thesis statement about the revolutionary war

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

Essays on American Revolution

Compare and contrast the american and french revolution, a comparative analysis of patrick henry and thomas paine, made-to-order essay as fast as you need it.

Each essay is customized to cater to your unique preferences

+ experts online

Side by Side Comparison of The French and American Revolutions

How and why the american revolution started, overview of the events of the american revolution, the effects of the american revolution, let us write you an essay from scratch.

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

The History of American Revolution - Timeline, Facts & Causes

The major aspects and key achievements during the american revolution, coming of the american revolution: boston tea party, american revolution and relationship between americans and british, get a personalized essay in under 3 hours.

Expert-written essays crafted with your exact needs in mind

How Did The War Between Britain and America Benefit Others

The american revolutionary war: the battles of lexington and concord, the role of women during the american revolution, revolutionary mothers by carol berkin: the role of founding mothers during the american revolution, differences between british and american soldiers in the american revolution, american revolution's negative impact on native american history, the role of boston tea party in the american revolution, establishment of american ideals during american revolution, the spies of the american revolution: nathan hale, the revolution of 1800, role and concequences of the articles of confederation, the second american revolution: its impact and legacy, the impact of valley forge on the american revolution , analysis of the main causes of the american revolution, war on the colonies: french, indian war and american revolution, a history of the enlightenment inspired revolutions, a study of major revolution events in america, the american revolution: how women and wives influenced husbands and friends, main minuses of the articles of confederation, insurgency and asymmetric warfare in the american revolutionary war  .

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.

Relevant topics

• Industrial Revolution
• Westward Expansion
• Great Depression
• Pearl Harbor
• Civil Rights Movement
• Manifest Destiny
• Frederick Douglass

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Bibliography

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

HoW to Write an Essay on the REvolutionary War

And where to get help.

Module 4: Imperial Reforms and Colonial Protests (1763-1774)

Historical thesis statements, learning objectives.

• Recognize and create high-quality historical thesis statements

Some consider all writing a form of argument—or at least of persuasion. After all, even if you’re writing a letter or an informative essay, you’re implicitly trying to persuade your audience to care about what you’re saying. Your thesis statement represents the main idea—or point—about a topic or issue that you make in an argument. For example, let’s say that your topic is social media. A thesis statement about social media could look like one of the following sentences:

• Social media are hurting the communication skills of young Americans.
• Social media are useful tools for social movements.

A basic thesis sentence has two main parts: a claim  and support for that claim.

• The Immigration Act of 1965 effectively restructured the United States’ immigration policies in such a way that no group, minority or majority, was singled out by being discriminated against or given preferential treatment in terms of its ability to immigrate to America.

Identifying the Thesis Statement

A thesis consists of a specific topic and an angle on the topic. All of the other ideas in the text support and develop the thesis. The thesis statement is often found in the introduction, sometimes after an initial “hook” or interesting story; sometimes, however, the thesis is not explicitly stated until the end of an essay, and sometimes it is not stated at all. In those instances, there is an implied thesis statement. You can generally extract the thesis statement by looking for a few key sentences and ideas.

Most readers expect to see the point of your argument (the thesis statement) within the first few paragraphs. This does not mean that it has to be placed there every time. Some writers place it at the very end, slowly building up to it throughout their work, to explain a point after the fact. For history essays, most professors will expect to see a clearly discernible thesis sentence in the introduction. Note that many history papers also include a topic sentence, which clearly state what the paper is about

Thesis statements vary based on the rhetorical strategy of the essay, but thesis statements typically share the following characteristics:

• Presents the main idea
• Most often is one sentence
• Tells the reader what to expect
• Is a summary of the essay topic
• Usually worded to have an argumentative edge
• Written in the third person

This video explains thesis statements and gives a few clear examples of how a good thesis should both make a claim and forecast specific ways that the essay will support that claim.

You can view the  transcript for “Thesis Statement – Writing Tutorials, US History, Dr. Robert Scafe” here (opens in new window) .

Writing a Thesis Statement

A good basic structure for a thesis statement is “they say, I say.” What is the prevailing view, and how does your position differ from it? However, avoid limiting the scope of your writing with an either/or thesis under the assumption that your view must be strictly contrary to their view.

Following are some typical thesis statements:

• Although many readers believe Romeo and Juliet to be a tale about the ill fate of two star-crossed lovers, it can also be read as an allegory concerning a playwright and his audience.
• The “War on Drugs” has not only failed to reduce the frequency of drug-related crimes in America but actually enhanced the popular image of dope peddlers by romanticizing them as desperate rebels fighting for a cause.
• The bulk of modern copyright law was conceived in the age of commercial printing, long before the Internet made it so easy for the public to compose and distribute its own texts. Therefore, these laws should be reviewed and revised to better accommodate modern readers and writers.
• The usual moral justification for capital punishment is that it deters crime by frightening would-be criminals. However, the statistics tell a different story.
• If students really want to improve their writing, they must read often, practice writing, and receive quality feedback from their peers.
• Plato’s dialectical method has much to offer those engaged in online writing, which is far more conversational in nature than print.

Thesis Problems to Avoid

Although you have creative control over your thesis sentence, you still should try to avoid the following problems, not for stylistic reasons, but because they indicate a problem in the thinking that underlies the thesis sentence.

• Hospice workers need support. This is a thesis sentence; it has a topic (hospice workers) and an argument (need support). But the argument is very broad. When the argument in a thesis sentence is too broad, the writer may not have carefully thought through the specific support for the rest of the writing. A thesis argument that’s too broad makes it easy to fall into the trap of offering information that deviates from that argument.
• Hospice workers have a 55% turnover rate compared to the general health care population’s 25% turnover rate.  This sentence really isn’t a thesis sentence at all, because there’s no argument to support it. A narrow statistic, or a narrow statement of fact, doesn’t offer the writer’s own ideas or analysis about a topic.

Let’s see some examples of potential theses related to the following prompt:

• Bad thesis : The relationship between the American colonists and the British government changed after the French & Indian War.
• Better thesis : The relationship between the American colonists and the British government was strained following the Revolutionary war.
• Best thesis : Due to the heavy debt acquired by the British government during the French & Indian War, the British government increased efforts to tax the colonists, causing American opposition and resistance that strained the relationship between the colonists and the crown.

Practice identifying strong thesis statements in the following interactive.

Supporting Evidence for Thesis Statements

A thesis statement doesn’t mean much without supporting evidence. Oftentimes in a history class, you’ll be expected to defend your thesis, or your argument, using primary source documents. Sometimes these documents are provided to you, and sometimes you’ll need to go find evidence on your own. When the documents are provided for you and you are asked to answer questions about them, it is called a document-based question, or DBQ. You can think of a DBQ like a miniature research paper, where the research has been done for you. DBQs are often used on standardized tests, like this DBQ from the 2004 U.S. History AP exam , which asked students about the altered political, economic, and ideological relations between Britain and the colonies because of the French & Indian War. In this question, students were given 8 documents (A through H) and expected to use these documents to defend and support their argument. For example, here is a possible thesis statement for this essay:

• The French & Indian War altered the political, economic, and ideological relations between the colonists and the British government because it changed the nature of British rule over the colonies, sowed the seeds of discontent, and led to increased taxation from the British.

Now, to defend this thesis statement, you would add evidence from the documents. The thesis statement can also help structure your argument. With the thesis statement above, we could expect the essay to follow this general outline:

• Introduction—introduce how the French and Indian War altered political, economic, and ideological relations between the colonists and the British
• Show the changing map from Doc A and greater administrative responsibility and increased westward expansion
• Discuss Doc B, frustrations from the Iroquois Confederacy and encroachment onto Native lands
• Could also mention Doc F and the result in greater administrative costs
• Use Doc D and explain how a colonial soldier notices disparities between how they are treated when compared to the British
• Use General Washington’s sentiments in Doc C to discuss how these attitudes of reverence shifted after the war. Could mention how the war created leadership opportunities and gave military experience to colonists.
• Use Doc E to highlight how the sermon showed optimism about Britain ruling the colonies after the war
• Highlight some of the political, economic, and ideological differences related to increased taxation caused by the War
• Use Doc F, the British Order in Council Statement, to indicate the need for more funding to pay for the cost of war
• Explain Doc G, frustration from Benjamin Franklin about the Stamp Act and efforts to repeal it
• Use Doc H, the newspaper masthead saying “farewell to liberty”, to highlight the change in sentiments and colonial anger over the Stamp Act

As an example, to argue that the French & Indian War sowed the seeds of discontent, you could mention Document D, from a Massachusetts soldier diary, who wrote, “And we, being here within stone walls, are not likely to get liquors or clothes at this time of the year; and though we be Englishmen born, we are debarred [denied] Englishmen’s liberty.” This shows how colonists began to see their identity as Americans as distinct from those from the British mainland.

Remember, a strong thesis statement is one that supports the argument of your writing. It should have a clear purpose and objective, and although you may revise it as you write, it’s a good idea to start with a strong thesis statement the give your essay direction and organization. You can check the quality of your thesis statement by answering the following questions:

• If a specific prompt was provided, does the thesis statement answer the question prompt?
• Does the thesis statement make sense?
• Is the thesis statement historically accurate?
• Does the thesis statement provide clear and cohesive reasoning?
• Is the thesis supportable by evidence?

thesis statement : a statement of the topic of the piece of writing and the angle the writer has on that topic

• Thesis Statements. Provided by : Lumen Learning. Located at : https://courses.lumenlearning.com/englishcomp1/wp-admin/post.php?post=576&action=edit . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Thesis Examples. Authored by : Cody Chun, Kieran O'Neil, Kylie Young, Julie Nelson Christoph. Provided by : The University of Puget Sound. Located at : https://soundwriting.pugetsound.edu/universal/thesis-dev-six-steps.html . Project : Sound Writing. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Writing Practice: Building Thesis Statements. Provided by : The Bill of Rights Institute, OpenStax, and contributing authors. Located at : https://cnx.org/contents/[email protected]:L3kRHhAr@7/1-22-%F0%9F%93%9D-Writing-Practice-Building-Thesis-Statements . License : CC BY: Attribution . License Terms : Download for free at http://cnx.org/contents/[email protected].
• Thesis Statement - Writing Tutorials, US History, Dr. Robert Scafe. Provided by : OU Office of Digital Learning. Located at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hjAk8JI0IY&t=310s . License : Other . License Terms : Standard YouTube License

HIST A302 Revolutionary America

• Primary Resources
• Books/Journals
• Article Databases
• Develop a Research Question
• Primary Sources
• Cite Sources
• Scholarly vs Popular
• Thesis Statements

What Is a Thesis?

A  thesis  is the main point or argument of an information source. (Many, but not all, writing assignments, require a thesis.)

A strong thesis is:  

• Arguable:  Can be supported by evidence and analysis, and can be disagreed with.

•  Unique:  Says something new and interesting.

•  Concise and clear:  Explained as simply as possible, but not at the expense of clarity.

•  Unified:  All parts are clearly connected. •  Focused and specific:  Can be adequately and convincingly argued within the the paper, scope is not overly broad.

•  Significant:  Has importance to readers, answers the question "so what?"

Crafting a Thesis

Research is usually vital to developing a strong thesis. Exploring sources can help you develop and refine your central point.

1. Conduct Background Research.

A strong thesis is specific and unique, so you first need knowledge of the general research topic. Background research will help you narrow your research focus and contextualize your argument in relation to other research. 

2. Narrow the Research Topic. 

Ask questions as you review sources:

• What aspect(s) of the topic interest you most?
• What questions or concerns does the topic raise for you?   Example of a general research topic:  Climate change and carbon emissions Example of more narrow topic:  U.S. government policies on carbon emissions

3. Formulate and explore a relevant research question.  

Before committing yourself to a single viewpoint, formulate a specific question to explore.  Consider different perspectives on the issue, and find sources that represent these varying views. Reflect on strengths and weaknesses in the sources' arguments. Consider sources that challenge these viewpoints.

Example:  What role does and should the U.S. government play in regulating carbon emissions?

4. Develop a working thesis. 

• A working thesis has a clear focus but is not yet be fully formed. It is a good foundation for further developing a more refined argument.   Example:  The U.S. government has the responsibility to help reduce carbon emissions through public policy and regulation.  This thesis has a clear focus but leaves some major questions unanswered. For example, why is regulation of carbon emissions important? Why should the government be held accountable for such regulation?

5. Continue research on the more focused topic.

Is the topic:

• broad enough to yield sufficient sources and supporting evidence?
• narrow enough for in-depth and focused research?
• original enough to offer a new and meaningful perspective that will interest readers? 

6. Fine-tune the thesis.

Your thesis will probably evolve as you gather sources and ideas. If your research focus changes, you may need to re-evaluate your search strategy and to conduct additional research. This is usually a good sign of the careful thought you are putting into your work!

Example:   Because climate change, which is exacerbated by high carbon emissions, adversely affects almost all citizens, the U.S. government has the responsibility to help reduce carbon emissions through public policy and regulation. 

More Resources

• How to Write a Thesis Statement IU Writing Tutorial Services
• Tips and Examples for Writing Thesis Statements Purdue OWL
• << Previous: Scholarly vs Popular
• Last Updated: Feb 23, 2024 2:23 PM
• URL: https://guides.libraries.indiana.edu/revolution

Social media

• Instagram for Herman B Wells Library
• Facebook for IU Libraries

Additional resources

Featured databases.

• Resource available to authorized IU Bloomington users (on or off campus) OneSearch@IU
• Resource available to authorized IU Bloomington users (on or off campus) Academic Search (EBSCO)
• Resource available to authorized IU Bloomington users (on or off campus) ERIC (EBSCO)
• Resource available to authorized IU Bloomington users (on or off campus) Nexis Uni
• Resource available without restriction HathiTrust Digital Library
• Databases A-Z
• Resource available to authorized IU Bloomington users (on or off campus) Google Scholar
• Resource available to authorized IU Bloomington users (on or off campus) JSTOR
• Resource available to authorized IU Bloomington users (on or off campus) Web of Science
• Resource available to authorized IU Bloomington users (on or off campus) Scopus
• Resource available to authorized IU Bloomington users (on or off campus) WorldCat

IU Libraries

• Diversity Resources
• About IU Libraries
• Alumni & Friends
• Departments & Staff
• Jobs & Libraries HR
• Intranet (Staff)
• IUL site admin

• History Classics
• Your Profile
• Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window)
• This Day In History
• History Podcasts
• History Vault

Revolutionary War

By: History.com Editors

Updated: August 11, 2023 | Original: October 29, 2009

The Revolutionary War (1775-83), also known as the American Revolution, arose from growing tensions between residents of Great Britain’s 13 North American colonies and the colonial government, which represented the British crown.

Skirmishes between British troops and colonial militiamen in Lexington and Concord in April 1775 kicked off the armed conflict, and by the following summer, the rebels were waging a full-scale war for their independence.

France entered the American Revolution on the side of the colonists in 1778, turning what had essentially been a civil war into an international conflict. After French assistance helped the Continental Army force the British surrender at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781, the Americans had effectively won their independence, though fighting did not formally end until 1783.

