteen million pounds of it stored in warehouses from India to England. In 1773, Parliament passed the Regulating Act, which effectively put the troubled company under government control. It then passed the Tea Act, which would allow the company to sell its tea in the colonies directly and without the company having to pay the usual export tax in London. Even though this would greatly lower the cost of tea for colonists, they resisted.

Merchants resisted the Tea Act because they resented the East India Company’s monopoly. But like the Sugar Act, the Tea Act affected only a small, specific group of people. The widespread support for resisting the Tea Act had more to do with principles. By buying tea, even though it was cheaper, colonists would be paying the duty and thereby implicitly acknowledging Parliament’s right to tax them. According to the Pennsylvania Chronicle , Prime Minister Lord North was a “great schemer” who sought “to out wit us, and to effectually establish that Act, which will forever after be pleaded as a precedent for every imposition the Parliament of Great-Britain shall think proper to saddle us with.” 24

The Tea Act stipulated that the duty had to be paid when the ship unloaded. Newspaper essays and letters throughout the summer of 1773 in the major port cities debated what to do upon the ships’ arrival. In November, the Boston Sons of Liberty, led by Samuel Adams and John Hancock, resolved to “prevent the landing and sale of the [tea], and the payment of any duty thereon” and to do so “at the risk of their lives and property.” 25 The meeting appointed men to guard the wharfs and make sure the tea remained on the ships until they returned to London. This worked and the tea did not reach the shore, but by December 16, the ships were still there. Hence, another town meeting was held at the Old South Meeting House, at the end of which dozens of men disguised as Mohawks made their way to the wharf. The Boston Gazette reported what happened next:

But, behold what followed! A number of brave & resolute men, determined to do all in their power to save their country from the ruin which their enemies had plotted, in less than four hours, emptied every chest of tea on board the three ships . . . amounting to 342 chests, into the sea ! ! without the least damage done to the ships or any other property . 26

As word spread throughout the colonies, patriots were emboldened to do the same to the tea sitting in their harbors. Tea was either dumped or seized in Charleston, Philadelphia, and New York, with numerous other smaller “tea parties” taking place throughout 1774.

Popular protest spread across the continent and down through all levels of colonial society. Fifty-one women in Edenton, North Carolina, for example, signed an agreement—published in numerous newspapers—in which they promised “to do every Thing as far as lies in our Power” to support the boycotts. 27 The ladies of Edenton were not alone in their desire to support the war effort by what means they could. Women across the thirteen colonies could most readily express their political sentiments as consumers and producers. Because women often made decisions regarding household purchases, their participation in consumer boycotts held particular weight. 28 Some women also took to the streets as part of more unruly mob actions, participating in grain riots, raids on the offices of royal officials, and demonstrations against the impressment of men into naval service. The agitation of so many helped elicit responses from both Britain and the colonial elites.

Britain’s response was swift. The following spring, Parliament passed four acts known collectively, by the British, as the Coercive Acts. Colonists, however, referred to them as the Intolerable Acts. First, the Boston Port Act shut down the harbor and cut off all trade to and from the city. The Massachusetts Government Act put the colonial government entirely under British control, dissolving the assembly and restricting town meetings. The Administration of Justice Act allowed any royal official accused of a crime to be tried in Britain rather than by Massachusetts courts and juries. Finally, the Quartering Act, passed for all colonies, allowed the British army to quarter newly arrived soldiers in colonists’ homes. Boston had been deemed in open rebellion, and the king, his advisors, and Parliament acted decisively to end the rebellion.

The Crown, however, did not anticipate the other colonies coming to the aid of Massachusetts. Colonists collected food to send to Boston. Virginia’s House of Burgesses called for a day of prayer and fasting to show their support. Rather than isolating Massachusetts, the Coercive Acts fostered the sense of shared identity created over the previous decade. After all, if the Crown and Parliament could dissolve Massachusetts’s government, nothing could stop them from doing the same to any of her sister colonies. In Massachusetts, patriots created the Provincial Congress, and, throughout 1774, they seized control of local and county governments and courts. 29 In New York, citizens elected committees to direct the colonies’ response to the Coercive Acts, including a Mechanics’ Committee of middling colonists. By early 1774, Committees of Correspondence and/or extralegal assemblies were established in all of the colonies except Georgia. And throughout the year, they followed Massachusetts’s example by seizing the powers of the royal governments.

Committees of Correspondence agreed to send delegates to a Continental Congress to coordinate an intercolonial response. The First Continental Congress convened on September 5, 1774. Over the next six weeks, elite delegates from every colony but Georgia issued a number of documents, including a “Declaration of Rights and Grievances.” This document repeated the arguments that colonists had been making since 1765: colonists retained all the rights of native Britons, including the right to be taxed only by their own elected representatives as well as the right to a trial by jury.

