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Chapter Seven
The American
Revolution, 1776 1786
Chapter Focus Questions
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
What were the major alignments and divisions among
Americans during the American Revolution?
What were the major military campaigns of the
Revolution?
What were the Articles of Confederation and what role did
the Confederation Congress play during the Revolutionary
War?
How did the states serve as the setting for significant
political change?
What was the economic crisis in the aftermath of the
American Revolution?
American Communities:
A National Community Evolves
at Valley Forge
Building a Community at Valley Forge
1. Drawn from all parts of the country,
approximately 11,000 men (including 1,000
African Americans) and 700 women gathered in
Valley Forge.
2. Amid the suffering, the men and women at
Valley Forge created a a common identity and
strong bonds among themselves.
3. Leaving Valley Forge six months later,
Washington commanded a much stronger and
united army.
7.1:
The War for Independence
A. The Nature of American
Resistance
1. The British falsely assumed the colonial
rebellion was the work of a small group of
disgruntled conspirators.
2. Resistance was widespread and geography
stymied British strategy.
B. The Patriot Forces
1. American victory required a disciplined force
able to stand up to the brutal assaults of the
professionally-trained British adversaries.
2. Regiments of the Continental Army suffered
casualty rates as high as 40 percent.
3. Both Continentals and militias played political
roles, pressuring Congress when shortages of
food and pay erupted.
C. The Role of Women in the
Revolution
1. Women remained at home and ran the
family farms and businesses.
2. Many women joined their men in the
military camps.
3. On rare occasions, women played roles on
the battlefields.
D. The Loyalists
1. About one-fifth of the colonial population
remained loyal to the Crown, including African
Americans, Indians, ethnic minorities, tenant
farmers, British colonial officials, and Anglican
clergy.
2. Patriots cracked down on Loyalists.
3. As many as 50,000 fought for the king and
80,000 fled the country after the Revolution.
4. The most infamous British supporter was
Benedict Arnold.
A Patriot mob torments Loyalists in this print
published during the Revolution. One favorite
punishment was the “grand Tory ride,” in
which a crowd hauled the victim through the
streets astride a fence rail. In another, men
were stripped to “buff and breeches” and their
naked flesh coated liberally with heated tar
and feathers.
SOURCE:The Granger Collection.
E. The Campaign for New York and
New Jersey
1. The British plan was to cut off New England
from the rest of the colonies by:
a. Marching north from New York; and
b. Marching south from Canada.
2. The British drove Washington out of New York
City and pursued him into New Jersey.
3. After Washington’s Christmas Eve victory at
Trenton, he adopted a defensive strategy of
avoiding confrontation to insure survival of the
Continental Army.
MAP 7.1 Campaign for New York and New Jersey, 1775–77
F. The Northern Campaigns of 1777
1. In 1777, the British tried to achieve the goal of
cutting new England off from the rest of the
colonies.
2. General Burgoyne's large army was surrounded
at Saratoga and surrendered.
3. American forces in Pennsylvania were forced to
retreat into Valley Forge.
4. By the end of 1778, the war remained a
stalemate.
MAP 7.2 Northern Campaigns, 1777–1778
G. The French Alliance and the
Spanish Borderlands
1. During the first two years of conflict, French and Spanish
loans helped finance the American cause.
2. The victory at Saratoga led to an alliance with France.
One year later, Spain joined the war, though without a
formal American alliance.
3. Both France and Spain worried about American
expansion.
4. The French entry into the conflict forced the British to
withdraw troops from the mainland to protect their
Caribbean colonies.
5. The war at sea was mainly fought between British and
French vessels, but Continental ships raided the British
merchant shipping.
H. Indian Peoples and the Revolution
1. Although many Indians preferred a policy
of neutrality, their fears of American
expansion led many to side with Britain
including:
a. The Iroquois except for the Oneidas and
Tuscaroras
b. The Ohio Indians
I. The Revolution in the West
1. In the West, Ohio Indians allied with the
British and attacked American settlements.
2. George Rogers Clark countered by
capturing several British posts.
MAP 7.3 Fighting in the West, 1778–79
J. The War in the South
1. By the late 1770s, the British had shifted their focus
to the South.
2. Capturing Charleston in 1780, the British attempted
to gain control over the rural south by implementing
a policy of pacification that failed.
3. Violence between Loyalists and Patriots created
unrest.
4. General Greene harassed British forces and they had
to march to Yorktown where they were trapped by
Washington's army; the British Army surrendered.
MAP 7.4 Fighting in the South, 1778–81
John Trumbull’s Yorktown Surrender, 1797. Trumbull, who prided himself on the
accuracy of his work, included Cornwallis in the center of this painting. Later, when he
learned that Cornwallis had not been present, he attempted to correct the error by
changing the color of the uniform to blue, thereby making “Cornwallis” into an
American general.
7.2:
The United States in Congress
Assembled
A. The Articles of Confederation
1. The Articles of Confederation was the first
constitution of the United States.
2. It created a loose union of autonomous states.
3. Congress had limited central power, reserving
powers such as taxation to the states.
4. Maryland held up ratification for three years
until the eight states with western land claims
ceded them to the national government.