Causes of the Revolutionary War

For more than a decade before the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775, tensions had been building between colonists and the British authorities.

The French and Indian War , or Seven Years’ War (1756-1763), brought new territories under the power of the crown, but the expensive conflict lead to new and unpopular taxes. Attempts by the British government to raise revenue by taxing the colonies (notably the Stamp Act of 1765, the Townshend Acts of 1767 and the Tea Act of 1773) met with heated protest among many colonists, who resented their lack of representation in Parliament and demanded the same rights as other British subjects. 

Colonial resistance led to violence in 1770, when British soldiers opened fire on a mob of colonists, killing five men in what was known as the Boston Massacre . After December 1773, when a band of Bostonians altered their appearance to hide their identity boarded British ships and dumped 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor during the Boston Tea Party , an outraged Parliament passed a series of measures (known as the Intolerable, or Coercive Acts ) designed to reassert imperial authority in Massachusetts .

Did you know? Now most famous as a traitor to the American cause, General Benedict Arnold began the Revolutionary War as one of its earliest heroes, helping lead rebel forces in the capture of Fort Ticonderoga in May 1775.

In response, a group of colonial delegates (including George Washington of Virginia , John and Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, Patrick Henry of Virginia and John Jay of New York ) met in Philadelphia in September 1774 to give voice to their grievances against the British crown. This First Continental Congress did not go so far as to demand independence from Britain, but it denounced taxation without representation, as well as the maintenance of the British army in the colonies without their consent. It issued a declaration of the rights due every citizen, including life, liberty, property, assembly and trial by jury. The Continental Congress voted to meet again in May 1775 to consider further action, but by that time violence had already broken out. 

On the night of April 18, 1775, hundreds of British troops marched from Boston to nearby Concord, Massachusetts in order to seize an arms cache. Paul Revere and other riders sounded the alarm, and colonial militiamen began mobilizing to intercept the Redcoats. On April 19, local militiamen clashed with British soldiers in the Battles of Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts, marking the “shot heard round the world” that signified the start of the Revolutionary War. 

HISTORY Vault: The Revolution

From the roots of the rebellion to the adoption of the U.S. Constitution, explore this pivotal era in American history through sweeping cinematic recreations.

Declaring Independence (1775-76)

When the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia, delegates—including new additions Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson —voted to form a Continental Army, with Washington as its commander in chief. On June 17, in the Revolution’s first major battle, colonial forces inflicted heavy casualties on the British regiment of General William Howe at Breed’s Hill in Boston. The engagement, known as the Battle of Bunker Hill , ended in British victory, but lent encouragement to the revolutionary cause. 

Throughout that fall and winter, Washington’s forces struggled to keep the British contained in Boston, but artillery captured at Fort Ticonderoga in New York helped shift the balance of that struggle in late winter. The British evacuated the city in March 1776, with Howe and his men retreating to Canada to prepare a major invasion of New York.

By June 1776, with the Revolutionary War in full swing, a growing majority of the colonists had come to favor independence from Britain. On July 4 , the Continental Congress voted to adopt the Declaration of Independence , drafted by a five-man committee including Franklin and John Adams but written mainly by Jefferson. That same month, determined to crush the rebellion, the British government sent a large fleet, along with more than 34,000 troops to New York. In August, Howe’s Redcoats routed the Continental Army on Long Island; Washington was forced to evacuate his troops from New York City by September. Pushed across the Delaware River , Washington fought back with a surprise attack in Trenton, New Jersey , on Christmas night and won another victory at Princeton to revive the rebels’ flagging hopes before making winter quarters at Morristown.

Saratoga: Revolutionary War Turning Point (1777-78)

British strategy in 1777 involved two main prongs of attack aimed at separating New England (where the rebellion enjoyed the most popular support) from the other colonies. To that end, General John Burgoyne’s army marched south from Canada toward a planned meeting with Howe’s forces on the Hudson River . Burgoyne’s men dealt a devastating loss to the Americans in July by retaking Fort Ticonderoga, while Howe decided to move his troops southward from New York to confront Washington’s army near the Chesapeake Bay. The British defeated the Americans at Brandywine Creek, Pennsylvania , on September 11 and entered Philadelphia on September 25. Washington rebounded to strike Germantown in early October before withdrawing to winter quarters near Valley Forge .

Howe’s move had left Burgoyne’s army exposed near Saratoga, New York, and the British suffered the consequences of this on September 19, when an American force under General Horatio Gates defeated them at Freeman’s Farm in the first Battle of Saratoga . After suffering another defeat on October 7 at Bemis Heights (the Second Battle of Saratoga), Burgoyne surrendered his remaining forces on October 17. The American victory Saratoga would prove to be a turning point of the American Revolution, as it prompted France (which had been secretly aiding the rebels since 1776) to enter the war openly on the American side, though it would not formally declare war on Great Britain until June 1778. The American Revolution, which had begun as a civil conflict between Britain and its colonies, had become a world war.

Stalemate in the North, Battle in the South (1778-81)

During the long, hard winter at Valley Forge, Washington’s troops benefited from the training and discipline of the Prussian military officer Baron Friedrich von Steuben (sent by the French) and the leadership of the French aristocrat Marquis de Lafayette . On June 28, 1778, as British forces under Sir Henry Clinton (who had replaced Howe as supreme commander) attempted to withdraw from Philadelphia to New York, Washington’s army attacked them near Monmouth, New Jersey. The battle effectively ended in a draw, as the Americans held their ground, but Clinton was able to get his army and supplies safely to New York. On July 8, a French fleet commanded by the Comte d’Estaing arrived off the Atlantic coast, ready to do battle with the British. A joint attack on the British at Newport, Rhode Island , in late July failed, and for the most part the war settled into a stalemate phase in the North.

The Americans suffered a number of setbacks from 1779 to 1781, including the defection of General Benedict Arnold to the British and the first serious mutinies within the Continental Army. In the South, the British occupied Georgia by early 1779 and captured Charleston, South Carolina in May 1780. British forces under Lord Charles Cornwallis then began an offensive in the region, crushing Gates’ American troops at Camden in mid-August, though the Americans scored a victory over Loyalist forces at King’s Mountain in early October. Nathanael Green replaced Gates as the American commander in the South that December. Under Green’s command, General Daniel Morgan scored a victory against a British force led by Colonel Banastre Tarleton at Cowpens, South Carolina, on January 17, 1781.

Revolutionary War Draws to a Close (1781-83)

By the fall of 1781, Greene’s American forces had managed to force Cornwallis and his men to withdraw to Virginia’s Yorktown peninsula, near where the York River empties into Chesapeake Bay. Supported by a French army commanded by General Jean Baptiste de Rochambeau, Washington moved against Yorktown with a total of around 14,000 soldiers, while a fleet of 36 French warships offshore prevented British reinforcement or evacuation. Trapped and overpowered, Cornwallis was forced to surrender his entire army on October 19. Claiming illness, the British general sent his deputy, Charles O’Hara, to surrender; after O’Hara approached Rochambeau to surrender his sword (the Frenchman deferred to Washington), Washington gave the nod to his own deputy, Benjamin Lincoln, who accepted it.

Though the movement for American independence effectively triumphed at the Battle of Yorktown , contemporary observers did not see that as the decisive victory yet. British forces remained stationed around Charleston, and the powerful main army still resided in New York. Though neither side would take decisive action over the better part of the next two years, the British removal of their troops from Charleston and Savannah in late 1782 finally pointed to the end of the conflict. British and American negotiators in Paris signed preliminary peace terms in Paris late that November, and on September 3, 1783, Great Britain formally recognized the independence of the United States in the Treaty of Paris . At the same time, Britain signed separate peace treaties with France and Spain (which had entered the conflict in 1779), bringing the American Revolution to a close after eight long years.

Sign up for Inside History

Get HISTORY’s most fascinating stories delivered to your inbox three times a week.

By submitting your information, you agree to receive emails from HISTORY and A+E Networks. You can opt out at any time. You must be 16 years or older and a resident of the United States.

More details : Privacy Notice | Terms of Use | Contact Us

• Essay Database
• world trade center
• Greek Food and Culture
• The Future Portrayed I…
• Intercultural Communications
• In Heart of Darkness, …
• Things Fall Apart by C…
• In J.M. Coetzee's Wait…
• The Criminals Of Profe…
• Socialization of Children
• The Poet of Nature, Wi…
• Leonhard Euler
• Articles of Confederat…
• About all Sharks
• Vietnam Poetry

American Revolutionary War

What is paper-research.

• Custom Writing Service
• Terms of Service
• Privacy Policy
• Biographies

Edinburgh Research Archive

•   ERA Home
• History, Classics and Archaeology, School of
• History and Classics PhD thesis collection

Hardest conflict: morale in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, 1775-1783

Collections.

• Bibliography
• More Referencing guides Blog Automated transliteration Relevant bibliographies by topics
• Automated transliteration
• Relevant bibliographies by topics
• Referencing guides

Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'American Revolutionary War'

Create a spot-on reference in apa, mla, chicago, harvard, and other styles.

Consult the top 42 dissertations / theses for your research on the topic 'American Revolutionary War.'

Next to every source in the list of references, there is an 'Add to bibliography' button. Press on it, and we will generate automatically the bibliographic reference to the chosen work in the citation style you need: APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, Vancouver, etc.

You can also download the full text of the academic publication as pdf and read online its abstract whenever available in the metadata.

Browse dissertations / theses on a wide variety of disciplines and organise your bibliography correctly.

Reed, Jordan Lewis. "American Jacobins revolutionary radicalism in the Civil War era /." Amherst, Mass. : University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2009. http://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations/23/.

Salmon, Stuart. "The Loyalist regiments of the American Revolutionary War 1775-1783." Thesis, University of Stirling, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/2514.

Springer, Paul Joseph. "American prisoner of war policy and practice from the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror." Diss., Texas A&M University, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/3727.

Thomas, David. "THE ANXIOUS ATLANTIC: WAR, MURDER, AND A “MONSTER OF A MAN” IN REVOLUTIONARY NEW ENGLAND." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2018. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/538853.

Gibson, Sarah Katherine. "Carleton Island, 1778-1783, imperial outpost during the American Revolutionary War." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape9/PQDD_0005/MQ42621.pdf.

Lyons, Reneé C. "Foreign-Born American Patriots: Sixteen Volunteer Leaders in the Revolutionary War." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2014. https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu-works/2383.

Lyons, Reneé Critcher. "Foreign-Born American Patriots: Sixteen Volunteer Leaders in the Revolutionary War." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2014. http://amzn.com/0786471840.

Vine, Benjamin. "Selfish, Timid, Tories: Boston in the American Revolutionary War, 1776- 1777." Thesis, Department of History, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/10242.

Howell, Mark Hunter. "A War of Words: Satire and Song in the Pre-Revolutionary Virginia Gazettes." W&M ScholarWorks, 1998. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1539626155.

Decker, James D. "How revolutionary was the American Revolutionary War? : an examination and analysis of two schools of thought and the causes and political impetus behind the American Revolution /." View online, 1987. http://repository.eiu.edu/theses/docs/32211998808850.pdf.

Walsh, Gregory Francis. "Splintered Loyalties: The Revolutionary War in Essex County, New Jersey." Thesis, Boston College, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/2345/3735.

Hitechew, Matthew Joseph. "Unanimous Voice, Unanimous Symbol: George Washington during the Revolutionary War." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2007. https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/2096.

Gilkes, Madeleine. "'There was no one who could escape this horrible situation' : gender-based violence in the American-Viet Nam war, 1954-1975." Thesis, University of York, 2000. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/14040/.

Spera, Adam. "American revolutionary thinkers unjust wars, limited government and natural rights." Honors in the Major Thesis, University of Central Florida, 2012. http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/ref/collection/ETH/id/627.

Saberton, Ian. "The campaigns of 1780 and 1781 in the southern theatre of the American Revolutionary War." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2015. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/80231/.

Mead, Philip C. "Melancholy Landscapes: Writing Warfare in the American Revolution." Thesis, Harvard University, 2012. http://dissertations.umi.com/gsas.harvard:10529.

Clemis, Martin G. "The Control War: Communist Revolutionary Warfare, Pacification, and the Struggle for South Vietnam, 1968-1975." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2015. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/312320.

Bolich, Harry P. "Influencing the land campaign ...From the sea : the interaction of armies and navies in the American Revolutionary War /." Thesis, Monterey, Calif. : Springfield, Va. : Naval Postgraduate School ; Available from National Technical Information Service, 1995. http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA296713.

Lyons, Renee' C. "Contribution as Method: A Book Talk for Foreign-Born American Patriots: Sixteen Volunteer Leaders in the Revolutionary War." Digital Commons@Georgia Southern, 2014. https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cssc/2014/2014/10.

Lyons, Renee. "Contribution as Method: A Book Talk for Foreign-Born American Patriots: Sixteen Volunteer Leaders in the Revolutionary War." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2014. https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu-works/5348.

Sullivan, Aaron. "In But Not Of the Revolution: Loyalty, Liberty, and the British Occupation of Philadelphia." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2014. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/276077.

Bilal, Kolby. "Black Pilots, Patriots, and Pirates: African-American Participation in the Virginia State and British Navies during the Revolutionary War in Virginia." W&M ScholarWorks, 2000. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1539626268.

Clayton, Timothy W. "David Barrow and the Friends of Humanity a Southern and Baptist anti-slavery movement in the years following the American Revolutionary War /." Theological Research Exchange Network (TREN), 1998. http://www.tren.com.

Leech, Timothy. "The Continental Army and American State Formation: 1774-1776." The Ohio State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1501255310184999.

West-Rosenthal, Jesse Aaron. "“We are all going into log huts – a sweet life after a most fatiguing campaign”: The Evolution and Archaeology of American Military Encampments of the Revolutionary War." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2019. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/581517.

Bibler, Jared S. "The Ideological Underpinnings of the Revolutionary Organization of the People in Arms." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2007. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1173393566.

Troy, Daniel Conor. "Ruining the King’s Cause in America: The Defeat of the Loyalists in the Revolutionary South, 1774-1781." The Ohio State University, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1436285532.

Davis, Kiersten Claire. "Secondhand Chinoiserie and the Confucian Revolutionary: Colonial America's Decorative Arts "After the Chinese Taste"." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2008. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/1465.

Perrin, James K. Jr. ""Knavish Charges, Numerous Contractors, and a Devouring Monster": The Supply of the U.S. Army and Its Impact Upon Economic Policy, 1775-1815." The Ohio State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1462407701.

Rossodivito, Anthony M. "The Struggle Against Bandits: The Cuban Revolution and Responses to CIA-Sponsored Counter-Revolutionary Activity, 1959-1963." UNF Digital Commons, 2014. http://digitalcommons.unf.edu/etd/508.

Null, Christopher R. "The Barbary Wars ideology and politics in post-revolutionary America /." Birmingham, Ala. : University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2008. https://www.mhsl.uab.edu/dt/2008m/null.christopher.pdf.

Green, Shirley L. "Freeborn Men of Color: The Franck Brothers in Revolutionary North America, 1755-1820." Bowling Green State University / OhioLINK, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1300735596.