Most importantly, the Congress issued a document known as the “Continental Association.” The Association declared that “the present unhappy situation of our affairs is occasioned by a ruinous system of colony administration adopted by the British Ministry about the year 1763, evidently calculated for enslaving these Colonies, and, with them, the British Empire.” The Association recommended “that a committee be chosen in every county, city, and town . . . whose business it shall be attentively to observe the conduct of all persons touching this association.” These Committees of Inspection would consist largely of common colonists. They were effectively deputized to police their communities and instructed to publish the names of anyone who violated the Association so they “may be publicly known, and universally condemned as the enemies of American liberty.” The delegates also agreed to a continental nonimportation, nonconsumption, and nonexportation agreement and to “wholly discontinue the slave trade.” In all, the Continental Association was perhaps the most radical document of the period. It sought to unite and direct twelve revolutionary governments, establish economic and moral policies, and empower common colonists by giving them an important and unprecedented degree of on-the-ground political power. 30

But not all colonists were patriots. Indeed, many remained faithful to the king and Parliament, while a good number took a neutral stance. As the situation intensified throughout 1774 and early 1775, factions emerged within the resistance movements in many colonies. Elite merchants who traded primarily with Britain, Anglican clergy, and colonists holding royal offices depended on and received privileges directly from their relationship with Britain. Initially, they sought to exert a moderating influence on the resistance committees, but, following the Association, a number of these colonists began to worry that the resistance was too radical and aimed at independence. They, like most colonists in this period, still expected a peaceful conciliation with Britain and grew increasingly suspicious of the resistance movement.

However, by the time the Continental Congress met again in May 1775, war had already broken out in Massachusetts. On April 19, 1775, British regiments set out to seize local militias’ arms and powder stores in Lexington and Concord. The town militia met them at the Lexington Green. The British ordered the militia to disperse when someone fired, setting off a volley from the British. The battle continued all the way to the next town, Concord. News of the events at Lexington spread rapidly throughout the countryside. Militia members, known as minutemen, responded quickly and inflicted significant casualties on the British regiments as they chased them back to Boston. Approximately twenty thousand colonial militiamen laid siege to Boston, effectively trapping the British. In June, the militia set up fortifications on Breed’s Hill overlooking the city. In the misnamed “Battle of Bunker Hill,” the British attempted to dislodge them from the position with a frontal assault, and, despite eventually taking the hill, they suffered severe casualties at the hands of the colonists.

“The Battle of Lexington,” Published by John H. Daniels & Son, c1903. Library of Congress .

While men in Boston fought and died, the Continental Congress struggled to organize a response. The radical Massachusetts delegates—including John Adams, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock—implored the Congress to support the Massachusetts militia, who without supplies were laying siege to Boston. Meanwhile, many delegates from the Middle Colonies—including New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia—took a more moderate position, calling for renewed attempts at reconciliation. In the South, the Virginia delegation contained radicals such as Richard Henry Lee and Thomas Jefferson, while South Carolina’s delegation included moderates like John and Edward Rutledge. The moderates worried that supporting the Massachusetts militia would be akin to declaring war.

The Congress struck a compromise, agreeing to adopt the Massachusetts militia and form a Continental Army, naming Virginia delegate George Washington commander in chief. They also issued a “Declaration of the Causes of Necessity of Taking Up Arms” to justify the decision. At the same time, the moderates drafted an “Olive Branch Petition,” which assured the king that the colonists “most ardently desire[d] the former Harmony between [the mother country] and these Colonies.” Many understood that the opportunities for reconciliation were running out. After Congress had approved the document, Benjamin Franklin wrote to a friend saying, “The Congress will send one more Petition to the King which I suppose will be treated as the former was, and therefore will probably be the last.” 31 Congress was in the strange position of attempting reconciliation while publicly raising an army.

The petition arrived in England on August 13, 1775, but before it was delivered, the king issued his own “Proclamation for Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition.” He believed his subjects in North America were being “misled by dangerous and ill-designing men,” who were “traitorously preparing, ordering, and levying war against us.” In an October speech to Parliament, he dismissed the colonists’ petition. The king had no doubt that the resistance was “manifestly carried on for the purpose of establishing an independent empire.” 32 By the start of 1776, talk of independence was growing while the prospect of reconciliation dimmed.

In the opening months of 1776, independence, for the first time, became part of the popular debate. Town meetings approved resolutions in support of independence. Yet, with moderates still hanging on, it would take another seven months before the Continental Congress officially passed the independence resolution. A small forty-six-page pamphlet published in Philadelphia and written by a recent immigrant from England captured the American conversation. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense argued for independence by denouncing monarchy and challenging the logic behind the British Empire, saying, “There is something absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island.” 33 His combination of easy language, biblical references, and fiery rhetoric proved potent, and the pamphlet was quickly published and dispersed. Arguments over political philosophy and rumors of battlefield developments filled taverns throughout the colonies.

