Knowt
Chapter 10: American Revolution and the New Nation (1775–1787)
Important Keywords
Second Continental Congress (May 1775)
Meeting that authorized the creation of a Continental army.
Many delegates still hoped that conflict could be avoided with the British.
Common Sense (1776)
Pamphlet written by Thomas Paine attacking the system of government by monarchy.
This document was very influential throughout the colonies.
Battle of Yorktown (1781): The defeat of the British in Virginia, ending their hopes of winning the Revolutionary War.
Treaty of Paris (1783)
The treaty that ended the Revolutionary War.
By this treaty, Great Britain recognized American independence and gave Americans territory between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River.
Articles of Confederation (ratified 1781)
Document establishing the first government of the United States.
The states retained much power and little power was given to the federal government.
Northwest Ordinances (1784, 1785, 1787)
Bills authorizing the sale of lands in the Northwest Territory to raise money for the federal government.
Bills also laid out procedures for these territories to eventually attain statehood.
Key Timeline
1775: Battles of Lexington and Concord Meeting of Second Continental Congress
1776: Common Sense published by Thomas Paine
Declaration of Independence approved Surrender of British forces of General Burgoyne at Saratoga
1777: State constitutions written in 10 former colonies
1777–1778: Continental army encamped for the winter at Valley Forge French begin to assist American war efforts
1781: Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown Articles of Confederation ratified
1783: Signing of the Treaty of Paris
1786–1787: Shays’ Rebellion in Massachusetts
1787: Northwest Ordinance establishes regulations for settlement of territories west of the Appalachian Mountains
Lexington and Concord
King George II and Lord North rejected the First Continental Congress's petition.
Americans were uniting against the Intolerable Acts and British attempts to weaken colonial self-government.
The Massachusetts assembly defied General Thomas Gage and ruled most of the colony outside of Boston, where Gage sat with his small army of Redcoats.
In February 1775, the British government declared Massachusetts in rebellion.
On the night of April 18–19, Gage sent a force of 700 men to destroy the militia arsenal at Concord.
On April 19, the British vanguard met 80 militiamen in Lexington.
The militia commander ordered his men to retreat, but not everyone heard him.
The British continued their advance to Concord.
They were ready for the Americans, who were gathering militiamen.
The British destroyed some military supplies but did little damage.
After a firefight, a large group of militiamen drove away British troops guarding the North Bridge on the town's outskirts.
The British marched back to Boston, but angry militiamen attacked them.
In May, Ethan Allen and his Vermont Green Mountain Boys took Fort Ticonderoga from its tiny British garrison.
In March 1776, Ticonderoga's snow-dragged cannon convinced the British to leave Boston.
Second Continental Congress
In May, the Second Continental Congress faced unprecedented challenges: the colonies were in rebellion and fighting the world's largest maritime empire.
After Lexington and Concord, British authority in the colonies collapsed.
Colonial legislatures held local power, but the Second Continental Congress would lead the colonies in the coming war.
Congress formed the Continental Army and appointed George Washington of Virginia as its commander.
Congress formed a foreign policy committee and issued paper money to fund the war.
Congress sent George III the "Olive Branch Petition" to mediate a "happy and permanent reconciliation" between the colonies and the British government.
British intransigence forced even colonial moderates to consider American independence.
Thomas Paine’s Common Sense
In January 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense, one of the most influential political works in American history.
500,000 copies had been distributed in a country with a population of around two million.
Paine reached almost all literate Americans in the eighteenth century, a mass media success.
Paine wanted the colonies to separate themselves from Great Britain.
He believed the colonies would thrive without British political and economic control.
He attacked the monarchy, which many Americans supported. He said "monarchy and hereditary succession have laid the world in blood and ashes."
One New Yorker wrote that "the unthinking multitude are mad for it," recognizing Paine's pamphlet's power.
Declaration of Independence
On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia placed a motion before Congress resolving “that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States. …”
Lee asked Congress to consider a government framework for states to address continental issues.
John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson was appointed to draft a declaration of independence.
The committee gave Thomas Jefferson the task of producing a first draft.
Jefferson was a talented writer and well-read in Enlightenment political philosopher.
Jefferson's text invoked John Locke's natural rights theory, stating that "certain unalienable rights" include "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
He also echoed Locke in arguing that when a government “becomes destructive of these ends it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.”
He embraced the notion of government as a social contract, writing that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Jefferson blamed George III rather than Parliament, emphasizing British tyranny.
After committee and congressional changes, the Declaration of Independence was debated on July 1. Congress voted for independence on July 2.
This decision was announced on July 4 — becoming America’s independence day,
Balance of Forces
The British Navy controlled the seas.
The British Army was a highly regarded professional force.
The British supplemented their Redcoat Regulars — the Hessians.
The British could also rely on the services of American Loyalists.
The Americans had no navy at the outset of the war.
Congress and the states underpaid and supplied the Continental Army, which had to overcome a lack of discipline and training to fight the British.
Inexperienced militiamen supported it in battle.
Despite their military superiority, the British faced serious problems in combatting the American rebellion.
British forces were far from home at the end of a transatlantic supply line.
With their limited troops, the British could only occupy a few coastal cities in America, which was mostly wilderness.
George Washington was a smart strategist who knew the US would win the war if it avoided defeat, so he prioritized his army's survival and made it a symbol of American resistance.
In June 1775, American militiamen fought the British at Bunker Hill outside Boston.
Before retreating, the Americans killed nearly 1,000 British soldiers.
This suggested American civilians could easily defeat British Regulars.