Gaspard, Jules. "The origins and expansion of counter-espionage in America : from the Revolutionary War to the Progressive Era." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2016. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/93142/.

Joyner, Wesley T. "The Legend and Life of Peter Francisco: Fame, Fortune, and the Deprivation of America's Original Citizen Soldier." VCU Scholars Compass, 2007. http://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/1263.

Nguyen, Triet M. ""Little Consideration... to Preparing Vietnamese Forces for Counterinsurgency Warfare"? History, Organization, Training, and Combat Capability of the RVNAF, 1955-1963." Thèse, Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/23126.

Montaña, Ibañez Francisco. "Cine-infancia e historia en América Latina." Thesis, Sorbonne université, 2018. http://www.theses.fr/2018SORUL006.

Brodie, Abdullah. "Colombia: Postured for Failure, a Lesson in Counterinsurgency Strategy." Scholarly Repository, 2009. http://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/oa_theses/188.

"Black Revolutionaries: African-American Revolutionary War Pensioners in the Early Republic, 1780-1850." Tulane University, 2018.

Parkinson, Robert Glenn. "Enemies of the people : the Revolutionary War and race in the new American nation /." 2005. http://wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations/fullcit/3177521.

Polk, Jennifer. "Constructive Efforts: The American Red Cross and YMCA in Revolutionary and Civil War Russia, 1917–24." Thesis, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/1807/65487.

Snidal, Michelle. "Rape in Revolutionary America, 1760-1815." Thesis, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/1828/13336.

Marsters, Roger Sidney. "Approaches to Empire: Hydrographic Knowledge and British State Activity in Northeastern North America, 1711-1783." 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10222/15823.

• Search Menu
• Browse content in Arts and Humanities
• Browse content in Archaeology
• Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Archaeology
• Archaeological Methodology and Techniques
• Archaeology by Region
• Archaeology of Religion
• Archaeology of Trade and Exchange
• Biblical Archaeology
• Contemporary and Public Archaeology
• Environmental Archaeology
• Historical Archaeology
• History and Theory of Archaeology
• Industrial Archaeology
• Landscape Archaeology
• Mortuary Archaeology
• Prehistoric Archaeology
• Underwater Archaeology
• Urban Archaeology
• Zooarchaeology
• Browse content in Architecture
• Architectural Structure and Design
• History of Architecture
• Residential and Domestic Buildings
• Theory of Architecture
• Browse content in Art
• Art Subjects and Themes
• History of Art
• Industrial and Commercial Art
• Theory of Art
• Biographical Studies
• Byzantine Studies
• Browse content in Classical Studies
• Classical History
• Classical Philosophy
• Classical Mythology
• Classical Literature
• Classical Reception
• Classical Art and Architecture
• Classical Oratory and Rhetoric
• Greek and Roman Epigraphy
• Greek and Roman Law
• Greek and Roman Papyrology
• Greek and Roman Archaeology
• Late Antiquity
• Religion in the Ancient World
• Digital Humanities
• Browse content in History
• Colonialism and Imperialism
• Diplomatic History
• Environmental History
• Genealogy, Heraldry, Names, and Honours
• Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing
• Historical Geography
• History by Period
• History of Emotions
• History of Agriculture
• History of Education
• History of Gender and Sexuality
• Industrial History
• Intellectual History
• International History
• Labour History
• Legal and Constitutional History
• Local and Family History
• Maritime History
• Military History
• National Liberation and Post-Colonialism
• Oral History
• Political History
• Public History
• Regional and National History
• Revolutions and Rebellions
• Slavery and Abolition of Slavery
• Social and Cultural History
• Theory, Methods, and Historiography
• Urban History
• World History
• Browse content in Language Teaching and Learning
• Language Learning (Specific Skills)
• Language Teaching Theory and Methods
• Browse content in Linguistics
• Applied Linguistics
• Cognitive Linguistics
• Computational Linguistics
• Forensic Linguistics
• Grammar, Syntax and Morphology
• Historical and Diachronic Linguistics
• History of English
• Language Acquisition
• Language Evolution
• Language Reference
• Language Variation
• Language Families
• Lexicography
• Linguistic Anthropology
• Linguistic Theories
• Linguistic Typology
• Phonetics and Phonology
• Psycholinguistics
• Sociolinguistics
• Translation and Interpretation
• Writing Systems
• Browse content in Literature

Bibliography

• Children's Literature Studies
• Literary Studies (Asian)
• Literary Studies (European)
• Literary Studies (Eco-criticism)
• Literary Studies (Romanticism)
• Literary Studies (American)
• Literary Studies (Modernism)
• Literary Studies - World
• Literary Studies (1500 to 1800)
• Literary Studies (19th Century)
• Literary Studies (20th Century onwards)
• Literary Studies (African American Literature)
• Literary Studies (British and Irish)
• Literary Studies (Early and Medieval)
• Literary Studies (Fiction, Novelists, and Prose Writers)
• Literary Studies (Gender Studies)
• Literary Studies (Graphic Novels)
• Literary Studies (History of the Book)
• Literary Studies (Plays and Playwrights)
• Literary Studies (Poetry and Poets)
• Literary Studies (Postcolonial Literature)
• Literary Studies (Queer Studies)
• Literary Studies (Science Fiction)
• Literary Studies (Travel Literature)
• Literary Studies (War Literature)
• Literary Studies (Women's Writing)
• Literary Theory and Cultural Studies
• Mythology and Folklore
• Shakespeare Studies and Criticism
• Browse content in Media Studies
• Browse content in Music
• Applied Music
• Dance and Music
• Ethics in Music
• Ethnomusicology
• Gender and Sexuality in Music
• Medicine and Music
• Music Cultures
• Music and Religion
• Music and Media
• Music and Culture
• Music Education and Pedagogy
• Music Theory and Analysis
• Musical Scores, Lyrics, and Libretti
• Musical Structures, Styles, and Techniques
• Musicology and Music History
• Performance Practice and Studies
• Race and Ethnicity in Music
• Sound Studies
• Browse content in Performing Arts
• Browse content in Philosophy
• Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art
• Epistemology
• Feminist Philosophy
• History of Western Philosophy
• Metaphysics
• Moral Philosophy
• Non-Western Philosophy
• Philosophy of Science
• Philosophy of Language
• Philosophy of Mind
• Philosophy of Perception
• Philosophy of Action
• Philosophy of Law
• Philosophy of Religion
• Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic
• Practical Ethics
• Social and Political Philosophy
• Browse content in Religion
• Biblical Studies
• Christianity
• East Asian Religions
• History of Religion
• Judaism and Jewish Studies
• Qumran Studies
• Religion and Education
• Religion and Health
• Religion and Politics
• Religion and Science
• Religion and Law
• Religion and Art, Literature, and Music
• Religious Studies
• Browse content in Society and Culture
• Cookery, Food, and Drink
• Cultural Studies
• Customs and Traditions
• Ethical Issues and Debates
• Hobbies, Games, Arts and Crafts
• Lifestyle, Home, and Garden
• Natural world, Country Life, and Pets
• Popular Beliefs and Controversial Knowledge
• Sports and Outdoor Recreation
• Technology and Society
• Travel and Holiday
• Visual Culture
• Browse content in Law
• Arbitration
• Browse content in Company and Commercial Law
• Commercial Law
• Company Law
• Browse content in Comparative Law
• Systems of Law
• Competition Law
• Browse content in Constitutional and Administrative Law
• Government Powers
• Judicial Review
• Local Government Law
• Military and Defence Law
• Parliamentary and Legislative Practice
• Construction Law
• Contract Law
• Browse content in Criminal Law
• Criminal Procedure
• Criminal Evidence Law
• Sentencing and Punishment
• Employment and Labour Law
• Environment and Energy Law
• Browse content in Financial Law
• Banking Law
• Insolvency Law
• History of Law
• Human Rights and Immigration
• Intellectual Property Law
• Browse content in International Law
• Private International Law and Conflict of Laws
• Public International Law
• IT and Communications Law
• Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law
• Law and Politics
• Law and Society
• Browse content in Legal System and Practice
• Courts and Procedure
• Legal Skills and Practice
• Primary Sources of Law
• Regulation of Legal Profession
• Medical and Healthcare Law
• Browse content in Policing
• Criminal Investigation and Detection
• Police and Security Services
• Police Procedure and Law
• Police Regional Planning
• Browse content in Property Law
• Personal Property Law
• Study and Revision
• Terrorism and National Security Law
• Browse content in Trusts Law
• Wills and Probate or Succession
• Browse content in Medicine and Health
• Browse content in Allied Health Professions
• Arts Therapies
• Clinical Science
• Dietetics and Nutrition
• Occupational Therapy
• Operating Department Practice
• Physiotherapy
• Radiography
• Speech and Language Therapy
• Browse content in Anaesthetics
• General Anaesthesia
• Neuroanaesthesia
• Browse content in Clinical Medicine
• Acute Medicine
• Cardiovascular Medicine
• Clinical Genetics
• Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics
• Dermatology
• Endocrinology and Diabetes
• Gastroenterology
• Genito-urinary Medicine
• Geriatric Medicine
• Infectious Diseases
• Medical Toxicology
• Medical Oncology
• Pain Medicine
• Palliative Medicine
• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Respiratory Medicine and Pulmonology
• Rheumatology
• Sleep Medicine
• Sports and Exercise Medicine
• Clinical Neuroscience
• Community Medical Services
• Critical Care
• Emergency Medicine
• Forensic Medicine
• Haematology
• History of Medicine
• Browse content in Medical Dentistry
• Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
• Paediatric Dentistry
• Restorative Dentistry and Orthodontics
• Surgical Dentistry
• Browse content in Medical Skills
• Clinical Skills
• Communication Skills
• Nursing Skills
• Surgical Skills
• Medical Ethics
• Medical Statistics and Methodology
• Browse content in Neurology
• Clinical Neurophysiology
• Neuropathology
• Nursing Studies
• Browse content in Obstetrics and Gynaecology
• Gynaecology
• Occupational Medicine
• Ophthalmology
• Otolaryngology (ENT)
• Browse content in Paediatrics
• Neonatology
• Browse content in Pathology
• Chemical Pathology
• Clinical Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics
• Histopathology
• Medical Microbiology and Virology
• Patient Education and Information
• Browse content in Pharmacology
• Psychopharmacology
• Browse content in Popular Health
• Caring for Others
• Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• Self-help and Personal Development
• Browse content in Preclinical Medicine
• Cell Biology
• Molecular Biology and Genetics
• Reproduction, Growth and Development
• Primary Care
• Professional Development in Medicine
• Browse content in Psychiatry
• Addiction Medicine
• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Forensic Psychiatry
• Learning Disabilities
• Old Age Psychiatry
• Psychotherapy
• Browse content in Public Health and Epidemiology
• Epidemiology
• Public Health
• Browse content in Radiology
• Clinical Radiology
• Interventional Radiology
• Nuclear Medicine
• Radiation Oncology
• Reproductive Medicine
• Browse content in Surgery
• Cardiothoracic Surgery
• Gastro-intestinal and Colorectal Surgery
• General Surgery
• Neurosurgery
• Paediatric Surgery
• Peri-operative Care
• Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
• Surgical Oncology
• Transplant Surgery
• Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery
• Vascular Surgery
• Browse content in Science and Mathematics
• Browse content in Biological Sciences
• Aquatic Biology
• Biochemistry
• Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
• Developmental Biology
• Ecology and Conservation
• Evolutionary Biology
• Genetics and Genomics
• Microbiology
• Molecular and Cell Biology
• Natural History
• Plant Sciences and Forestry
• Research Methods in Life Sciences
• Structural Biology
• Systems Biology
• Zoology and Animal Sciences
• Browse content in Chemistry
• Analytical Chemistry
• Computational Chemistry
• Crystallography
• Environmental Chemistry
• Industrial Chemistry
• Inorganic Chemistry
• Materials Chemistry
• Medicinal Chemistry
• Mineralogy and Gems
• Organic Chemistry
• Physical Chemistry
• Polymer Chemistry
• Study and Communication Skills in Chemistry
• Theoretical Chemistry
• Browse content in Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Computer Architecture and Logic Design
• Game Studies
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Mathematical Theory of Computation
• Programming Languages
• Software Engineering
• Systems Analysis and Design
• Virtual Reality
• Browse content in Computing
• Business Applications
• Computer Security
• Computer Games
• Computer Networking and Communications
• Digital Lifestyle
• Graphical and Digital Media Applications
• Operating Systems
• Browse content in Earth Sciences and Geography
• Atmospheric Sciences
• Environmental Geography
• Geology and the Lithosphere
• Maps and Map-making
• Meteorology and Climatology
• Oceanography and Hydrology
• Palaeontology
• Physical Geography and Topography
• Regional Geography
• Soil Science
• Urban Geography
• Browse content in Engineering and Technology
• Agriculture and Farming
• Biological Engineering
• Civil Engineering, Surveying, and Building
• Electronics and Communications Engineering
• Energy Technology
• Engineering (General)
• Environmental Science, Engineering, and Technology
• History of Engineering and Technology
• Mechanical Engineering and Materials
• Technology of Industrial Chemistry
• Transport Technology and Trades
• Browse content in Environmental Science
• Applied Ecology (Environmental Science)
• Conservation of the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Environmental Sustainability
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Environmental Science)
• Management of Land and Natural Resources (Environmental Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environmental Science)
• Nuclear Issues (Environmental Science)
• Pollution and Threats to the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Environmental Science)
• History of Science and Technology
• Browse content in Materials Science
• Ceramics and Glasses
• Composite Materials
• Metals, Alloying, and Corrosion
• Nanotechnology
• Browse content in Mathematics
• Applied Mathematics
• Biomathematics and Statistics
• History of Mathematics
• Mathematical Education
• Mathematical Finance
• Mathematical Analysis
• Numerical and Computational Mathematics
• Probability and Statistics
• Pure Mathematics
• Browse content in Neuroscience
• Cognition and Behavioural Neuroscience
• Development of the Nervous System
• Disorders of the Nervous System
• History of Neuroscience
• Invertebrate Neurobiology
• Molecular and Cellular Systems
• Neuroendocrinology and Autonomic Nervous System
• Neuroscientific Techniques
• Sensory and Motor Systems
• Browse content in Physics
• Astronomy and Astrophysics
• Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
• Biological and Medical Physics
• Classical Mechanics
• Computational Physics
• Condensed Matter Physics
• Electromagnetism, Optics, and Acoustics
• History of Physics
• Mathematical and Statistical Physics
• Measurement Science
• Nuclear Physics
• Particles and Fields
• Plasma Physics
• Quantum Physics
• Relativity and Gravitation
• Semiconductor and Mesoscopic Physics
• Browse content in Psychology
• Affective Sciences
• Clinical Psychology
• Cognitive Psychology
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Criminal and Forensic Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Educational Psychology
• Evolutionary Psychology
• Health Psychology
• History and Systems in Psychology
• Music Psychology
• Neuropsychology
• Organizational Psychology
• Psychological Assessment and Testing
• Psychology of Human-Technology Interaction
• Psychology Professional Development and Training
• Research Methods in Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Browse content in Social Sciences
• Browse content in Anthropology
• Anthropology of Religion
• Human Evolution
• Medical Anthropology
• Physical Anthropology
• Regional Anthropology
• Social and Cultural Anthropology
• Theory and Practice of Anthropology
• Browse content in Business and Management
• Business Strategy
• Business Ethics
• Business History
• Business and Government
• Business and Technology
• Business and the Environment
• Comparative Management
• Corporate Governance
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Entrepreneurship
• Health Management
• Human Resource Management
• Industrial and Employment Relations
• Industry Studies
• Information and Communication Technologies
• International Business
• Knowledge Management
• Management and Management Techniques
• Operations Management
• Organizational Theory and Behaviour
• Pensions and Pension Management
• Public and Nonprofit Management
• Strategic Management
• Supply Chain Management
• Browse content in Criminology and Criminal Justice
• Criminal Justice
• Criminology
• Forms of Crime
• International and Comparative Criminology
• Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice
• Development Studies
• Browse content in Economics
• Agricultural, Environmental, and Natural Resource Economics
• Asian Economics
• Behavioural Finance
• Behavioural Economics and Neuroeconomics
• Econometrics and Mathematical Economics
• Economic Systems
• Economic History
• Economic Methodology
• Economic Development and Growth
• Financial Markets
• Financial Institutions and Services
• General Economics and Teaching
• Health, Education, and Welfare
• History of Economic Thought
• International Economics
• Labour and Demographic Economics
• Law and Economics
• Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
• Microeconomics
• Public Economics
• Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics
• Welfare Economics
• Browse content in Education
• Adult Education and Continuous Learning
• Care and Counselling of Students
• Early Childhood and Elementary Education
• Educational Equipment and Technology
• Educational Strategies and Policy
• Higher and Further Education
• Organization and Management of Education
• Philosophy and Theory of Education
• Schools Studies
• Secondary Education
• Teaching of a Specific Subject
• Teaching of Specific Groups and Special Educational Needs
• Teaching Skills and Techniques
• Browse content in Environment
• Applied Ecology (Social Science)
• Climate Change
• Conservation of the Environment (Social Science)
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Social Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environment)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Social Science)
• Browse content in Human Geography
• Cultural Geography
• Economic Geography
• Political Geography
• Browse content in Interdisciplinary Studies
• Communication Studies
• Museums, Libraries, and Information Sciences
• Browse content in Politics
• African Politics
• Asian Politics
• Chinese Politics
• Comparative Politics
• Conflict Politics
• Elections and Electoral Studies
• Environmental Politics
• European Union
• Foreign Policy
• Gender and Politics
• Human Rights and Politics
• Indian Politics
• International Relations
• International Organization (Politics)
• International Political Economy
• Irish Politics
• Latin American Politics
• Middle Eastern Politics
• Political Methodology
• Political Communication
• Political Philosophy
• Political Sociology
• Political Behaviour
• Political Economy
• Political Institutions
• Political Theory
• Politics and Law
• Public Administration
• Public Policy
• Quantitative Political Methodology
• Regional Political Studies
• Russian Politics
• Security Studies
• State and Local Government
• UK Politics
• US Politics
• Browse content in Regional and Area Studies
• African Studies
• Asian Studies
• East Asian Studies
• Japanese Studies
• Latin American Studies
• Middle Eastern Studies
• Native American Studies
• Scottish Studies
• Browse content in Research and Information
• Research Methods
• Browse content in Social Work
• Addictions and Substance Misuse
• Adoption and Fostering
• Care of the Elderly
• Child and Adolescent Social Work
• Couple and Family Social Work
• Developmental and Physical Disabilities Social Work
• Direct Practice and Clinical Social Work
• Emergency Services
• Human Behaviour and the Social Environment
• International and Global Issues in Social Work
• Mental and Behavioural Health
• Social Justice and Human Rights
• Social Policy and Advocacy
• Social Work and Crime and Justice
• Social Work Macro Practice
• Social Work Practice Settings
• Social Work Research and Evidence-based Practice
• Welfare and Benefit Systems
• Browse content in Sociology
• Childhood Studies
• Community Development
• Comparative and Historical Sociology
• Economic Sociology
• Gender and Sexuality
• Gerontology and Ageing
• Health, Illness, and Medicine
• Marriage and the Family
• Migration Studies
• Occupations, Professions, and Work
• Organizations
• Population and Demography
• Race and Ethnicity
• Social Theory
• Social Movements and Social Change
• Social Research and Statistics
• Social Stratification, Inequality, and Mobility
• Sociology of Religion
• Sociology of Education
• Sport and Leisure
• Urban and Rural Studies
• Browse content in Warfare and Defence
• Defence Strategy, Planning, and Research
• Land Forces and Warfare
• Military Administration
• Military Life and Institutions
• Naval Forces and Warfare
• Other Warfare and Defence Issues
• Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution
• Weapons and Equipment