George Washington had taken control of the army and after laying siege to Boston forced the British to retreat to Halifax. In Virginia, the royal governor, Lord Dunmore, issued a proclamation declaring martial law and offering freedom to “all indentured servants, Negros, and others” if they would leave their enslavers and join the British. Though only about five hundred to a thousand enslaved people joined Lord Dunmore’s “Ethiopian regiment,” thousands more flocked to the British later in the war, risking capture and punishment for a chance at freedom. Formerly enslaved people occasionally fought, but primarily served in companies called Black Pioneers as laborers, skilled workers, and spies. British motives for offering freedom were practical rather than humanitarian, but the proclamation was the first mass emancipation of enslaved people in American history. Enslaved people could now choose to run and risk their lives for possible freedom with the British army or hope that the United States would live up to its ideals of liberty. 34

Dunmore’s proclamation unnerved white southerners already suspicious of rising antislavery sentiments in the mother country. Four years earlier, English courts dealt a serious blow to slavery in the empire. In Somerset v Stewart , James Somerset sued for his freedom, and the court not only granted it but also undercut the very legality of slavery on the British mainland. Somerset and now Dunmore began to convince some enslavers that a new independent nation might offer a surer protection for slavery. Indeed, the proclamation laid the groundwork for the very unrest that loyal southerners had hoped to avoid. Consequently, enslavers often used violence to prevent their enslaved laborers from joining the British or rising against them. Virginia enacted regulations to prevent freedom-seeking, threatening to ship rebellious enslaved people to the West Indies or execute them. Many enslavers transported their enslaved people inland, away from the coastal temptation to join the British armies, sometimes separating families in the process.

On May 10, 1776, nearly two months before the Declaration of Independence, the Congress voted on a resolution calling on all colonies that had not already established revolutionary governments to do so and to wrest control from royal officials. 35 The Congress also recommended that the colonies should begin preparing new written constitutions. In many ways, this was the Congress’s first declaration of independence. A few weeks later, on June 7, Richard Henry Lee offered the following resolution:

Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, Free and Independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connexion between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved . 36

Delegates went scurrying back to their assemblies for new instructions and nearly a month later, on July 2, the resolution finally came to a vote. It passed 12–0, with New York, under imminent threat of British invasion, abstaining.

The passage of Lee’s resolution was the official legal declaration of independence, but, between the proposal and vote, a committee had been named to draft a public declaration in case the resolution passed. Virginian Thomas Jefferson drafted the document, with edits being made by his fellow committee members John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, and then again by the Congress as a whole. The famous preamble went beyond the arguments about the rights of British subjects under the British Constitution, instead referring to “natural law”:

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 new Government. 37

The majority of the document outlined a list of specific grievances that the colonists had with British attempts to reform imperial administration during the 1760s and 1770s. An early draft blamed the British for the transatlantic slave trade and even for discouraging attempts by the colonists to promote abolition. Delegates from South Carolina and Georgia as well as those from northern states who profited from the trade all opposed this language, and it was removed. 38

Neither the grievances nor the rhetoric of the preamble were new. Instead, they were the culmination of both a decade of popular resistance to imperial reform and decades more of long-term developments that saw both sides develop incompatible understandings of the British Empire and the colonies’ place within it. The Congress approved the document on July 4, 1776. However, it was one thing to declare independence; it was quite another to win it on the battlefield.

The Declaration of Independence, National Archives and Records Administration .

The war began at Lexington and Concord, more than a year before Congress declared independence. In 1775, the British believed that the mere threat of war and a few minor incursions to seize supplies would be enough to cow the colonial rebellion. Those minor incursions, however, turned into a full-out military conflict. Despite an early American victory at Boston, the new states faced the daunting task of taking on the world’s largest military.

In the summer of 1776, the British forces that had abandoned Boston arrived at New York. The largest expeditionary force in British history, including tens of thousands of German mercenaries known as Hessians, followed soon after. New York was the perfect location to launch expeditions aimed at seizing control of the Hudson River and isolating New England from the rest of the continent. Also, New York contained many loyalists, particularly among its merchant and Anglican communities. In October, the British finally launched an attack on Brooklyn and Manhattan. The Continental Army took severe losses before retreating through New Jersey. 39 With the onset of winter, Washington needed something to lift morale and encourage reenlistment. Therefore, he launched a successful surprise attack on the Hessian camp at Trenton on Christmas Day by ferrying the few thousand men he had left across the Delaware River under the cover of night. The victory won the Continental Army much-needed supplies and a morale boost following the disaster at New York. 40

An even greater success followed in upstate New York. In 1777, British general John Burgoyne led an army from Canada to secure the Hudson River. In upstate New York, he was to meet up with a detachment of General William Howe’s forces marching north from Manhattan. However, Howe abandoned the plan without telling Burgoyne and instead sailed to Philadelphia to capture the new nation’s capital. The Continental Army defeated Burgoyne’s men at Saratoga, New York. 41 This victory proved a major turning point in the war. Benjamin Franklin had been in Paris trying to secure a treaty of alliance with the French. However, the French were reluctant to back what seemed like an unlikely cause. News of the victory at Saratoga convinced the French that the cause might not have been as unlikely as they had thought. A Treaty of Amity and Commerce was signed on February 6, 1778. The treaty effectively turned a colonial rebellion into a global war as fighting between the British and French soon broke out in Europe and India. 42

In this 1782 cartoon, the British lion faces a spaniel (Spain), a rooster (France), a rattlesnake (America), and a pug dog (Netherlands).The dog says "I will have Gibraltar that I may be King of all Spain. The cock says I will have my Title from you and be called King of France. The serpent says I will have America and be Independent. The dog says I will be Jack of all sides as I have always been. The Lion says You shall all have an old English drubbing to make you quiet.

