The American Revolution

Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze (1851)

After the Seven Years' War, the parliament of Great Britain began to draw on its American colonies as a revenue source to pay off the debts incurred during the conflict. Before the war, parliament had a policy described as salutary neglect, basically overlooking a number of taxes, tarriffs, and fees that the colonists were technically required to pay. After the war, parliament began to crack down and enforce these regulations, which the colonists found extremely annoying.

Then, parliament began passing new taxes. In 1764, the Sugar Act established a tax on sugar and other goods imported from the Caribbean. The Stamp Act of 1765 put a tax on paper, and the Quartering Act tried to reduce the expense of the army by requiring colonists to house and feed soldiers in their homes.

The American colonists protested these acts, sometimes violently. Educated Americans, influenced by the Enlightenment philosophy of John Locke, claimed that since they had no representation in parliament, there was no social contract and thus parliament had no right to tax them and the acts were illegal. Parliament repealed the acts, but issued the Declaratory Act, stating that yes, Britain absolutely had a right to tax its own colonies.

In 1767, parliament passed the Townshend Acts, taxing the colonies to pay for their own royal-appointed governors and magistrates. In the past, the colonies had paid these officials directly, so it had the twofold effect of raising taxes and limiting local influence over these officials. At a protest in 1770, five colonists were shot after mobbing a group of British soldiers, in what became known as the Boston Massacre.

Surrender of Lord Cornwallis by John Trumbull (1820)

In 1773, parliament passed the Tea Act, which was immediately protested in the famous Boston Tea Party. In response to this, parliament passed the Coercive Acts, which in America were known as the Intolerable Acts, punishing the Bostonians by taking away self-governance and appointing a military governor over the Massachusetts Bay Colony. As colonists organized against this military state, small battles took place in 1774 at Concord and Lexington, Massachusetts, informally beginning a state of war between Britain and the colonies.

For the colonists, this was the last straw, and a Continental Congress was convened. Led by representatives like John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, the Congress unanimously declared independence from Great Britain on July 2, 1776. Two days later, a Declaration of Independence was issued, establishing the case for independence on the basis of Enlightenment political philosophy.

The war officially began with a disastrous American attempt to invade Canada. Almost immediately, the British arrived and captured New York City, splitting the colonies in two. The following year, they captured Philadelphia. British officials believed the war would be over soon. However, the British generals tended not to work well together, which gave General George Washington just enough space to avoid total defeat and keep the Continental Army together for the next five years, despite what was generally a string of losses in most engagements.

Both sides sang songs and used fife and drum corps to inspire their soldiers and to help coordinate troop movements.

In 1778, Benjamin Franklin convinced the French to join the war effort. Three years later the British found themselves trapped between the French navy and a combined French/American army at Yorktown, Virginia, and attempted to surrender to the French, who made them surrender to the Americans.

The victorious colonies renamed themselves the United States of America and began experimenting with different forms of representative government.

The French, on the other hand, despite being the champions of American liberty, remained an absolute monarchy, and were now in even worse debt than before.