• < Previous chapter
• Next chapter >

14 The African Americans’ Revolution

Gary B. Nash is professor of history emeritus at UCLA and director of the National Center for History in the Schools. He served as president of the Organization of American Historians in 1994– 1995 and as a member of the National Park Service Second Century Commission in 2008–2010. He has published many books and articles on early American history, the most recent of which is The Liberty Bell (2010). He is an elected member of the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Society of American Historians, and the American Antiquarian Society.

• Published: 28 December 2012
• Cite Icon Cite
• Permissions Icon Permissions

The American Revolution played an important role in African Americans' quest for freedom. It marked the first mass rebellion by slaves in American history, gave rise to the first civil rights movement, and resulted in the first large-scale constructions of free black life. African slaves in North America knew that their natural rights were violated by their enslavement, although a confluence of events heightened their restiveness and provided them with the ideology-laden phrases that they could deploy in their struggle to secure their liberty whenever and wherever possible. The Revolution offered slaves a chance to realize this dream. African American revolutionaries saw the war as a way to quench their thirst for freedom, to end corrupt power, and to die for their natural rights.

In the centuries-long history of Africans in America, the struggle to gain freedom and wrest equality from a resistant white society has been the consuming desire that has kept harrowed bodies and weary souls going. In this struggle to cross the river from bondage to freedom, the American Revolution had enormous importance. It marked the first mass slave rebellion in American history, initiated the first civil rights movement, spawned the first large-scale constructions of free black life, brought forth the first written testimonies from African Americans who wanted the world to hear of their strivings and freedom claims, involved the first emergence of what W. E. B. Du Bois called “the talented tenth,” and had international repercussions.

It has taken nearly two centuries for schoolchildren, the public, and, in fact, historians to begin learning about the African Americans’ Revolutionary experience, a corrective to historical amnesia that is still in progress. 1 Not that a handful of historians didn’t try. Boston’s William C. Nell was the first. At age thirty-five, Nell, himself a black abolitionist, published a pamphlet on The Services of Colored Americans in the Wars of 1776 and 1812 and soon expanded it into The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution. 2 Endorsed by Harriet Beecher Stowe and Wendell Phillips, the book reached the public in 1855, just as the newspapers were reporting fearsome violence over abolitionism in “Bleeding Kansas.” 3

Working with spotty published records, a handful of funeral eulogies of black men who had fought in the Revolution, and oral testimonies of black patriot descendants, Nell was intent on showing that black men had shed their blood as freely as whites. It was not a balanced account, because Nell ignored the shoals of men and women, mostly enslaved, who fled to and fought alongside the British in order to gain their freedom. This silence is understandable; Nell knew that publicizing how slaves flocked to the British to gain freedom would only cripple the abolitionists’ cause. 4

For many decades, the inconvenient truth that the black freedom quest had led many to flee to the British remained only in the memories of black Revolutionary War descendants. 5 Not until 1922 did Carter G. Woodson dare to include a paragraph in The Negro in Our History about the thousands of Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia slaves who escaped to join the British during the war. But Woodson stepped gingerly. Most of his coverage of the Revolution focused on the valorous and patriotic free black Americans. 6

Perhaps it mattered little one way or the other, because public school and college students and the public in general learned almost nothing about the African American Revolutionary experience from the books that commanded library shelves—from the multivolume nineteenth-century histories of the United States by George Bancroft, Richard Hildreth, Edward Channing, and Henry Adams; to twentieth-century schoolbooks by Woodrow Wilson, Charles Francis Adams, Charles and Mary Beard, David Muzzey, and others. In these works, the record is so paltry on black history that it appears as if half a million African Americans had been magically whisked off the continent while British and Americans fought the long war. For any historian who bothered to mention people of African descent, such as Harvard’s John Fiske, a sentence or two sufficed. “The relations between master and slave in Virginia,” he wrote, “were so pleasant that the offer of freedom [from the British] fell upon dull, uninterested ears.” 7 On the eve of World War I, another vaunted historian, Edward Eggleston, denied that African Americans had much of anything to do with the American Revolution. How could they, since “the Negro possessed no ability whatsoever to help free himself. So long as he had plenty of food, and outlets for his ordinary animal passions, he remained happy and content.” 8

Only in 1940 would a slim pamphlet set the stage for turning upside down the historical understanding of black Revolutionary involvement. In The Negro in the American Revolution , Herbert Aptheker tried to shatter the combination of white indifference to black history and strategic black myopia. Aptheker began with the pragmatic notion that the Revolution offered black people, mostly enslaved, options never before available in their quest for freedom. He did not ignore black service in the American army and navy, estimating enlistments of about five thousand men. But against that number, Aptheker estimated that some one hundred thousand slaves fled their masters to join the British after Lord Dunmore, Virginia’s royal governor, issued a proclamation in late 1775 offering freedom for any slave or indentured servant who joined the British fight against the treasonous Americans. The cat was now out of the bag—a massive defection from slavery among a people pictured by white historians as docile and contented. The African American people, wrote Aptheker, “played what at first glance appears to have been a dual role from 1775 to 1783”—service with American forces “when they were permitted to do so,” and wholesale flight to the British in search of freedom. These “varied and superficially contradictory activities” had “one common origin, one set purpose—the achievement of liberty.” As in every era of African American history, he argued, “the desire for freedom is the central theme, the motivating force.” 9

In 1961, Benjamin Quarles employed Aptheker’s conceptual framework in his The Negro in the American Revolution. In the book’s first paragraph, Quarles cut to the heart of the black response to the Revolution: “The Negro’s role in the Revolution can best be understood by realizing that his major loyalty was not to place nor to a people but to a principle. Insofar as he had freedom of choice, he was likely to join the side that made him the quickest and best offer in terms of those ‘unalienable rights’ of which Mr. Jefferson had spoken.” 10 A sprawling scholarship since 1961 complements Quarles’s landmark achievement while adding depth to our understanding of the black exodus by exploring the British and the postwar construction of free black life.

Pursuing Natural Rights

Enslaved Africans in North America did not need the explosion of pamphlet literature, sermons, petitions, and legislative speeches to discover that their natural rights were violated by their enslavement. However, in the decade from the Stamp Act crisis of 1765 to the formation of the Continental Congress in 1774, printed work and speech studded with fervid language about British “tyranny,” English attempts to enslave the colonists, and Parliament’s “horrid oppression” heightened the restiveness of the enslaved and provided them with the ideology-laden phrases that they could deploy in their struggle to secure their liberty whenever and wherever possible. The more such natural-rights rhetoric became part of public discourse, the more enslaved Africans saw an opening to lay bare the contradiction between freedom-loving patriots and the dirty business of slavery that undergirded much of their economy. By the late 1760s, Africans in America had attracted white sympathizers—figures such as Arthur Lee and Robert Pleasants in Virginia, Samuel Hopkins in Rhode Island, James Otis and Samuel Cooke in Massachusetts, John Woolman in New Jersey, and Anthony Benezet and Benjamin Rush in Pennsylvania—who helped lodge the idea of freedom as a birthright in black minds while unfurling the banners of abolitionism. 11

As word of the mounting indictments of slavery spread among the enslaved Africans in the North, black men and women had to decide—individually and in small groups—whether they should wait for white legislators and individual slave owners to end their travails or grasp the nettle themselves. Most were leaderless and isolated, unable to do more than hope and wait. But some pursued two strategies: suing their master individually to gain freedom or petitioning legislatures to abolish slavery altogether. Jenny Slew of Salem, Massachusetts, chose the former course. Plucking up her courage, she went to a local court in 1766 with an appeal to restore what she claimed was her birthright freedom (though she based this on the claim that her mother was white). John Adams, who witnessed Slew win her case, remembered years later that “I never knew a jury by a verdict to determine a negro to be a slave. They always found him free.” 12 A trickle of freedom suits reached the courts of small towns dotting the New England landscape, where non-slaveholders composed most juries.

But in Boston, where many jurors owned slaves, the better strategy for slaves was to petition the legislature for a general emancipation. This happened three and a half years before the Declaration of Independence. In the first week of 1773, a number of slaves in Boston and surrounding towns petitioned for a general release from slavery. Taking a page from the patriots’ book of tactics, they organized to speak as one from many towns in a kind of informal committee of correspondence.

The petition did not succeed, but neither was it a failure, for it spurred a debate in the legislature over abolishing slavery. Three months later, four black men published a hard-hitting leaflet where they spoke for “our fellow slaves in this province.” They began tauntingly: “We expect great things from men who have made such a noble stand against the designs of their fellow-men to enslave them”—a cagey reference to English policies that colonists regarded as attempts to enslave them. The petition tried to shame New Englanders more by recounting how coartácion —the legal right of slaves to buy their way out of slavery—was practiced by the Spaniards, “who have not those sublime ideas of freedom that English men have, [yet] are conscious that they have no right to all the services of their fellow-men, we mean the Africans.” 13 Black activists tried again in 1774 with more strenuous language. This time the legislature partly answered the petition by passing a law banning further importation of enslaved Africans, only to have Governor Thomas Hutchinson, whose friends included slave importers, veto it. Yet black petitioners made slavery a topic of discussion while bringing thousands of the enslaved to a state of anticipation.