In this 1782 cartoon, the British lion faces a spaniel (Spain), a rooster (France), a rattlesnake (America), and a pug dog (Netherlands). Though the caption predicts Britain’s success, it illustrates that Britain faced challenges—and therefore drains on their military and treasury—from more than just the American rebels. J. Barrow, The British Lion Engaging Four Powers, 1782. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London .

Howe had taken Philadelphia in 1777 but returned to New York once winter ended. He slowly realized that European military tactics would not work in North America. In Europe, armies fought head-on battles in attempt to seize major cities. However, in 1777, the British had held Philadelphia and New York and yet still weakened their position. Meanwhile, Washington realized after New York that the largely untrained Continental Army could not win head-on battles with the professional British army. So he developed his own logic of warfare that involved smaller, more frequent skirmishes and avoided major engagements that would risk his entire army. As long as he kept the army intact, the war would continue, no matter how many cities the British captured.

In 1778, the British shifted their attentions to the South, where they believed they enjoyed more popular support. Campaigns from Virginia to South Carolina and Georgia captured major cities, but the British simply did not have the manpower to retain military control. And upon their departures, severe fighting ensued between local patriots and loyalists, often pitting family members against one another. The war in the South was truly a civil war. 43

By 1781, the British were also fighting France, Spain, and Holland. The British public’s support for the costly war in North America was quickly waning. The Americans took advantage of the British southern strategy with significant aid from the French army and navy. In October, Washington marched his troops from New York to Virginia in an effort to trap the British southern army under the command of General Charles Cornwallis. Cornwallis had dug his men in at Yorktown awaiting supplies and reinforcements from New York. However, the Continental and French armies arrived first, quickly followed by a French navy contingent, encircling Cornwallis’s forces and, after laying siege to the city, forcing his surrender. The capture of another army left the British without a new strategy and without public support to continue the war. Peace negotiations took place in France, and the war came to an official end on September 3, 1783. 44

Lord Cornwallis’s surrender signalled the victory of the American revolutionaries over what they considered to be the despotic rule of Britain. This moment would live on in American memory as a pivotal one in the nation’s origin story, prompting the United States government to commission artist John Trumbull to create this painting of the event in 1817. John Trumbull, Surrender of Lord Cornwallis, 1820. Wikimedia, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Surrender_of_Lord_Cornwallis.jpg.

Lord Cornwallis’s surrender signaled the victory of the American revolutionaries over what they considered to be the despotic rule of Britain. This moment would live on in American memory as a pivotal one in the nation’s origin story, prompting the United States government to commission artist John Trumbull to create this painting of the event in 1817. John Trumbull, Surrender of Lord Cornwallis, 1820. Wikimedia .

Americans celebrated their victory, but it came at great cost. Soldiers suffered through brutal winters with inadequate resources. During the single winter at Valley Forge in 1777–1778, over 2,500 Americans died from disease and exposure. Life was not easy on the home front either. Women on both sides of the conflict were frequently left alone to care for their households. In addition to their existing duties, women took on roles usually assigned to men on farms and in shops and taverns. Abigail Adams addressed the difficulties she encountered while “minding family affairs” on their farm in Braintree, Massachusetts. Abigail managed the planting and harvesting of crops, in the midst of severe labor shortages and inflation, while dealing with several tenants on the Adams property, raising her children, and making clothing and other household goods. In order to support the family economically during John’s frequent absences and the uncertainties of war, Abigail also invested in several speculative schemes and sold imported goods. 45

While Abigail remained safely out of the fray, other women were not so fortunate. The Revolution was not only fought on distant battlefields. It was fought on women’s very doorsteps, in the fields next to their homes. There was no way for women to avoid the conflict or the disruptions and devastations it caused. As the leader of the state militia during the Revolution, Mary Silliman’s husband, Gold, was absent from their home for much of the conflict. On the morning of July 7, 1779, when a British fleet attacked nearby Fairfield, Connecticut, it was Mary who calmly evacuated her household, including her children and servants, to North Stratford. When Gold was captured by loyalists and held prisoner, Mary, six months pregnant with their second child, wrote letters to try to secure his release. When such appeals were ineffectual, Mary spearheaded an effort, along with Connecticut Governor, John Trumbull, to capture a prominent Tory leader to exchange for her husband’s freedom. 46

American soldiers came from a variety of backgrounds and had numerous reasons for fighting with the American army. Jean-Baptiste-Antoine DeVerger, a French sublieutenant at the Battle of Yorktown, painted this watercolor soon after that battle and chose to depict four men in men military dress: an African American soldier from the 2nd Rhode Island Regiment, a man in the homespun of the militia, another wearing the common “hunting shirt” of the frontier, and the French soldier on the end. Jean-Baptiste-Antoine DeVerger, “American soldiers at the siege of Yorktown,” 1781. Wikimedia .