MAP 7.5 State Claims to
Western Lands The ratification
of the Articles of Confederation in
1781 awaited settlement of the
western claims of eight states.
Vermont, claimed by New
Hampshire and New York, was
not made a state until 1791, after
disputes were settled the
previous year. The territory north
of the Ohio River was claimed in
whole or in part by Virginia, New
York, Connecticut, and
Massachusetts. All of them had
ceded their claims by 1786,
except for Connecticut, which
had claimed an area just south of
Lake Erie, known as the Western
Reserve; Connecticut ceded this
land in 1800. The territory south
of the Ohio was claimed by
Virginia, North Carolina, South
Carolina, and Georgia; in 1802,
the latter became the last state to
cede its claims.
B. Financing the War
1. Though benefiting from foreign subsidies,
Congress and the states financed the
revolution mainly by issuing paper
currency that caused runaway inflation.
2. Secretary of Finance, Robert Morris, met
interest payments on the debt, but did not
persuade Congress to come up with an
independent source of income.
FIGURE 8.1 Postwar Inflation, 1777–80: The Depreciation of Continental
Currency The flood of Continental currency issued by Congress, and the shortage
of goods resulting from the British blockade, combined to create the worst inflation
Americans have ever experienced. Things of no value were said to be “not worth a
Continental.”
SOURCE:John McCusker,“How Much Is That in Real Money?” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society , N.S.102 (1992):297 –359.
C. Negotiating Independence
1. Peace negotiations began in 1782 and resulted in
a series of separate treaties between Great Britain
and the United States, France, and Spain.
2. The United States gained:
a.
b.
c.
d.
independence;
the promise of the withdrawal of British troops,
land to the Mississippi River; and
fishing rights.
D. North America after the Treaty of Paris
MAP 7.6 North America after the Treaty of Paris, 1783 The map of
European and American claims to North America was radically altered
by the results of the American Revolution.
E. The Crisis of Demobilization
1. Congress had neither paid the soldiers nor
delivered the officers their promised
postwar bounties or land warrants.
2. Several officers stationed at Newburgh
contemplated action if Congress failed to
act, but they were shamed into accepting
civilian rule by George Washington.
F. The Problem of the West
1. Western land settlement raised new issues,
including:
a. land losses for several Indian tribes.
b. tens of thousands of Americans rushing into
the newly acquired Ohio River Valley.
c. British and Spanish governments plotting to
woo the settlers.
G. The Land Ordinance of 1785
1. Three land ordinances provided for
organizing the land for settlement, selfgovernment and eventual statehood.
2. They also provided for orderly division of
land into townships, regular land sales,
and the abolition of slavery in the
Northwest Territory.
The Land Ordinance of 1785 created an ordered system of survey (revised by the
Northwest Ordinance of 1787), diving the land into townships and sections.
7.3:
Revolutionary Politics in the
States
A. The Broadened Base of Politics
1. Most states had greatly expanded the electorate.
2. By eliminating Tories from politics, there was a
shift to the left.
3. Many Americans accepted a new democratic
ideology that asserted that governments should
directly reflect popular wishes.
4. Conservatives argued for balanced government,
fearing majority tyranny could lead to a violation
of property rights.
B. The First State Constitutions
1. Fourteen states adopted constitutions between 1776
and 1780.
2. The new state constitutions were shaped by the debates
between radicals and conservatives.
3. Democrats had seized power in Pennsylvania in 1776
and drafted a constitution that placed all power in a
unicameral assembly elected by all free male
taxpayers.
4. Conservatives controlled Maryland who maintained
high property requirements for office-holding.
5. Other states drafted constitutions between these
extremes.
C. Declaration of Rights
1.
2.
3.
4.
Virginia’s Declaration of Rights provided the
model for other state guarantees of such rights as
freedom of speech, assembly, and the press.
State bills of rights were important precedents of
the United States Bill of Rights.
The 1776 New Jersey constitution enfranchised
women, but most questions regarding women
were related to the family.
Led by Thomas Jefferson, states abolished
aristocratic inheritance customs and established
religious freedom.
By giving the vote to “all free inhabitants,” the 1776 constitution of New Jersey
enfranchised women as well as men who met the property requirements. The
number of women voters eventually led to male protests. Wrote one: “What tho’ we
read, in days of yore, / The woman’s occupation / Was to direct the wheel and loom,
/ Not to direct the nation.” In 1807, a new state law explicitly limited the right of
franchise to “free white male citizens.” SOURCE:CORBIS.
D. African Americans and the
Revolution
1. More than 50,000 slaves were taken away from the South
by the British.
2. Thousands of others fought for the Patriots and won their
freedom.
3. Recognizing the contradiction between a revolution for
liberty and the continued support for slavery:
a. northern states began to abolish slavery; and
b. the Upper South relaxed its bans on emancipation.
4. A free African American community emerged with
racially defined churches, schools and other institutions.
5. Several African American writers became prominent.
This portrait of the African American
poet Phillis Wheatley was included in
the collection of her work published
in London in 1773, when she was
only twenty. Kidnapped in Africa
when a girl, then purchased off the
Boston docks, she was more like a
daughter than a slave to the
Wheatley family. She later married
and lived as a free woman of color
before her untimely death in 1784.
SOURCE:Bettman/CORBIS.