The Massachusetts legislature followed most other colonies in halting slave importations. Well they might, for in September 1774 a number of Boston slaves reached the military governor, Thomas Gage, with an offer to fight for him provided he arm and liberate them. Rather than waiting for a British policy decision, they aimed to create one. They found a sympathetic soul in Abigail Adams, who told her husband she wished “most sincerely there was not a slave in the province” and that “it always appeared a most iniquitous scheme to me—fight ourselves for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have.” 14

Enslaved southerners were not far behind New Englanders in trying to seize the moment to gain their freedom and shape British policy. As early as 1765 in Charleston, South Carolina, the sight of the local Sons of Liberty marching through the town chanting “Liberty, Liberty,” brought slaves into the streets shouting the same words—a brazen display that placed the city under arms for a week. In Georgia and South Carolina in 1773, groups of slaves fled to the interior. A year later, in North Carolina, rumors of slave insurrectionists terrified slave masters in several counties. And in 1775, the freedom fever intensified in Charleston when the free black river pilot Thomas Jeremiah planned to guide the Royal Navy into Charleston harbor and help bondspeople win their freedom. Hoping to be the agent of deliverance for thousands of slaves, Jeremiah sacrificed his life to the hangman. 15

In the colony with the largest slave population, the enslaved were equally animated to turn the imperial crisis to their advantage. In tidewater Virginia, some of them met in November 1774 to choose a leader “who was to conduct them,” reported James Madison, “when the English troops should arrive.” Madison believed the slaves “foolishly thought…that by revolting to [the British] they should be rewarded with their freedom.” 16 He shortly learned that the slaves were not foolish at all but were anticipating and promoting what soon became British policy. In early 1775, Virginia slaves organized a rash of uprisings, pushing the governor to capitalize on their boldness. On April 21, only two days after the minutemen peppered Gage’s troops at Lexington and Concord, determined slaves in Williamsburg slipped word to Dunmore that they were ready to flee to him, and “take up arms.” Ten days later, Dunmore reported to London that he planned “to arm all my own Negroes, and receive all others that will come to me whom I shall declare free.” 17 The shot heard “round the world” at Concord Bridge was the white people’s shot; for half a million black people, the shot heard through slave cabins came six months later, when Dunmore enunciated his decision, officially approved in London. 18 The fear of slave rebellion became a critical factor in driving white Virginians into the pro-independence camp.

Fighting to be Free and Equal

“We must all be soldiers,” wrote John Adams five weeks before the members of the Second Continental Congress voted to sign the Declaration of Independence. 19 But the segment within America’s diversified people that came closest to answering Adams’s plea were free black Americans, who, proportionate to their number, were more likely to join the fray than whites. Recent research elevates Aptheker’s estimate of five thousand to about nine thousand black soldiers and sailors (in both the Continental army and navy, in state militia units, and on privateers) and assorted auxiliaries such as wagoners, servants to officers, and spies. 20

Especially in New England, blacks responded to the call to arms by repeatedly reenlisting, whereas most whites served a single one- or two-year term of service or even less. White men enlisted en masse in the early days of the war when the rage militaire animated almost all northerners. But most white patriots, typically farmers with crop cycles to think about, signed up for three- or six-month enlistments or, if they were not yet farm owners themselves, for one or two years. The vast majority did not reenlist, and a smaller number than blacks, proportionately, served for the entire war. On the other hand, few free blacks had farms or urban trades to worry about, and most found the enlistment bounty inviting. The desertion rate of black enlistees was much lower than that of whites; the young, poor, free black had little to return to if he deserted. Moreover, those who were politically attuned believed that if they fought for the country’s independence, their struggle for freedom and equal opportunity would gain greater respect. Indeed, some black men enlisted to gain their freedom as well as serve the cause of independence. For example, Peter Salem of Framingham, who fired the shot that killed Major John Pitcairn, in charge of the British marines at Bunker Hill, signed up with his master’s pledge of gaining his freedom. Salem’s story was that of thousands of African Americans and white indentured servants in the North, who gambled they would survive their enlistment and enter civilian life as free men. Mostly young, they embarked on a double quest for freedom: independence for America and themselves. A Hessian officer, fighting for the British, observed in 1777 “that the Negro can take the field instead of his master; and, therefore, no regiment is seen in which there are not negroes in abundance, and among them are able-bodied, strong and brave fellows.” 21

It is noteworthy that black enlistment was greatest in the northern states that had the smallest percentage of African Americans—Massachusetts and Connecticut. This cannot be explained in granular form, since the records are sparse; but the broad contours are clear: blacks in those states were more exposed to rudimentary learning and even more to Christian doctrine and discipline than those in New York and New Jersey. 22 Though blacks represented only about 2 percent of the Massachusetts population, one in eight of the twelve hundred militiamen who fought the British to a draw at Breed’s Hill (known as Bunker Hill) was African American. 23 And only from New England came those like Lemuel Haynes, later to become an acclaimed mixed-race minister to white congregations in New England, who fought with pen as well as musket to win independence and also to crusade for the end of slavery.

Northerners at first were glad to have men of color fighting alongside them. But elsewhere, black Americans had to fight for the right to fight. Pressure from white southern leaders led Washington to purge his army of African Americans with general orders on October 31 and November 12, 1775. Many state militias quickly adopted the same ban against black enlistments. But on December 31, sickened at his inability to maintain a large fighting force, Washington partially reversed his order, reopening the Continental army to free black men, though not to slaves, with congressional approval. State militia recruiters soon followed suit, even when state legislators had not rescinded rules banning black service. By 1777, after scraping the barrel for white recruits, all states except Georgia and South Carolina sprinkled their militia units with free blacks and with slaves who gained freedom after their masters accepted compensation authorized by the Continental Congress.

In the upper South, as war weariness choked off the desire of whites to serve the “glorious cause,” militia recruiters began accepting slaves sent by their masters to serve as substitutes, even when the state legislature forbid it. In some cases, the master promised freedom at once, but more often if the slave survived the war. In other cases, the slave fought on the American side even without the promise of freedom. Such was the case of James Armistead. Granted his desire to enlist and assigned to the Marquis de Lafayette, one of Washington’s favorite generals from overseas, Armistead served as a spy, infiltrated the British lines at Yorktown in the fall of 1781 posing as a runaway slave, then fled the camp with crucial strategic information that gave the Americans the upper hand in what became the climactic battle of the war. Even this did not earn freedom for Armistead. He finally gained it in 1786, after Lafayette implored the Virginia legislature to emancipate him while appropriating money to compensate Armistead’s master. 24

In the Valley Forge winter of 1777–1778, Washington further amended his recruitment policy. Struggling to regroup his manpower-starved army, he approved a proposal to raise a regiment of slaves from Rhode Island. In February 1778, the state’s legislature, approving the measure, used lofty language to endorse the idea: “History affords us frequent precedents of the wisest, the freest, and bravest nations having liberated their slaves and enlisted them as soldiers to fight in defense of their country.” 25 On the ground, the motives were less lofty. Historian Lorenzo Greene is surely right in arguing that the proposal was “inspired by stark necessity.” Like other states, Rhode Island by this time, beset by the imminent British attack on the state, could recruit few poor white men for regiments thinned by battlefield casualties, disease, absenteeism, and desertion. Now Rhode Islanders rebuilt what some called “the ragged lousey naked regiment” with slaves liberated by their masters, who were promised compensation from the public coffers for their loss of labor. 26 Many such newly freed slaves adopted the name of Freeman, Liberty, Freedom, and even America.

That liberated slaves might tip the balance for the beleaguered forces under Washington’s command became a distinct possibility in March 1779. In one of its boldest steps of the entire war, one that promised to rivet together the war for independence and efforts to dismantle the slave system, the Continental Congress urged South Carolina and Georgia to raise three thousand slaves to help repulse the British forces plundering their way through the lower South. Though the slaves would receive no pay, those who survived the war would have freedom and fifty dollars each to begin life anew. Meanwhile, masters would be compensated for their loss of property. 27

Eager to oversee the recruitment of slaves was the twenty-five-year-old John Laurens, scion of one of South Carolina’s wealthiest and most politically potent figures, aide-de-camp to Washington, and a reformer who dreamed that American independence would bring liberty to half a million slaves. Having seen the black men of Rhode Island’s First Regiment fight bravely in the battle of Newport eight months before, Laurens argued that bolstering the faltering American army with slaves would reward “those who are unjustly deprived of the rights of mankind.” Alexander Hamilton and others advising Washington endorsed the plan, and some South Carolinians, including Laurens’s father, supported the idea as the only way South Carolina could defend itself against a British army greatly strengthened by thousands of South Carolina and Georgia loyalists. However, wartime legislators, horrified by the prospect of black men under arms, promised they would sooner surrender to the British than see slaves enlisted under promises of freedom. Washington withheld his support, fearing that enlisting slaves would “render slavery more irksome to those who remain in it.” 28 Instead of recruiting slaves, South Carolinian legislators, desperate to enlist whites into the militia, lured white recruits by promising them slaves confiscated from loyalist plantations. Starved for white enlistees, Virginia adopted a similar policy.

With thousands of blacks from the North and upper South serving in the American army and navy, individual masters, especially Quaker slave owners in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, began manumitting their slaves. Though the number was small, moral sentiment was changing. While it slowly changed, African Americans kept pressing their freedom case. In Fairfield and Stratford, Connecticut, a band of slaves petitioned the wartime legislature in May 1779, asserting that “We can never be convinced that we were made to be slaves….Is it consistent with the present claims of the United States to hold so many thousands of the race of Adam, our common father, in perpetual slavery? Can human nature endure the shocking idea?…We ask for nothing but what we are fully persuaded is ours to claim.” 29

At that very moment, the Pennsylvania legislature was debating a gradual abolition act. Stung by the flight of hundreds of Pennsylvania slaves to the British army after it occupied Philadelphia in September 1777, legislators, after more than a year of wrangling, passed the first legislative abolition of slavery in the Western world. Designed to avoid an abrupt end to slavery and to accomplish abolition at little cost to slave owners, it only required that any child born to an enslaved woman after March 1, 1780, would be free after twenty-eight years of service. Antislavery advocates such as Anthony Benezet held to the belief that a half victory was insufficient because immorality and un-Christian behavior should not be half-corrected. Yet the stage had been set for further action, and the language of the law was unambiguous, stating that slavery deprived Africans of the “common blessing that they were by nature entitled to.” 30

Farther north the bravery of an enslaved woman who was all humbleness on the surface but steel underneath continued the freedom suits. Mum Bett grew up enslaved in Sheffield, Massachusetts, a western town where she heard her share of the white townsmen’s rhetoric in their struggle against British oppression. Her owner fought briefly in the war, and her own husband fell on a Massachusetts battlefield. She may have followed the heated debates over how many towns wanted the abolition of slavery written into the Massachusetts constitution. But the constitution that belatedly emerged in 1780 was silent on slavery, although the language of its declaration of rights would later be used to argue that slavery was impermissible. 31

A year later, an incident of the sort common to the relationship between enslavers and enslaved brought matters to a head. Amid a fierce argument, Mum Bett threw herself between her sister and their angry white mistress, who swung a heated kitchen fire shovel during the dispute. Mum Bett received the blow on her arm. Outraged, she stalked from the house and refused to return. When her master, John Ashley, appealed to the local court to recover his slave, Mum Bett called upon a rising lawyer from nearby Stockbridge to ask if Massachusetts’ new constitution, with its preamble stating that “all men are born free and equal,” did not apply to her. Theodore Sedgwick took the case in 1781 and argued that Mum Bett was “entitled to the same privileges as other human beings” whose skin was pigmented differently. The jury agreed. Mum Bett walked away a free woman and shortly renamed herself Elizabeth Freeman to mark a critical milestone in her life.

The case set a precedent. The state’s highest court upheld it two years later with striking words that ended a century and a half of slavery in Massachusetts: “Is not a law of nature that all men are equal and free? Is not the laws of nature the laws of God? Is not the law of God then against slavery?” 32 A barely noticeable household slave had become an agent of change in New England’s most populous state.

Black Rebellion in the King’s Service

The vast majority of slaves in North America lived in the South, and they usually lived in execrable conditions. Most knew it was futile to wait for benevolent owners to set them free, naive to think that legislators or courts would declare slavery illegal, and unrealistic to think that a master would send them in his place in the army. But an unprecedented alternative became available in late 1775: flight from slavery to the sheltering arms of an occupying army. Fleeing slavery had always been an option, and many slaves, mostly male, attempted it year by year. But this was flight from slavery with only the hope of success, which largely depended on convincing whites in the place of refuge that the refugee was a free person.

For the first time in generations of captivity the Revolution offered slaves a chance to flee toward a force prepared to guarantee freedom to the slave on the run. Before, this was possible only for handfuls of slaves who had fled southward from South Carolina and Georgia over miles of unknown terrain to seek sanctuary in Spanish Florida. Now a place of refuge was as close as the British army. This triggered the greatest slave insurgency in North American history—one almost too shocking for the American public to contemplate even now.

Among the first to flee to Dunmore were eight of the twenty-seven slaves who toiled at the stately Williamsburg dwelling of Peyton Randolph, speaker of Virginia’s House of Burgesses and one of Virginia’s delegates to the Continental Congress, where he served as its president for several months. Three weeks later, Lund Washington, manager of his cousin’s Mount Vernon estate, warned that among the slaves and indentured servants “there is not a man of them but would leave us, if they could make their escape.” He captured the mass defection under way in three words: “Liberty is sweet.” 33

In late 1775 and early 1776, several thousand fled to Dunmore, many in family groups, and hundreds more fell into the hands of patrolling patriots while trying. 34 The slaves of many of Virginia’s leading white revolutionary figures had now become revolutionary Virginians themselves—to planters, a nightmarish development that “raised our country into perfect frenzy,” according to Jefferson. 35

Dunmore formed the men into the British Ethiopian Regiment and outfitted some of them with white sashes bearing the inscription “Liberty to Slaves.” Commanding the Ethiopian Regiment was the British officer Thomas Byrd, the son of patriot William Byrd III, whose name symbolized Virginia wealth in land and slaves. The Ethiopian Regiment fought “with the intrepidity of lions,” according to one American who faced them at Great Bridge south of Norfolk less than a month after Dunmore’s Proclamation. 36

Stalking these bold attempts at self-liberation was a killer even more dangerous than the white slave patroller. Sweeping eastern North America in 1775–1776, the deadly smallpox spread rapidly through the crowded British ships to which Dunmore and his Ethiopian Regiment retreated, and then on to Gwynn’s Island in Chesapeake Bay, which Dunmore briefly occupied in the spring of 1776. 37 By July 1776, he withdrew his disease-riddled forces, sending part of them to St. Augustine, Florida, and to the Bermudas; others, including three hundred of the strongest and healthiest black soldiers, went by ship to New York City and would later return southward for a land assault that climaxed with the British occupation of Philadelphia in September 1777. One armed unit, the Black Guides and Pioneers, was supplemented by new escapees throughout the war and fought in many sharp actions.

Much as it shocked slave owners in both northern and southern states, the flight to the British army in the early years of the war was only the first wave of what became a massive self-emancipation by the South’s enslaved population after the war stalemated in the North in 1779. Even before this, the British had struck from East Florida into Georgia, sending panicked planters northward with slaves in tow. Several thousand slaves, perhaps one-sixth of Georgia’s enslaved, fled to the British lines. 38

Returning in force to the South, where a black fifth column could provide a decisive edge, the British struck to conquer from Georgia into South Carolina and then in Virginia in 1779. Black men, women, and children fled in droves to the invading British army. No doubt they remembered how relatives and friends had died like diseased sheep when smallpox tore through Dunmore’s Chesapeake military encampments in 1776. They knew also that white slave owners had dealt harshly with the kinfolk of those who had deserted to the British. Not knowing what awaited them if they reached the British lines must have gnawed at the resolve of many. Yet large numbers took their chances, willing to die free if only for a day, a week, or a month. Many sought refuge in the woods and swamps; others took to roads knowing not where they might find shelter; others reached British units, hoping that Dunmore’s Proclamation issued three years before would cover them. Several contemporary men of repute thought at least one-quarter of South Carolina’s eighty thousand slaves fled to the British. 39 Always their flight was perilous. When intercepted by patriot militia units, they were returned to their masters if the masters were on the American side. Others biding their time with loyalist masters were seized by patriot militia and claimed as booty.