Black Americans, enslaved and free, also impacted (and were impacted by) the Revolution. The British were the first to recruit Black (or “Ethiopian”) regiments, as early as Dunmore’s Proclamation of 1775 in Virginia, which promised freedom to any enslaved person who would escape their enslavers and join the British cause. At first, Washington, an enslaver himself, resisted allowing Black men to join the Continental Army, but he eventually relented. In 1775, Peter Salem’s enslaver freed him to fight with the militia. Salem faced British Regulars in the battles at Lexington and Bunker Hill, where he fought valiantly with around three dozen other Black Americans. Salem not only contributed to the cause, he earned the ability to determine his own life after his enlistment ended. Salem was not alone, but many more enslaved people seized on the tumult of war to run away and secure their own freedom directly. Historians estimate that between thirty thousand and one hundred thousand formerly enslaved people deserted their enslavers during the war. 47

Men and women together struggled through years of war and hardship. For patriots (and those who remained neutral), victory brought new political, social, and economic opportunities, but it also brought new uncertainties. The war decimated entire communities, particularly in the South. Thousands of women throughout the nation had been widowed. The American economy, weighed down by war debt and depreciated currencies, would have to be rebuilt following the war. State constitutions had created governments, but now men would have to figure out how to govern. The opportunities created by the Revolution had come at great cost, in both lives and fortune, and it was left to the survivors to seize those opportunities and help forge and define the new nation-state.

Another John Trumbull piece commissioned for the Capitol in 1817, this painting depicts what would be remembered as the moment the new United States became a republic. On December 23, 1783, George Washington, widely considered the hero of the Revolution, resigned his position as the most powerful man in the former thirteen colonies. Giving up his role as Commander-in-Chief of the Army ensured that civilian rule would define the new nation and that a republic would be set in place rather than a dictatorship. John Trumbull, General George Washington Resigning His Commission, c. 1817-1824. From the Architect of the Capitol .

Like the earlier distinction between “origins” and “causes,” the Revolution also had short- and long-term consequences. Perhaps the most important immediate consequence of declaring independence was the creation of state constitutions in 1776 and 1777. The Revolution also unleashed powerful political, social, and economic forces that would transform the new nation’s politics and society, including increased participation in politics and governance, the legal institutionalization of religious toleration, and the growth and diffusion of the population, particularly westward. The Revolution affected Native Americans by opening up western settlement and creating governments hostile to their territorial claims. Even more broadly, the Revolution ended the mercantilist economy, opening new opportunities in trade and manufacturing.

The new states drafted written constitutions, which, at the time, was an important innovation from the traditionally unwritten British Constitution. These new state constitutions were based on the idea of “popular sovereignty,” that is, that the power and authority of the government derived from the people. 48 Most created weak governors and strong legislatures with more regular elections and moderately increased the size of the electorate. A number of states followed the example of Virginia and included a declaration or “bill” of rights in their constitution designed to protect the rights of individuals and circumscribe the prerogative of the government. Pennsylvania’s first state constitution was the most radical and democratic. They created a unicameral legislature and an Executive Council but no genuine executive. All free men could vote, including those who did not own property. Massachusetts’s constitution, passed in 1780, was less democratic in structure but underwent a more popular process of ratification. In the fall of 1779, each town sent delegates—312 in all—to a constitutional convention in Cambridge. Town meetings debated the constitution draft and offered suggestions. Anticipating the later federal constitution, Massachusetts established a three-branch government based on checks and balances between the branches. Independence came in 1776, and so did an unprecedented period of constitution making and state building.

The Continental Congress ratified the Articles of Confederation in 1781. The articles allowed each state one vote in the Continental Congress. But the articles are perhaps most notable for what they did not allow. Congress was given no power to levy or collect taxes, regulate foreign or interstate commerce, or establish a federal judiciary. These shortcomings rendered the postwar Congress weak and largely ineffectual.

Political and social life changed drastically after independence. Political participation grew as more people gained the right to vote, leading to greater importance being placed on representation within government. 49 In addition, more common citizens (or “new men”) played increasingly important roles in local and state governance. Hierarchy within the states underwent significant changes. Society became less deferential and more egalitarian, less aristocratic and more meritocratic.

The Revolution’s most important long-term economic consequence was the end of mercantilism. The British Empire had imposed various restrictions on the colonial economies including limiting trade, settlement, and manufacturing. The Revolution opened new markets and new trade relationships. The Americans’ victory also opened the western territories for invasion and settlement, which created new domestic markets. Americans began to create their own manufactures, no longer content to rely on those in Britain.

Despite these important changes, the American Revolution had its limits. Following their unprecedented expansion into political affairs during the imperial resistance, women also served the patriot cause during the war. However, the Revolution did not result in civic equality for women. Instead, during the immediate postwar period, women became incorporated into the polity to some degree as “republican mothers.” Republican societies required virtuous citizens, and it became mothers’ responsibility to raise and educate future citizens. This opened opportunity for women regarding education, but they still remained largely on the peripheries of the new American polity.

While in the 13 colonies boycotting women were seen as patriots, they were mocked in British prints like this one as immoral harlots sticking their noses in the business of men. Philip Dawe, “A Society of Patriotic Ladies at Edenton in North Carolina, March 1775. Metropolitan Museum of Art, http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/388959.