The War in the North
In March 1776, Fort Ticonderoga cannon threatened British ships in Boston Harbor, forcing them to leave Boston.
The British retreated to Halifax, Nova Scotia, to regroup.
William Howe arrived in New York City with a massively reinforced army at the end of June.
Howe drove Washington's army out of New York and into Pennsylvania.
Desertions and expiring enlistments lowered morale in Washington's army.
On December 25, he led his men across the Delaware River and surprised and captured Trenton's Hessian garrison.
A few days later, Washington defeated a British detachment at Princeton.
British outposts in New Jersey were evacuated quickly, losing much of their summer campaign gains.
The Saratoga Campaign
British forces from Canada, New York City, and the Great Lakes would advance toward Albany and the Hudson River.
General Howe in New York City sailed for Philadelphia to capture the American capital and defeat Washington's army.
Washington attacked British forces in Germantown after Howe captured Philadelphia, showing that his army was far from defeated.
Howe's Philadelphia gambit failed and deprived General John Burgoyne's army, advancing toward Albany from Canada, of crucial support.
Burgoyne's army was trapped in the New York wilderness and surrounded at Saratoga by fierce American forces.
Burgoyne surrendered on October 17, 1777.
The Americans only with covert shipments of arms and military supplies.
The French did this to weaken their longtime enemy, Great Britain.
The Spanish and Dutch joined Great Britain's fight later.
The American final campaign relied on French naval and military support.
The War in the South
General Henry Clinton, the new British commander, left Philadelphia and marched to New York.
At Valley Forge in 1777–1778, Washington's men suffered from cold and famine.
Washington supported German officer **Baron von Steuben'**s efforts to improve troop training.
Steuben's efforts paid off at the Battle of Monmouth in June 1778.
The British focused their limited military resources on the south, where they believed Loyalist colonists were concentrated. The British began well.
Clinton took Charleston and a 5,000-man garrison in May 1780 after reoccupying Georgia.
A few months later, General Charles Cornwallis defeated the southern American army, proving the British southern strategy worked.
General Nathanael Greene was sent south by George Washington to rally the remaining Continental forces.
Greene's brilliant campaign limited British forces in the Carolinas to a few cities and outposts, even though he never won a battle.
General Cornwallis led his exhausted Redcoats into Virginia after defeating Greene. He stationed his army at Yorktown.
At the Battle of the Virginia Capes on September 5, 1781, the French fleet defeated the British, trapping Cornwallis.
On October 19, Cornwallis surrendered after Washington began a formal siege of Yorktown in late September.
After Yorktown, the British realized they had lost America.
The Treaty of Paris
Peace negotiations began in Paris in 1782.
Franklin, Adams, and Jay represented the US in these talks.
Fighting between the British and French and their allies delayed negotiations.
The American delegation signed a treaty with the British on September 3, 1783.
In the Treaty of Paris, Great Britain recognized the independence of the United States.
The British kept Canada but gave the US land between the Appalachians and the Mississippi.
George Rogers Clark's wartime victories in the Ohio River Valley influenced the new nation's western Mississippi River boundary.
The Americans won lucrative fishing rights off Newfoundland and Nova Scotia by promising the British to pay prewar merchant debts and return Loyalist property.
New State Constitutions and the Articles of Confederation
Ten states had new constitutions by 1777.
Most governors had limited authority due to these documents' suspicion of executive power.
All states but Pennsylvania and Vermont instituted bicameral legislatures.
By fall 1777, the Continental Congress completed a limited national government constitution.
State legislatures ratified the Articles.
This constitution for the new nation was a reaction to the overpowering government the Americans rebelled against.
It made a very weak continental government.
A unicameral legislature with one vote per state was the new government's centerpiece.
A Committee of Thirteen with representatives from each state had limited executive power.
There was no national judiciary.
All 13 state legislatures must approve the Articles of Confederation or its amendments.
This held up ratification for almost four years.
Maryland ratified the Articles of Confederation in 1781, establishing the new government.
The Articles of Confederation limited Congress to avoid tyranny.
The national government could handle foreign relations, western territories, and Native American treaties.
Financial Problem
Congress failed to fund the Revolution.
The government issued lots of unsecured paper money.
Inflation quickly devalued the Continentals.
Congress never paid many Continental Army veterans due to financial embarrassment.
The government ran on French and European loans.
After the war, the government was indebted and unable to pay.
Congress failed to approve import tariffs.
Postwar economic depression worsened the nation's finances.
Northwest Ordinances
By 1790, 110,000 Americans had moved into Kentucky and Tennessee.
The Northwest Ordinances of 1784, 1785, and 1787 regulated land sales and territorial organization in the Northwest Territory, setting the government's policy for all western lands it acquired in the future.
The 1784 Ordinance established western states.
The Land Ordinance of 1785 established a system for selling western lands and reserved a section of land in each township for public education.
The Ordinance of 1787 ceded all state claims to western lands to the national government.
It created the Northwest Territory, a jurisdiction expected to eventually be divided into three to five states.
It established a procedure for a territory to apply for statehood.
The Ordinance outlawed slavery in the Northwest Territory, dividing slave and free states along the Ohio River.
Shay’s Rebellion
In 1786, protesters forcibly stopped foreclosures on bankrupt farms and disrupted court proceedings.
Daniel Shays, a Continental Army veteran who had suffered financial hardships, named the uprising.
Shays' force threatened to seize Springfield's unguarded national armory.
The rebels were defeated by privately funded militia.
Tax cuts calmed things.
Shays' Rebellion convinced many Americans that the US needed a stronger central government.
Chapter 11: Establishment of New Political Systems (1787–1800)