Within British lines, most ended up as laborers hauling provisions, clearing roads, and digging latrines. In one case, in the unsuccessful American attempt to recapture Savannah in the fall of 1779, the British formed refugee slaves into armed black companies. Some of them faced other armed blacks when several hundred French-speaking black freedmen arrived from Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti) with a French fleet to support the American offensive. In another attempt to regain the city in April 1780, American forces engaged with some four hundred former slaves under British arms.

The British invasion of Virginia in November 1780 likewise led to massive slave defections. As the British swept ashore to burn houses and barns, “slaves flock[ed] to them from every quarter,” reported a local planter. 40 With every further incursion, the enslaved fled to the British in shoals, including dozens of Jefferson’s slaves from Monticello and others from Washington’s Mount Vernon plantation. By the summer of 1781, a Hessian officer reported, “well over four thousand Negroes of both sexes and all ages” had become part of General Charles Cornwallis’s British army. 41

Virginia’s stricken plantation owners liked to think that the British compelled their slaves to abandon them. Richard Henry Lee, for example, was indignant that “force, fraud, intrigue, theft, have all in turn been employed to delude these unhappy people and to defraud their masters!” 42 However, whenever the British army approached, slaves could have fled from rather than toward the British. To be sure, many slaves acted “under the combined weight of prudence, caution fear, and realism,” as historian Sylvia Frey puts it, and therefore remained with their masters as the British approached. 43 But those who struck out for freedom in the face of heavy odds were hardly deluded, and most would have laughed at the notion that they were “defrauding” their masters. Believing this was their last best chance, slaves by the thousands demonstrated an unquenchable thirst for freedom by fleeing to the British. And unlike blacks who served in the patriot forces, the black male fighting for freedom with the British was typically accompanied by women and children.

A particularly vivid account, scribbled in the diary of a Hessian officer, gives insight into how the most intrepid slaves, both women and men, exacted their pound of flesh from their former masters. Colonel Johann Ewald described how escaped slaves reaching British camps joined foraging parties to plunder the wardrobes of their masters and mistresses. With relish, they “divided the loot, and clothed themselves piecemeal with it….A completely naked Negro wore a pair of silk breeches, another a finely colored coat, a third a silk vest without sleeves, a fourth an elegant shirt, a fifth a fine churchman’s hat, and a sixth a wig. All the rest of the body was bare!” The tableau amazed Colonel Ewald: “These variegated creatures on thousands of horses” trailing behind the British army baggage train reminded him of “a wandering Arabian or Tarter horde.” 44 For the enslaved, who for years had little but skimpy and worn clothing, here was one of freedom’s rewards, momentary to be sure, but nonetheless sweet.

But the gamble for freedom in the heart of the Virginia slave country was almost at an end. After retreating to Yorktown with several thousand black refugees, badly depleted by another terrifying outbreak of smallpox, Cornwallis dug in for a siege that lasted three weeks. With rations dwindling for his troops, he expelled the black auxiliaries from his encampments “to face the reward of their cruel masters,” as one British officer put it. 45 But Cornwallis was not so merciless as it appears. With surrender imminent, every black man and woman was a hairbreadth away from certain return to slavery. Forced out of the British fortifications, the black refugees at least had a chance of escaping. Charles O’Hara, a senior officer in Cornwallis’s army, remembered leaving four hundred blacks refugees with provisions to get them through smallpox and placing them in “the most friendly quarter in our neighborhood,” where he begged “local residents to be kind to the refugees he had once sheltered.” 46

The British southern campaign, meant to bring the Americans to their knees, marked the height of the great slave insurgency. Despite their determination to make themselves free, disease and the outcome of the Yorktown siege put most of the black refugees in shallow graves after only a brief taste of half-freedom. How many fled to the British cannot be determined precisely; scholars’ estimates range from twenty thousand to one hundred thousand. Considering the likelihood that two of every three succumbed to disease, battlefield mortality, and recapture, a reasonable estimate is about thirty thousand to forty thousand, of which fewer than one-third were adult males. 47

Whatever their number, the thousands of blacks who saw the British as liberators discovered that fighting alongside them was anything but glorious. The British emancipatory proclamations were flavored by a principled commitment to abolish an immoral institution that had already been declared illegal by Lord Mansfield in Great Britain in 1772 in the Somerset case; but it was even more a military strategy to disrupt the enemy’s slave-based economy while recruiting a mass of military laborers and—in limited situations—armed combatants. And British military leaders did not open their arms to the slaves of American loyalists, who were most numerous in New York, South Carolina, and Georgia. Indeed, many British officers, including Lord Dunmore, themselves held people of African descent in bondage throughout the war. In 1779, Sir Henry Clinton, British commander in chief, issued a more restrictive version of Dunmore’s Proclamation, offering freedom only to refugee slaves of rebellious Americans and warning that any blacks captured in American uniforms would be sold back into bondage. Some British officers claimed captured slaves as property rather than delivering the promised freedom. In other cases, simply swamped by women and children as well as men, the British sometimes put the refugees to work on plantations now controlled by British officers. A few were sold to West Indian plantation owners. When desperately short on water and rations, the British surrendered hundreds of refugee slaves several times during the southern campaign.

Only a small fraction of the slaves reaching British lines served in uniformed military units, while most served as wagon drivers, cooks, servants, and laborers who repaired roads, cleaned camp, hauled equipment, and constructed fortifications. Rations were short, clothing shabby, camps overcrowded. In the cities occupied by the British for much of the war—New York, Charleston, and Savannah—the black refugees did much of the hard labor and received the worst of the provisions. However, the British selectively militarized black refugees, using them as spies, guides, and river pilots. They also served as especially valuable raiders and foragers who were sent out from encampments to commandeer crops, livestock, and other provisions, often from plantations where they had toiled.

In the North, blacks under the British flag also served important roles. In the so-called “neutral ground” of northern New Jersey the self-named Colonel Tye fled his Quaker master—one day after Dunmore’s Proclamation was issued far to the south—and organized other fugitive slaves and free blacks. For five years he led a guerrilla band that fought alongside New Jersey loyalists to harass patriot farmers, becoming a terror to the American rebels. At the bloody battle of Monmouth in June 1778, where about 750 African Americans were sprinkled through the fourteen American brigades, Tye captured an American captain and earned his spurs as an effective fighter. A symbol of black rebellion, he inspired awe among white patriots, despite the havoc he wreaked. 48

Some historians argue that the flight of slaves to the British army during the southern campaign actually prevented slave uprisings by siphoning off a great many strong males who might have led such an insurgency. 49 However, from the viewpoint of the slaves themselves, the chance of a slave rebellion overturning the entire edifice of slavery must have seemed very slim when whites were armed to the teeth and organized into military units. Dispersed over a vast territory, slaves did not have the luxury of town meetings, countywide gatherings, and state conventions to discuss their options and coordinate strategies. Rather, they had to make decisions individually, by family, or in small groups. Plantation by plantation and locale by locale they had to calculate their chances for personal freedom rather than imagining ways of attacking the institution of slavery itself.

The minority of escaping slaves who survived the war faced great uncertainty as the war wound down. American diplomats put intense pressure on the British to return all escaped American slaves to their former owners. The Americans’ best card at the peace negotiations in Paris was the threat to repudiate debts owed to British merchants before the Revolution. American negotiators also tried to persuade the British to return the refugees in exchange for a promise not to confiscate the property of South Carolina loyalists. In the end, the British decided not to surrender refugee slaves explicitly promised freedom or those whose British military service might lead to severe reprisals if the black rebel was forcibly returned to a former master. For the latter, the British promised full compensation to former owners.

The British, of course, had no intention of blocking American loyalists from leaving Savannah and Charleston with their slaves. About four thousand African Americans sailed from Savannah in July 1782, most of them as slaves of departing Georgia loyalists, mostly headed for Jamaica. Some went with their masters southward along the coast to British Florida, where by the end of the war some six thousand slaves of loyalist Americans cultivated rice, indigo, and corn, and wrested tar and turpentine from pine forests. Crown officials repeated the process in Charleston. Deciding on a case-by-case basis, often relying on the African American’s own testimony, British officers ruled whether a man or woman had been promised freedom or legitimately feared reprisal if returned to his or her master. John Rutledge, former South Carolina governor, believed that the commissioners ruled in favor of “almost every Negro, man, woman, and child, that was worth the carrying away.” In all, loyalists carried at least fifteen thousand slaves out of country by 1784. 50

In the North, the other half of the British army prepared to evacuate New York City after word of the final peace treaty arrived in June 1783. Here lived the other large contingent of African Americans who had reached the British lines. In contrast to those in Savannah and Charleston, these were almost entirely free men, women, and children. But where would the British take some thousands of black British subjects? Boston King, a South Carolina escapee who had survived the war, recalled hearing a “dreadful rumor” that those “who had escaped from slavery and taken refuge in the English army…were to be delivered up to their masters, altho’ some of them had been three or four years among the English.” The news “filled us all with inexpressible anguish and terror,” he wrote, “especially when we saw our old masters coming from Virginia, North-Carolina, and other parts, and seizing upon their slaves in the streets of New-York.” 51

British officers assured King and his brethren that they would not surrender them to the tender mercies of their former owners but instead would transport them to Nova Scotia. 52 This was the decision reached by the British, who concluded they could neither take them to England’s slave-based Caribbean sugar islands, nor to England, which wanted no new influx to swell the growing numbers of impoverished former slaves seeking public support. 53 But slavery had not taken root in this easternmost part of the Canadian wilderness that England had acquired from France in 1713, in Queen Anne’s War. So in the winter of 1783 thousands of former American slaves disembarked from British ships in Nova Scotia, there to start life anew amid sparsely scattered old French settlers, remnants of Indian tribes, loyalists from the American colonies, and war-weary British soldiers. To mustered-out British soldiers and black refugees the British government offered land, tools, and rations for three years. Among those who had already emerged as a leader was Thomas Peters. Multilingual, he had fled his master in Wilmington, North Carolina, when British ships sailed up the Cape Fear River in early 1776. Thereafter, he served in the British Black Guides and Pioneers, where he rose to the rank of sergeant. 54

Black Hopes after the War

For the remnants of the tens of thousands of enslaved Africans who had fled to the British and served them during the war, life in Nova Scotia promised freedom and self-respect as artisans, laborers, and farmers. But their dream of freedom and a modest living soon turned into a nightmare. The British settled the black refugees in small villages and gave them rocky land yielding meager crops. With few resources and scant support, the refugees sank into poverty. Less than a year after Thomas Peters and his friends arrived from New York, British soldiers resettling in Nova Scotia attacked black villages, burning, looting, and pulling down their houses. As an emissary crossing the Atlantic in 1790 to arrange for something better for the beleaguered blacks, Peters worked with English abolitionists to repatriate the black Nova Scotians back to Africa. 55 In 1792, about twelve hundred former American slaves journeyed to the new British colony of Sierra Leone, where they were led ashore by Peters himself. In this reverse diaspora, many who had crossed the Atlantic in chains decades before now found themselves struggling for a new life not far from where they had been born.

In the United States, enslaved blacks who survived the war could only hope that the victorious patriots would eventually honor the inalienable rights that animated their struggle. To the free African Americans fell the dual struggle to end slavery and to create the social and institutional framework of free black life. Those who did so were the still largely unappreciated black founding fathers and mothers of the new nation. We celebrate the “extraordinary generation” of white founders that Bernard Bailyn calls “one of the most creative groups in modern history,” men who engaged in “extraordinary flights of creative imagination—political heresies at the time, utopian fantasies, and found few precedents to follow, no models to imitate” yet “refused to be intimidated by the received traditions; and…had the imagination and energy to conceive of something closer to the grain of everyday reality and more likely to lead to human happiness.” 56 Such soaring terms also describe the black founders who emerged from the shadows after the smoke and din of war had subsided. They, too, had to begin their world anew—and had to proceed with only rudimentary education and often with only the scantiest necessities of life. What they accomplished in the aftermath of revolution is all the more extraordinary, truly unexampled in the Atlantic world of their day. They could not write state constitutions or transform the political system under which white revolutionaries intended to live as an independent people. But the black founders embarked on a project to accomplish what is almost always part of modern revolutionary agendas—to recast the social system.

Leading them into the new era were mostly young men, who became the rootstock of postwar black society. Revolutions often call forth talent at an unusually young age, but in this case the talent had to emerge from a remnant of young African Americans, because many of those in their teens and twenties had fled to the British during the war. Harry Hosier, born a slave in North Carolina in about 1750, emerged by the early 1780s as an itinerant Methodist preacher with remarkable homiletic gifts—“the greatest orator in America,” according to Benjamin Rush. 57 Peter Spence, born a slave in Maryland, was twenty-three when he led black Methodists out of the white church in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1805, and Thomas Paul emerged as the most important exhorter among black Bostonians in his early twenties. Daniel Coker, enslaved in Maryland, was only twenty-five when he became the teacher of a Baltimore black school, two years after he began preaching. His biting abolitionist pamphlet came off the press before his twenty-sixth birthday. In every seaport town—Boston, Providence, New Haven, New York, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore—young black founding fathers emerged, often supported by wives who played critical roles as teachers and organizers of mutual aid societies.