In the thirteen colonies, boycotting women were seen as patriots. In British prints such as this, they were mocked as immoral harlots sticking their noses in the business of men. Philip Dawe, A Society of Patriotic Ladies at Edenton in North Carolina, March 1775. Metropolitan Museum of Art .

Approximately sixty thousand loyalists ended up leaving America because of the Revolution. Loyalists came from all ranks of American society, and many lived the rest of their lives in exile from their homeland. A clause in the Treaty of Paris was supposed to protect their property and require the Americans to compensate Loyalists who had lost property during the war because of their allegiance. The Americans, however, reneged on this promise and, throughout the 1780s, states continued seizing property held by Loyalists. Some colonists went to England, where they were strangers and outsiders in what they had thought of as their mother country. Many more, however, settled on the peripheries of the British Empire throughout the world, especially Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Quebec. The Loyalists had come out on the losing side of a Revolution, and many lost everything they had and were forced to create new lives far from the land of their birth. 50

In 1783, thousands of formerly enslaved Loyalists fled with the British army. They hoped that the British government would uphold the promise of freedom and help them establish new homes elsewhere in the Empire. The Treaty of Paris, which ended the war, demanded that British troops leave formerly enslaved people behind, but the British military commanders upheld earlier promises and evacuated thousands of freedmen, transporting them to Canada, the Caribbean, or Great Britain. They would eventually play a role in settling Nova Scotia, and through the subsequent efforts of David George, a Black loyalist and Baptist preacher, some settled in Sierra Leone in Africa. Black loyalists, however, continued to face social and economic marginalization, including restrictions on land ownership within the British Empire. 51

Joseph Brandt as painted by George Romney, British court painter. Brandt was a Mohawk leader who led Mohawk and British forces in western New York. This portrait was made while Brant was visiting England. via Wikimedia.

Joseph Brandt as painted by George Romney. Brandt was a Mohawk leader who led Mohawk and British forces in western New York. Wikimedia .

The fight for liberty led some Americans to manumit their enslaved laborers, and most of the new northern states soon passed gradual emancipation laws. Some manumissions also occurred in the Upper South, but in the Lower South, some enslavers revoked their offers of freedom for service, and other freedmen were forced back into bondage. The Revolution’s rhetoric of equality created a “revolutionary generation” of enslaved people and free Black Americans that would eventually encourage the antislavery movement. Slave revolts began to incorporate claims for freedom based on revolutionary ideals. In the long term, the Revolution failed to reconcile slavery with these new egalitarian republican societies, a tension that eventually boiled over in the 1830s and 1840s and effectively tore the nation in two in the 1850s and 1860s. 52

Native Americans, too, participated in and were affected by the Revolution. Many Native American groups, such as the Shawnee, Creek, Cherokee, and Iroquois, had sided with the British. They had hoped for a British victory that would continue to restrain the land-hungry colonial settlers from moving west beyond the Appalachian Mountains. Unfortunately, the Americans’ victory and Native Americans’ support for the British created a pretense for justifying rapid and often brutal expansion into the western territories. Native American peoples would continue to be displaced and pushed farther west throughout the nineteenth century. Ultimately, American independence marked the beginning of the end of what had remained of Native American independence.

The American Revolution freed colonists from British rule and offered the first blow in what historians have called “the age of democratic revolutions.” The American Revolution was a global event. 53 Revolutions followed in France, then Haiti, and then South America. The American Revolution meanwhile wrought significant changes to the British Empire. Many British historians even use the Revolution as a dividing point between a “first British Empire” and a “second British Empire.” At home, however, the Revolution created a new nation-state, the United States of America. By September 1783, independence had been won. What the new nation would look like, however, was still very much up for grabs. In the 1780s, Americans would shape and then reshape that nation-state, first with the Articles of Confederation, ratified in 1781, and then with the Constitution in 1787 and 1788.

Historians have long argued over the causes and character of the American Revolution. Was the Revolution caused by British imperial policy or by internal tensions within the colonies? Were colonists primarily motivated by constitutional principles, ideals of equality, or economic self-interest? Was the Revolution radical or conservative? But such questions are hardly limited to historians. From Abraham Lincoln’s use of the Declaration of Independence in the Gettysburg Address to twenty-first-century Tea Party members wearing knee breeches, the Revolution has remained at the center of American political culture. Indeed, how one understands the Revolution often dictates how one defines what it means to be American.

The Revolution was not won by a few founding fathers. Men and women of all ranks contributed to the colonies’ most improbable victory, from the commoners who protested the Stamp Act to the women who helped organize boycotts against the Townshend duties; from the men, Black and white, who fought in the army to the women who contributed to its support. The Revolution, however, did not aim to end all social and civic inequalities in the new nation, and, in the case of Native Americans, it created new inequalities. But over time, the Revolution’s rhetoric of equality, as encapsulated in the Declaration of Independence, helped highlight some of those inequalities and became a shared aspiration for future social and political movements, including, among others, the abolitionist and women’s rights movements of the nineteenth century, the suffragist and civil rights movements of the twentieth century, and the gay rights movement of the twenty-first century.

1. George R. T. Hewes, A retrospect of the Boston Tea-party, 1834

George R.T. Hewes wrote the following reminiscence of the Boston Tea Party almost 61 years after it occurred. It is likely that his memories included more than a few stories he picked up well after 1773. Nonetheless Hews provides a highly detailed account of this important event.

2. Thomas Paine calls for American independence , 1776

Britons had long understood themselves as the freest people on earth, blessed with a limited monarchy and an enlightened parliament. Paine’s pamphlet offered a very different portrayal of the British government. His criticisms swept across the North American continent and generated widespread support for American independence.

3. Declaration of Independence, 1776

It is hard to overstate the significance of the Declaration of Independence. Designed as a measured justification for the severing of ties with Britain, the document has also functioned as a transformative piece of political philosophy. Most of the conflicts of American history from this point forward emerged from attempts to understand and implement what it means to believe “all men are created equal.”

4. Women in South Carolina experience occupation, 1780

The British faced the difficult task of fighting a war without pushing more colonists into the hands of the revolutionaries. As a result, the Revolutionary War included little direct attacks on civilians, but that does not mean that civilians did not suffer. The following account from Eliza Wilkinson describes the stress faced by non-combatants who had to face the British army.

5. Oneida declaration of neutrality, 1775

The Oneida nation, one of the Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), issued a formal declaration of neutrality on June 19, 1775 to the governor of Connecticut after the imperial crisis between Great Britain and their North American colonies erupted into violence. This declaration hints at the Oneida conceptions of their own sovereignty among the Six Nations confederacy, the independence of other Native American nations, and how the Oneida understand the conflict as a war “between two brothers.” Samuel Kirkland, a missionary living in Iroquois country, interpreted and transcribed the Oneida’s words and sent them to Governor Jonathan Trumbull of Connecticut.

6. Boston King recalls fighting for the British and securing his freedom, 1798

Boston King was born into slavery in South Carolina in 1760. He escaped to the British Army during their invasion of South Carolina in 1780. He served as a Loyalist in the British Army, and participated in several important battles. Although captured, and once again enslaved by the Americans, King was able to escape to the British again, who secured his freedom by sending him and other Black Loyalists to Canada. Many Black colonists sought freedom by joining with the British, with estimates as high as 5,000. King later became a missionary and one of the first Black Canadian settlers of Sierra Leone in West Africa.

7. Abigail and John Adams converse on women’s rights, 1776

The American Revolution invited a reconsideration of all social inequalities. Abigail Adams, in this letter to her husband John Adams, asked her husband to “remember the ladies” in any new laws he may create. In his reply, John Adams treated this sentiment as a joke, demonstrating the limits of revolutionary liberty.

8. American Revolution cartoon, 1782

Political cartoons provide insight into public opinion and the decisions made by politicians. These cartoons became an important medium for voicing criticism and dissent during the American Revolution. In this 1782 cartoon, the British lion faces a spaniel (Spain), a rooster (France), a rattlesnake (America), and a pug dog (Netherlands). Though the caption predicts Britain’s success, it illustrates that Britain faced challenges –and therefore drains on their military and treasury—from more than just the American rebels.

9. Drawings of the uniforms of the American Revolution, 1781

This chapter was edited by Michael Hattem, with content contributions by James Ambuske, Alexander Burns, Joshua Beatty, Christina Carrick, Christopher Consolino, Michael Hattem, Timothy C. Hemmis, Joseph Moore, Emily Romeo, and Christopher Sparshott.

Recommended citation: James Ambuske et al., “The American Revolution,” Michael Hattem, ed., in The American Yawp , eds. Joseph Locke and Ben Wright (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018).