Most of those who ushered in the first era of freedom were not only self-taught but widely traveled. In an era of primitive transportation, and when their slender means usually precluded any form of transportation other than on foot, many trekked thousands of miles and knew vast stretches of territory in ways that whites of their age seldom experienced. Itinerating Methodist preachers Coker and Harry Hosier knew the entire region from New York to Baltimore. John Gloucester, a thirty-one-year-old Tennessee slave who became the leader of the first black Presbyterian church in Philadelphia, traveled for years up and down the Atlantic seaboard and across the Atlantic to collect money in England to free his family from slavery. Nero Prince, a successor of Prince Hall as grand master of Boston’s black Masonic Lodge, traveled all over the world as a mariner and spent a dozen years as a footman at the court of the Russian czar in the early nineteenth century. In most of these cases, conversion to the Methodist or Baptist faith led them to a circuit-riding life. In something akin to biblical journeys into the wilderness, they tested their mettle and deepened their faith. In so doing, they developed toughness, resiliency, an ability to confront rapidly changing circumstances, and a talent for dealing with a wide variety of people. These were the African Americans who reached manhood in the crucible of revolution and took up the work called for half a century later when black leader William Wilson urged that “we must begin to tell our own story, write our own lecture, paint our own picture, chisel our own bust…[and] acknowledge and love our own peculiarities.” 58

Two of them were notable for what seemed the dawn of a new era. Born in 1760, Richard Allen grew up enslaved to Benjamin Chew, a wealthy lawyer in Philadelphia who maintained a slave-based plantation in southern Delaware. Chew sold Allen’s family to a neighboring Delaware farmer just before the Revolution, and it was there, then only as Richard, that Allen experienced a religious conversion at the hands of itinerant Methodists. Nudged along by economic strain in the war-torn economy, Richard’s master allowed him and his brother to purchase their freedom. 59 In 1780, with the war still raging, the twenty-year-old Richard gave himself the surname of Allen and began a six-year religious sojourn, interspersing work as woodcutter, wagon driver of salt for the Revolutionary army, and shoemaker with stints of itinerant preaching. Landing in Philadelphia, he preached to the free African Americans who worshiped at St. George Methodist Church—a rude, dirt-floored building in the German part of the city. Allen soon became the city’s foremost black leader. In 1786, at age twenty-six, he was an instigator of the Free African Society, which ministered to the needs of people coming out of slavery; in 1792, the creator of one of the first independent black churches in the North; in 1794, the coauthor of one of the first published black texts opposing slavery and white racism; in 1797, the organizer of Philadelphia’s first black school; in 1816, the founder of a black denomination, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, that grew to the largest in the Christian world. 60

Allen’s role as a shaper of thought, mover of minds, and builder of institutions was matched by few of his white contemporaries, and what he accomplished was done in the face of obstacles few of them had to overcome. Never receiving formal education, he became an accomplished and eloquent writer, penning and publishing sermons, tracts, addresses, and remonstrances; compiling a hymnal; and drafting articles of organization and governance for various organizations. Many years later, Frederick Douglas averred that “among the remarkable men whose names have found deserved place in American annals, there is not one…whose memory will be more sacredly cherished…than will the name and character of Richard Allen.” 61

Farther north, in Massachusetts, Lemuel Haynes became an inspiration for aspiring African Americans. After the war, he supported himself doing farm labor while preparing for a lifetime in the ministry. Licensed to preach in 1780—the first white ordination of a black clergyman in the United States—Haynes became the spiritual leader of a white congregation in Middle Granville, Massachusetts. “More clearly than anyone of his generation, black or white,” writes his recent biographer, Haynes articulated “the abolitionist implications of republican thought.” 62 Marrying Elizabeth Babbitt, a white woman who bucked the tide of prejudice against interracial marriage, he pastored almost entirely white congregations in New England and New York. After Haynes’s death in 1833, his biographer called him “a sanctified genius,” a man whose life story could “hardly fail to mitigate the unreasonable prejudices against the Africans in our land.” 63

African Americans fought a revolution within a revolution, and they understandably considered their “ glorious cause” as the purest form of the “spirit of ’76.” White American revolutionaries were animated by a thirst for independence and freedom, by a determination to overthrow corrupt power, by a willingness to die for inalienable rights, by a resolve to defend the people’s power as the ultimate source of authority. All of this was ennobling and inspiring and has stood forth to this day around the world as the meaning of their blood sacrifice. Black American revolutionaries could salute every one of these banners but with a difference: a thirst for freedom that involved shackled bodies as well as political ideals; a determination to end corrupt power as they experienced it at the end of a whip and at the stake; a willingness to die for their natural rights against odds even greater than those faced by white revolutionaries. From this perspective, the African Americans’ revolution had only begun as the white patriots’ revolution ended in victory.

1. I have surveyed school textbooks published in the last century on this in “Why Is the Story of Quakers and Slavery Neglected or Unknown?” paper given at Quakers and Slavery Conference, November 4, 2010; also see Ray Raphael , Founding Myths: Stories That Hide Our Patriotic Past (New York: New Press, 2004), 181 and 317 n. 6 .

2. Robert P. Smith , “William Cooper Nell: Crusading Black Abolitionist,” Journal of Negro History 55 (1970): 182–199 ; and Dorothy Wesley Porter , “Integration versus Separatism: William Cooper Nell’s Role in the Struggle for Equality,” in Courage and Conscience: Black and White Abolitionists in Boston , ed. Donald M. Jacobs (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), 207–224 .

The first pamphlet appeared in 1851 and the fuller version in 1855. Three years later, in 1858, Nell was among the Boston abolitionists who inaugurated Boston’s Crispus Attucks Day. Thirty years later, the Crispus Attucks monument rose in Boston, further perpetuating the black patriot myth.

4. See Gary B. Nash, introduction to new reprint of Benjamin Quarles , The Negro in the American Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), xiii–xv . William Lloyd Garrison followed Nell’s basic narrative in 1860 when he published The Loyalty and Devotion of Colored Americans in the Revolution and War of 1812 .

5. See Robert Benjamin Lewis, Light and Truth (1836), for the first book-length study of black history. Also see Hosea Easton, Treatise on the Intellectual Character and Civil and Political Condition of the Colored People of the U.S. (1837); and James W. C. Pennington , A Text Book of the Origin and History of the Colored People (Hartford, CT: L. Skinner, 1841) . In 1891, Edward Austin Johnson, a black teacher and school principal in North Carolina, published A School History of the Negro Race in America (New York: Isaac Goldman Co., 1892) to give black students in segregated schools at least a rudimentary outline of their history. Johnson spent most of the time on black patriots but estimated that some fifty thousand slaves enlisted on the British side. See School History , p. 67 (from revised 1911 edition).

6. Carter Woodson and Charles H. Wesley , The Negro in Our History (1922; Washington, DC: Associated Publishers, 1962), 120–128 . In a book for elementary-school students, Woodson confined the discussion of the mass flight of slaves to the British to a single line. See Negro Makers of History (Washington, DC: Associated Press, 1928), 58 . Even W. E. B. Du Bois did not stray from the accepted formula of black revolutionary patriotism in the few references he made to the American Revolution. See Herbert Aptheker’s notes on Du Bois’s columns in the Pittsburgh Courier for April 18, 1936, September 13, 1941, and April 24, 1948, where Du Bois spoke of black sacrifice in the American cause and the discrimination black soldiers endured. Aptheker , An Annotated Bibliography of the Writings of W. E. B. Du Bois (Millwood, NY: Kraus-Thomson, 1973), 198, 388, 417, 466 .

7. John Fiske , The American Revolution , 2 vols. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1891), 1:178 , quoted in Raphael, Founding Myths , 181.

8. Edward Eggleston , The Ultimate Solution of the American Negro Problem (Boston: Gorham Press, 1913), 127–128 , quoted in Raphael, Founding Myths , 181.

9. Herbert Aptheker , American Negro Slave Revolts (New York: Citadel Press, 1939), 5–6 .

Quarles, Negro in the American Revolution , xxvii.

11. I have synthesized the voluminous literature on the early abolitionists in The Unknown American Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America (New York: Viking, 2005) . For parallel efforts on the other side of the Atlantic see Christopher Leslie Brown , Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006) , esp. chap. 4.

Adams to Jeremy Belknap, March 21, 1795, Massachusetts Historical Society Collections , 5th ser., vol. 3 (1877): 402.

Aptheker, Negro Slave Revolts , 7–8.

14. Abigail Adams to John Adams, September 22, 1774, in Adams Family Correspondence , 4 vols., ed. L. H. Butterfield (New York: Atheneum, 1965), 1:162 .

15. Peter H. Wood , “‘Taking Care of Business’ in Revolutionary South Carolina: Republicanism and the Slave Society,” in The Southern Experience in the American Revolution , ed. Jeffrey J. Crow and Larry E. Tise (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1978), 268–293 .

16. The Papers of James Madison: Presidential Series , 4 vols., ed. Robert A. Rutland (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1984–), 1:129–130 .

17. Quoted in Woody Holton , Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the Revolution in Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 141 .

18. The words from Dunmore’s Proclamation that engulfed white southerners with fear while overjoying their chattel property read: “I do hereby…declare all indented servants, Negroes, or others (appertaining to Rebels) free, that are able and willing to bear arms, they joining His Majesty’s Troops as soon as may be, for the more speedily reducing the Colony to a proper sense of their duty, to his Majesty’s crown and dignity.” For more on Dunmore’s Proclamation see Philip D. Morgan and Andrew J. O’Shaughnessy , “Arming Slaves in the American Revolution,” in Arming Slaves: From the Classical Era to the American Civil War , ed. Philip D. Morgan and Christopher L. Brown (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008) .

19. Papers of John Adams , 11 vols., ed. Robert J. Taylor et al . (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979–), 4:221 .

20. Recent work by the Daughters of the American Revolution has identified about 6,600 black patriots. See African American and American Indian Patriots of the Revolutionary War (Washington, DC: National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, 2001) . Jane Ailes, an independent scholar, has used troop reports for the Continental army in August 1778 showing that 3.6 percent of the 21,159 enlisted men were black, including 755 from Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. If that percentage prevailed throughout the war, then about 9,000 of some 230,000 men who served on the American side were black. Ailes has found about 35 percent more African Americans in particular locales than listed in the DAR publication, so this would yield about 8,900 black patriots. If the German-born French officer Baron Ludwig von Closen was even half right in his estimation that one-quarter of the northern regiments he saw in 1780 were black, the total black patriots probably exceeded ten thousand. See Evelyn M. Acomb, ed ., The Revolutionary Journals of Baron von Closen (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1958), 89 .

21. Charles Patrick Neimeyer , America Goes to War: A Social History of the Continental Army (New York: NYU Press, 1996), 73 .

Though Quakers and Anglicans educated and missionized displaced Africans, very few blacks served in the Continental army or militia units for reasons that remain obscure.

23. George Quintal , Patriots of Color: African Americans and Native Americas at Battle Road and Bunker Hill (Boston: Boston National Historical Park, 2004) .

24. Sidney Kaplan and Emma Nogrady Kaplan, The Black Presence in the Era of the American Revolution , rev. ed. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1989), 37–40 .

25. Quoted in Fritz Hirschfeld , George Washington and Slavery: A Documentary Portrayal (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1997), 148–149 .

26. Lorenzo Greene , “The Black Regiment of Rhode Island,” Journal of Negro History 37 (1952): 144 .

27. Pete Maslowski , “National Policy toward the Use of Black Troops in the Revolution,” South Carolina Historical Magazine 73 (1972): 3–8 ; Gregory D. Massey , John Laurens and the American Revolution (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2000), 130–134 . Many members of the Continental Congress would have known of the argument of the anonymous pamphleteer “Antibiastes,” who argued two years before that Congress should oversee a “general emancipation of the Slaves” who would enlist and provide proper compensation to their masters. “Antibiastes,” Observation on the Slaves and Indented Servants in the Army, and in the Navy of the United States (Philadelphia: Styner and Cist, 1777) .

28. Washington is quoted in Henry Wiencek , An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000), 227 .

Petition of Connecticut Negroes from County of Fairfield, May 11, 1779, quoted in Nash, Unknown American Revolution , 321.

Nash, Unknown American Revolution , 324–327.

31. Graham Hodges and I have covered this in Friends of Liberty: Thomas Jefferson, Tadeusz Kosciuszko, and Agrippa Hull: A Tale of Three Patriots, Two Revolutions, and a Tragic Betrayal of Freedom in the New Nation (New York: Basic Books, 2008), 84–86 .

32. Quoted in Arthur Zilversmit , “Quock Walker, Mumbet, and the Abolition of Slavery in Massachusetts,” William and Mary Quarterly , 3rd ser., vol. 25 (1968): 614–624 ; and A. Leon Higginbotham Jr ., In the Matter of Color: Race and the American Legal Process, the Colonial Period (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 91–98 .

33. Lund Washington to George Washington, December 3, 1775, in The Papers of George Washington , ed. W. W. Abbot et al . (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1987–), Revolutionary War Series, 2:480 .

34. Dunmore believed that about two thousand enslaved men had reached his lines. Dunmore to Secretary of State Lord George Germain, June 26, 1776, in Naval Documents of the American Revolution , 10 vols., ed. William Bell Clark et al . (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1964–96), 5:756 . Cassandra Pybus , “Jefferson’s Faulty Math: The Question of Slave Defections in the American Revolution,” William and Mary Quarterly , 3rd ser., vol. 62 (2005): 250 , estimates the number at about fifteen hundred, but this is surely too small, since as many as two-thirds of all those who reached the British were women and children. Even if Dunmore doubled the number of men reaching him (for reasons that are not easily understood), the total number of fleeing slaves reaching his lines must have been at least twenty-five hundred.

35. Jefferson to John Randolph, November 29, 1775, in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson , vol. 1., ed. Julian P. Boyd (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1960–), 268–270 .

36. See Holton, Forced Founders , 156; and John E. Selby , The Revolution in Virginia, 1775–1783 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1988), 67 .

37. Quarles, Negro in the American Revolution, 30; Elizabeth Fenn, Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775–82 (New York: Hill & Wang, 2001), 58–61 .

38. Sylvia Frey , Water from the Rock: Black Resistance in a Revolutionary Age (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), 86 ; Pybus, “Jefferson’s Faulty Math,” 253, estimates about fifteen hundred.

Frey, Water from the Rock , 142. David Ramsay, first historian of South Carolina in the Revolution, believed that his state lost about twenty-five thousand slaves.

Quoted in Frey, Water from the Rock , 152.

41. Johann von Ewald , Diary of the American War: A Hessian Journal , ed. and trans. Joseph P. Tustin (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1979), 305 .

42. Quoted in Frey , Water from the Rock , 168 .

43. Ibid. , 168 .

44. Ewald , Diary of the American War , 305 .

45. Ibid. , 335–336 . Private Joseph Plumb Martin also saw “herds of Negroes” in the woods, “scattered about in every direction, dead and dying with pieces of ears of burnt Indian corn in the hands and mouths, even of those that were dead.” James Kirby Martin, ed ., Ordinary Courage: The Revolutionary War Adventures of Joseph Plumb Martin (1830; reprint St. James, NY: Brandywine Press, 1993), 141–142 .

46. George C. Rogers Jr., ed., “Letters of Charles O’Hara to the Duke of Grafton,” South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine 65 (1964) .

47. Probably the best way of estimating the number is accepting the fairly well documented number of freed slaves who were evacuated by the British and multiplying that number by a multiple estimating the death rate of escaped slaves during the war years. Pybus, “Jefferson’s Faulty Math,” puts the number of evacuees at eight thousand to ten thousand; however, her guess that 40–50 percent survived the war seems high. Alan Gilbert documents the large number of former slaves, perhaps as many as five thousand to six thousand, who reached Nova Scotia apart from the 1783 evacuation from New York City and are not included in Pybus’s figures. see Gilbert , Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for Emancipation in the War for Independence (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012) , chap. 8. The total number of evacuees is probably in the range of fourteen thousand to sixteen thousand. If half the refugee slaves survived the war and one-fifth were recaptured, then the total number fleeing to the British would be in the range of thirty-three thousand to thirty-eight thousand. The number would be proportionately high if the wartime death rate exceeded 50 percent, which is likely.

48. For a full account of Colonel Tye see Graham Russell Hodges , Slavery and Freedom in the Rural North: African Americans in Monmouth County, New Jersey, 1665–1865 (Madison, WI: Madison House, 1997), 96–104 .

49. Frey, Water from the Rock , 14–41; Douglas R. Egerton , Death or Liberty: African Americans and Revolutionary America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 88 .

50. Frey, Water from the Rock , 178. Frey believes that the British carried off as many as twenty thousand slaves with their loyalist masters ( ibid. , 182 ), while Maya Jasanoff estimates about fifteen thousand; see Jasanoff , Liberty’s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), 358 .

51. Memoirs of the Life of Boston King, a Black Preacher [London, 1798], in Unchained Voices: An Anthology of Black Authors in the English-Speaking World of the Eighteenth Century , ed. Vincent Carretta (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1996), 356 .

52. The pilgrimage to Nova Scotia is told fully in Ellen Gibson Wilson , The Loyal Blacks (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1976) ; James W. St. George Walker , The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone, 1783–1870 (New York: Africana Publishing Co., 1976) ; and Cassandra Pybus , Epic Journeys of Freedom: Runaway Slaves of the American Revolution and Their Global Quest for Liberty (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006) , chap. 9. In chapter 8 of Black Patriots and Loyalists , Alan Gilbert has added important new information.

53. Stephen J. Braidwood , Black Poor and White Philanthropists: London’s Blacks and the Foundations of the Sierra Leone Settlement, 1786–1791 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1994) .

54. Gary B. Nash , “Thomas Peters: Millwright and Deliverer,” in Struggle and Survival in Colonial America , ed. Nash and David G. Sweet (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1981), 69–85 .

55. Ibid. , 77–83 ; see also Simon Schama , Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution (New York: HarperCollins, 2006) , ch. 8.

56. Bernard Bailyn , To Begin the World Anew: The Genius and Ambiguities of the Founding Fathers (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003), 5, 35–36 .

57. Lewis V. Baldwin , Invisible Strands in African Methodism: A History of the African Union Methodist Protestant and Union African Methodist Episcopal Churches, 1805–1980 (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1983), 24 . Thomas Coke, an early white Methodist leader, called Hosier “one of the best preachers in the world.” Ibid.

58. William J. Wilson, quoted in Patrick Rael , Black Identity and Black Protest in the Antebellum Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 1 . For a synthesis of the mounting literature on free black community building after the war see Egerton, Death or Liberty , chaps. 4, 5, 7, and 9.

59. Gary B. Nash , “New Light on Richard Allen: The Early Years,” William and Mary Quarterly , 3rd ser., vol. 46 (1989): 332–340 .

60. The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study (1899; New York: Schocken Books, 1967), 21 . Albert Raboteau calls the AME “arguably the most important African-American institution for most of the nineteenth century.” Fire in the Bones: Reflections on African-American Religious History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), 79 . For the emergence of literary production among free blacks in the post-Revolutionary period see Joanna Brooks , “The Early American Public Sphere and the Emergence of a Black Print Counterpublic,” William and Mary Quarterly , 3rd ser., vol. 62 (2005): 67–92 .

61. Quoted in Richard S. Newman , Freedom’s Prophet: Bishop Richard Allen, the AME Church, and the Black Founding Fathers (New York: NYU Press, 2008), 294 .

62. John Saillant , Black Puritan, Black Republican: The Life and Thought of Lemuel Haynes, 1753–1833 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003) , 47.

Kaplan and Kaplan, Black Presence , 120.

Berlin, Ira , and Ronald Hoffman , eds. Slavery and Freedom in the Age of the American Revolution . Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1983 .

Google Scholar

Google Preview

Egerton, Douglas . Death or Liberty : African Americans and Revolutionary America . New York: Oxford University Press, 2009 .

Frey, Sylvia R . Water from the Rock: Black Resistance in a Revolutionary Age . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991 .

Gilbert, Alan . Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for Emancipation in the War for Independence . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012 .

Hodges, Graham Russell . Slavery and Freedom in the Rural North: African Americans in Monmouth County, New Jersey, 1665–1865 . Madison, WI: Madison House, 1997 .

Jackson, Maurice . Anthony Benezet , Let This Voice Be Heard: Anthony Benezet, Father of Atlantic Abolitionism . Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009 .

Jasanoff, Maya . Liberty’s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World . New York: Alfred K. Knopf, 2011 .

Kaplan, Sidney , and Emma, Nogrady Kaplan . The Black Presence in the Revolutionary Era . Rev. ed. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1989 .

Nash, Gary B . The Forgotten Fifth: African Americans in the Age of Revolution . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005 .

——. The Unknown American Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America . New York: Viking, 2005 .

Newman, Richard S . Freedom’s Prophet: Bishop Richard Allen, the AME Church, and the Black Founding Fathers . New York: NYU Press, 2008 .

Piper, Emilie , and David Levinson . One Minute a Free Woman: Elizabeth Freeman and the Struggle for Freedom . Salisbury, CT: Housatonic Heritage, 2010 .

Pybus, Cassandra . Epic Journeys of Freedom: Runaway Slaves of the American Revolution and Their Global Quest for Liberty . Boston: Beacon Press, 2006 .

Quarles, Benjamin. The Negro in the American Revolution . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961 ; new introduction by Gary B. Nash, 1996.

Saillant, John . Black Puritan, Black Republican: The Life and Thought of Lemuel Haynes, 1753–1833 . New York: Oxford University Press, 2003 .

Schama, Simon . Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution . New York: HarperCollins, 2006 .

Walker, James W. St. George . The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone, 1783–1870 . London: Longman, 1976 .

• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Institutional account management
• Rights and permissions
• Get help with access
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Causes of Revolutionary War in America Research Paper

Introduction, background information, causes of the revolutionary war.

Bibliography

American history has been characterized by many wars and conflicts in different eras that are caused by various factors. However, some wars and conflicts are more significant due to their impacts. American revolutionary war is one such conflict that stands out among the other wars which have been taking place.

The war which is also known as the American War of Independence took place in the eighteenth century from” the year ‘1775 -1783” as stated by Peterson [1] . It involved Great Britain against the thirteen colonies of Britain in the northern part of America. On the same note, it is known as revolutionary war because it marked the overthrowing of British rule by the thirteen American colonies.

The war started when the revolutionaries took control over various governments of the thirteen colonies after establishing a Continental Congress. Following the formation of the Continental Army, independence was declared a year after leading to the creation of United States of America. With that background in mind, this paper shall discus more on the revolutionary war and narrow down to the causes of the same.

As much as the war was between the colonists and the Americans, some European powers and Native Americans as well as the African Americans were also involved (Kennedy, Bailey and Bailey 2009). Europeans were always on the side of the Americans but the natives and African Americans used to support either side. Although the British army was superior, they were only able to invade and capture cities along the coastal region. Countryside invasion was impossible because the British army was too small compared to the Americans.

At the beginning of the year 1778, France joined hands with the colonists and started to fight against the Britain and after two years, Spain and Netherlands also became allies of France as stated by Kennedy, Bailey and Bailey “The colonists kept their flickering cause alive with secret aid until 1778 when France formed an alliance with them following the decisive American victory over General John Burgoyne at Saratoga in 1777” [2] .

With such strong forces, British surrendered in 1781 at a place known as Yorktown and two year latter, America became a sovereign nation after the establishment of the Treaty of Paris.

The Controversy on Tax

There were many reasons that made America to revolt against British rule but tax controversy was a major factor. Since British was determined to increase the revenue and cater for its defense, it resolved to achieve its goal by maximizing on the revenue from the colonies. Some acts were established like the Sugar Act which was established in the year 1764.

It allowed for the imposing of molasses duty imported from other sources except British to be reduced and the duty on refined sugar to be increased. Other policies which were established in America were meant to limit the economic growth like the withdrawal of the paper currency.

Although the colonies had accepted earlier acts, the Stamp Act established in 1765 was not readily accepted. In view of the fact that it was a duty that affected colonies directly being imposed by the parliament, it lead to a lot of controversies especially because it affected people who were vey influential like the writers and the journalists.

Although the mater was taken to court, it could not succeed because during the appeal period, parliament ensured that it had passed another act allowing it be the legislature of all the colonies. As a result, the situation increased the tension between the colonies and the British government which was insensitive to the rights of the colonies.

Constitution Differences between the Colonies and the British Government

Differences developed between colonists and the Britain especially concerning the constitution. For instance, on the issue concerning taxes, Americans were not supposed to be taxed without their own approval but because they were not well represented in the parliament, it was not possible for them, to influence such laws.

In addition, other Americans started to doubt whether the parliament had the power to be the legislature of all the thirteen colonies. Some writers like James Wilson wrote publications on the same idea of the power of the British parliament over the colonies but were able to publish the same work in 1770s [3] .

Once the case of under presentation was represented to the British Government, they decided that representation was balanced since a lot of British citizens never had a chance to vote. The case was therefore not solved because the British government believed that the Americans were already protected by a law of rights and in addition, anything that was done in American could also have be done in Britain.

Although Americans wanted to be independent, British took them as their children and did not expect them to revolt against their rule. As the tension continued to increase, the same also lead to the Boston massacre which was a violent case that took place in 1770s. It involved the colonists and the British soldiers and a similar case also took place in New York when the colonists decided to rebel against the Quartering troops of the British.

The British continued to come up with other acts and laws which were meant to oppress the colonists. As a result, Americans desire to be independent continued to increase each day. The colonists found it increasingly hard to tolerate such acts and that is the reason why they were referred to as the intolerable acts.

A perfect example of the same happens to be the Boston Port Bill which was a punishment to the people of Boston for revolting. It was aimed at affecting the trade in the area in response to the tea which was dumped in the same place. Consequently, Americans continued to question why they were supposed to be loyal to British which continuously oppressing and mistreating them.

The revolution war in America was not as a result of a single factor but was caused by many events resulting from the poor relationship between the thirteen colonies and the American government as illustrated by the following extract,

The colonists’ road to independence started with a series of escalating boycotts and protests. When Britain tried to tax legal documents, colonists rioted. When they taxed tea, Americans dumped a shipment of tea in Boston Harbor [4] .

Since their problems continued to increase, some representatives hailing from the thirteen colonies gathered together and decided to try presenting their petition to the king. The declaration for independence which illustrated that Americans had equal rights and that it was their right to be independent and to be free was drafted for the fist time by Jefferson.

One of its key messages states that “The people of these colonies consider themselves as British Subjects entitled to all rights and Privilege of Freemen” [5] . Although the American Revolution had great impacts, the results were positive because at the end of it all, Americans became independent.

Britannica Educational Publishing. The American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812: People, Politics, and Power. Nerw York : The Rosen Publishing Group, 2009.

Kennedy, David M., Thomas A. Bailey, and Thomas Bailey. The American Spirit: United States History As Seen by Contemporaries. Stamford: Cengage Learning, 2009.

Peterson, Clarence Stewart. Known Military Dead During the American Revolutionary War, 1775-1783. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Com, 1990.

Thacher, James. A military journal during the American Revolutionary War, from 1775 to 1783 . Washington: Cottons & Barnard, 1827.

• Stewart ,Clarence, Peterson,. Known Military Dead During the American Revolutionary War, 1775-1783. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Com, 1990 pp. 7.
• David, Kennedy, M., Bailey, Thomas, A. and Bailey, Thomas. The American Spirit: United States History As Seen by Contemporaries. Stamford: Cengage Learning, 2009 pp. 148.
• Stewart ,Clarence, Peterson,. Known Military Dead During the American Revolutionary War, 1775-1783. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Com, 1990 pp. 9.
• Britannica Educational Publishing. The American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812: People, Politics, and Power. Nerw York : The Rosen Publishing Group, 2009 pp. 11.
• Thacher, James. A military journal during the American Revolutionary War, from 1775 to 1783 . Washington: Cottons & Barnard, 1827 pp. 12.
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, December 1). Causes of Revolutionary War in America. https://ivypanda.com/essays/causes-of-revolutionary-war-in-america/

"Causes of Revolutionary War in America." IvyPanda , 1 Dec. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/causes-of-revolutionary-war-in-america/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'Causes of Revolutionary War in America'. 1 December.

IvyPanda . 2023. "Causes of Revolutionary War in America." December 1, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/causes-of-revolutionary-war-in-america/.

1. IvyPanda . "Causes of Revolutionary War in America." December 1, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/causes-of-revolutionary-war-in-america/.

IvyPanda . "Causes of Revolutionary War in America." December 1, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/causes-of-revolutionary-war-in-america/.

• American Revolutionary War: Causes and Outcomes
• History of the American Revolutionary War
• Britain vs. America- How colonists won
• The History of Revolutionary War: Banding Colonies and Revolt Against a Tyrannical Government
• The Revolutionary War Changes in American Society
• American Revolution of 1774
• How Americans Won the Revolutionary War?
• United States Declaration of Independence
• Why the Colonists Broke Away from Britain
• Liberty! The American Revolution
• History of the Conflict Between Britain and the Colonized Nations
• American Patriotism: Struggle for Independence
• The American War of Independence
• The Serfs in Poland
• Globalization in Latin American Countries

• Global Learning Office
• Global Safety & Security
• International Student & Scholar Services

World War I and European Intervention with Elizabeth F. Thompson

Israel and palestine: joint speaker series exploring fundamental history.

Since this fall, intense attention has turned to Israel and Palestine. Many on campus who are following events find themselves with basic questions about actors, geography, contested narratives and even the words used to describe what is happening. This speaker series aims to help fill some of these gaps. Jointly sponsored by the Middle East and North African Studies Program, the Crown Family Center for Jewish and Israel Studies and the Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, the initiative seeks to offer the Northwestern University community knowledge on this vital history from the late nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century. Sessions feature renowned scholars from the U.S. and abroad from a wide range of personal and academic backgrounds, and are open to members of the Northwestern community.  Learn more about the series >>

War and its aftermath, in the years 1914–23, were revolutionary for Palestine and Greater Syria. World War I upset social relations between peasants and landlords, citizens and the state, and Muslims, Christians and Jews. Those who suffered from hunger, disease and Ottoman military dictatorship welcomed the arrival of the British army and soldiers of the Arab Revolt in 1917–18. But as soon as the guns fell silent, a new conflict began over what government should replace Ottoman rule. While many Arabic-speaking Palestinians joined in declaring an independent Syrian Arab Kingdom, the British imposed a League of Nations mandate. It was celebrated by Zionists as a Jewish homeland but condemned by most Muslims and Christians as colonial counterrevolution.

In the third talk of this joint speaker series, Elizabeth F. Thompson examined how, emerging from the violent crucible of the Great War, the League of Nations mandate institutionalized an asymmetry of political and economic power between Jews and Arabs that would empower militants over peacemakers over its 25-year history.

FBI says Chinese hackers preparing to attack US infrastructure

• Medium Text

Sign up here.

Reporting by Christopher Bing; Editing by Richard Chang

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. New Tab , opens new tab

Thomson Reuters

Award-winning reporter covering the intersection between technology and national security with a focus on how the evolving cybersecurity landscape affects government and business.

Rubrik , the cybersecurity software startup that counts Microsoft among its investors, on Wednesday priced its initial public offering at $32 per share, above its indicated price range.

Technology Chevron

India's Tech Mahindra misses Q4 revenue view on weak communications segment

Tech Mahindra , India's fifth-largest software company, reported fourth-quarter revenue below analysts' estimates on Thursday due to weakness in its communications and media segment as macro headwinds weighed on overall demand.