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149 American Revolution Essay Topics & Examples
American Revolution, also known as Revolutionary War, occurred in the second half of the 18th century. Among its causes was a series of acts established by the Crown. These acts placed taxes on paint, tea, glass, and paper imported to the colonies. As a result of the war, the thirteen American colonies gained independence from the British Crown ...
The American Revolution
The American Revolution has become an international war. February 18, 1778 Washington addresses a letter to the inhabitants of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, requesting cattle for the army for the period of May through June.
Essays on the American Revolution on JSTOR
These eight original essays by a group of America's most distinguished scholars include the following themes: the meaning and significance of the Revolutio...
Print, the Press, and the American Revolution
According to one of the first historians of the Revolution, "in establishing American independence, the pen and press had merit equal to that of the sword." 1 Print—whether the trade in books, the number of weekly newspapers, or the mass of pamphlets, broadsides, and other imprints—increased dramatically in the middle of the 18th century, with the general trend of economic prosperity ...
American Revolution
The American Revolution—also called the U.S. War of Independence—was the insurrection fought between 1775 and 1783 through which 13 of Great Britain's North American colonies threw off British rule to establish the sovereign United States of America, founded with the Declaration of Independence in 1776. British attempts to assert greater control over colonial affairs after a long period ...
Women and Politics in the Era of the American Revolution
How did women participate in the political and social changes of the American Revolution? This article explores the diverse and complex roles of women as activists, writers, mothers, and more in the revolutionary era. Learn how women challenged the legal and social norms of their time and shaped the new nation's identity and values.
PDF The American Revowtion and The Post-revowtionary Generation of American
of the American Revolution".6 Their suggestions concerning sources indicate that the Revolution~s leaders fully appreciated the immensity of the task confronting the historian of the Revolution. Adams' obsession with exhausting all the sources inevitably forced him to conclude that the history of the Revolution could not be written.
The American Revolution, 1763
The Colonies Move Toward Open Rebellion, 1773-1774 After the Boston Massacre and the repeal of most of the Townshend Duties (the duty on tea remained in force), a period of relative quiet descended on the British North American colonies. Even so, the crises of the past decade had created incompatible mindsets on opposite sides of the Atlantic.
The Social Origins of the American Revolution: An Evaluation and an
eral recent efforts to apply it to the American Revolution. I. The idea that the American Revolution may have had a social con- tent-that is, social origins and social consequences-is hardly a new one. It has existed in a crude form ever since the Revolution, and between 9goo and 1930 a number of individual scholars-.
David Ramsay and the Causes of the American Revolution
toward the causes of the American Revolution poses most explicitly the. problem of historical method. For the thesis of this essay is that the best. interpretation of the causes of the Revolution was made in the decade following the treaty of peace in 1783 and that thereafter, as we moved.
Project MUSE
Essays on the American Revolution. These eight original essays by a group of America's most distinguished scholars include the following themes: the meaning and significance of the Revolution; the long-term, underlying causes of the war; violence and the Revolution; the military conflict; politics in the Continental Congress; the role of ...
Thesis Statements
Strong Thesis: The Revolution paved the way for important political changes for women. As "Republican Mothers," women contributed to the polity by raising future citizens and nurturing virtuous husbands. Consequently, women played a far more important role in the new nation's politics than they had under British rule.
PDF The Central Themes of the American Revolution: An Interpretation by
by BERNARD BAILYN. From Essays on the American Revolution, ed., Stephen G. Kurtz - editor, James H. Hutson. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1973. The American Revolution not only created the American political nation but molded permanent characteristics of the culture that would develop within it.
American Revolution Essay and Research Paper Examples
The History of American Revolution - Timeline, Facts & Causes. Essay grade: Poor. 2 pages / 1137 words. The army for the Patriots in the Revolutionary War was called the Continental ArmyThe essay lacks a clear thesis statement, making it difficult for the reader to understand the purpose of the essay.
Essays on the American Revolution
These eight original essays by a group of America's most distinguished scholars include the following themes: the meaning and significance of the Revolution; the long-term, underlying causes of the war; violence and the Revolution; the military conflict; politics in the Continental Congress; the role of religion in the Revolution; and the effect of the war on the social order.
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American Revolution Timeline. List of some of the major causes and effects of the American Revolution. The revolution began after Britain imposed new taxes and trade restrictions on the 13 American colonies, fueling growing resentment and strengthening the colonists' objection to their lack of representation in the British Parliament.
PDF North Carolina'S Black Patriots of The American Revolution
after the American Revolution, these Patriots, some vital contributors to American independence, are routinely overlooked or underexamined. Largely unheralded in the public eye, an estimated 5,000 black or multiracial men fought under or aided American forces during the conflict, including at least 468 who hailed from or fought for North Carolina.
Theses on the American Revolution
The "American Theses" was drafted with the aim of educating the wave of new SWP recruits in the party's fundamental revolutionary perspectives. However, with great rapidity, the strike wave ended. By the spring of 1947, industrial action was at its lowest ebb since the formation of the CIO in the mid-1930s.
The Historiography of the American Revolution
The two major contemporary historians of the Revolution were David Ramsay of South Carolina and Mercy Otis Warren of Massachusetts. Ramsay, in his The History of the American Revolution (1789), told the story of how virtuous "husbandmen, merchants, mechanics, and fishermen" won independence from the corrupt British.
American Revolution Free Essay Examples And Topic Ideas
98 essay samples found. The American Revolution, a pivotal period from 1765 to 1783, led to the thirteen American colonies' independence from British rule. Essays could delve into the various factors that contributed to the revolution, the key battles, and notable figures who played significant roles. They might also explore the ideological ...
5. The American Revolution
Most immediately, the American Revolution resulted directly from attempts to reform the British Empire after the Seven Years' War. The Seven Years' War culminated nearly a half century of war between Europe's imperial powers. It was truly a world war, fought between multiple empires on multiple continents.
An Essay on the American Revolution
Eliga H. Gould | University of New Hampshire. The American Revolution was a civil war in every sense of the word, a fratricidal conflict that divided men and women throughout the Empire, in Britain no less than the American colonies. For the metropolitan public, however, the American Revolution was a very different war from the one experienced ...
How Did The Industrial Revolution Impact Society
The Industrial Revolution is a very important part of history for humanity and the way the lives of humans have changed in both good and bad ways. The Industrial Revolution gives a fully detailed explanation of what it was like for humans in the 18th century and shows how people worked and were treated.