Changes for African Americans

Slavery didn't seem compativle with the ideals of the revoluton. In 1776, one of every 5 americans was an african ancestor. The major part of the africans were ensalved at the time and they had many problems with the congress because slaves were not allowed to vote. Loyalists and british thought that the patriots were being hipocrite by talking about freedom, but still holding slaves. Revolution inspired many slaves to demand freedom. They started to petition legislation for emancipation in the northern states. Some slaves even sued their owners in the courts. About 5,000 slaves joined the patriot's militia, and others would join the Continental Navy in return to freedom.

In the South, they feared black people. They thought that they were a threat to slavery. at least 50,000 of them escaped and joined the british. Revolution lead to emancipation in the north. About 1/3 of the population in the south were slaved, while in the north, they were about 5%. Many northerners also freed their slaves, but emancipation failed in the south. In Maryland and Virginia, some planters freed their slaves volunterely. This was called manumission.After the year 1800, southern states passed laws to discourage manumission, because they feared that the black people being freed, would want to come back and take revenge on the owners. By 1810, about 20,000 slaves were freed, including the 300 slaves freed by George Washington.

The greatest effect of the revolution was the spread of the idea of liberty both at home and abroad. Over the next 3 centuries, the patriots principles inspired revolution around the world. Revolution ended in 1783, and the French Revolution in 1789. European republics cited american presedent to overthrow king and aristocrats. In the 19th century, independent republics emerged throughout Latin America. During the 20th century, Africans and Asians began national liberation movements.


The most curious of it all, is that Thomas Paine actually predicted that the revolution would change the world! 

The Revolution Impacts Society

The British tried to protect their loyalists allies. About 90,000 including 20,000 former slaves became refugies. The majority ended up settling in the british northern colonies, known as Canada. Meanwhile, native americans were stunned that the British had forgotten about them. The Treaty of Paris didn't mention them either. There were two treaties made by indians and americans where they lost a vast track of land; 


Fort Stanwix-1784 was an important treaty between North American Indians and the British Empire. It was signed in 1768 at Fort Stanwix, located in present-day Rome, New York. It was negotiated between Sir William Johnson and representatives of the Six Nations (the Iroquois). The purpose of the conference was to adjust the boundary line between Indian lands and British colonial settlements set forth in the Royal Proclamation of 1763. 
 Hopewell-1785 is any of three different treaties signed at Hopewell, (the plantation of Andrew Pickens on the Seneca River in northwestern South Carolina) between the Confederation Congress of the United States of America and Cherokee (1785), Choctaw and Chickasaw (1786) indigenous nations. The site of Treaty Oak is on Old Cherry Road in Pickens County, South Carolina. There is a historical marker before reaching the bridge crossing Lake Hartwell. There is a trail through the forest that goes to the monument. The actual Treaty Oak is no longer alive.


Since the king was not there, the settlers moved west to take over the land. In 7 years, more than 100,000 Americans lived in Kentucky and Tennesse. The revoluton was a complete disaster for the indians.


Women were also impacted by the revolution. They started to gain political right, but most importantly, respect. They were now called the mothers of the revolution rather than the daughters of liberty. Abigail Adams wrote to her husband, John Adams, in the constitutional convention, asking him to please remember the ladies. John loved her, but he ignored her request. Widows could vote but only in New Jersey, and wives could not make contracts or have properties. 


This was all very sad, I would have divorced my husband if he ignored my generous petition!


One of the mothers of revolution:


Margaret Catharine (Kate) Moore (1752–1823), later known as Kate Barry, was a heroine of theAmerican Revolutionary War. She was daughter of Charles and Mary Moore, and the eldest of ten children. She married Andrew Barry in 1767 at the age of 15, and lived on Walnut Grove Plantation in Roebuck, South Carolina during the 18th century. Kate was instrumental in helping to warn the militia of the coming British before the Battle of Cowpens in 1781. According to legend, she tied her newborn baby to the bedpost while she rode out to warn neighbors that the British were coming.

Cornwallis Surrenders

To refresh your memory, Cornwallis was the leader of the British Army. So, during late summer of 1781, Washington moved most of his troops to the south with the purpose of trapping Cornwallis army at York Townm Virginia. For the plan to work, timing had to be perfect. Washington needed the French fleet to arrive at the right moment to stop the British from escaping by sea, an fortunetely, they did! They trapped the British navy and made the patriots very lucky. Since poor Cornwallis was trapped by land and by sea, he couldn't really do much about it, and had to surrender in october 19, 1781. The French, of course, helped too much. Their army was even bigger than Washington's army.

CORNWALLIS SURRENDER

However, the battle of York Town was not a single battle, but many confrontations. In July 1781, the British troops under General Cornwallis marched into York Town, expecting reinforcements to come from New York. General Lafayette's Army trapped the British in the peninsula, until French and American troops arrived in late august. The french fleet prevented reinforcents to reach Cornwallis. The purpose of it all was to maje Cornwallis surrender so that the war would finally end.

The loss of 80,000 soldiers of the Seven Years War was very bad. People back in England were suffering because they were loosing the people they loved, and were also being heavily taxed. In early 1782, a new administration came. One of the members of this new administration was Benjamin Franklin. They all negotitated "The Treaty of Paris", which recognized american independence in september of 1783. The French wanted to control the peace making situation of the Americans and Birtihs, but since the americans made a treaty with the british, the relation between french and americans got weakened. 

Pretty harsh, French wanted to control the americans!

The War's End & Lasting Effect

As war continued, the British wanted loyalists support in the South, specially the farmers of South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia. The British wanted their support, but they wasted it by continuing their conventional war. British did not give the loyalists militia support, instead they kept going on with ther misunderstood strategy. In the South, the British had won most of their battles and were able to capture major sea ports. In late 1778, they captured Savannah, Georgia. In spring 1780, they captured Charlestown, South Carolina, and also captured 5,000 patriot soldiers that were there. That summer, the British captured Camden, South Carolina. Just as the British start fighting in these areas in the golf, Bernardo de Galvez started attacking the British forts in the Golf Coasts. In 1780, spanish captured Mobile, Alabama. a year later, they captured Pensacola. 

BERNARDO DE GALVEZ

Bernardo de Gálvez, an aristocrat born in Spain and trained for a military career, became governor of the Spanish colony of Louisiana in 1777. When Spain entered the Revolutionary War on the side of the American colonies, he helped fight the British in Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida. He kept the British busy in the South, and finally drove them from the area, freeing it up for American trading. For these successes, he was named a don (an aristocratic title similar to the British earl) by the Spanish government, and eventually was made viceroy (overall ruler) of New Spain (Mexico).

After this mess, the British failed to control the southern countryside. The situation during the war was very harsh. for example, if the father is a patriot, and the son is a loyalist, they had to be against eachother regardless on what they thought about it.

In october 1780, at King Mountain in South Carolina, the patriots crushed the loyalist militia and excerted prisioners. The loyalist lost men and a lot of territory, and many of the people who were neutral moved to the patriot's side, including some loyalists because they started resenting the British for not helping them out and blamed them for bringing chaos into their country. The British were loosing support. General Cornwallis was very frustrated with this, because he wasn't able to control the South. The Continental Army in the south, was supervised by two commanders; Nathanael Greene and Daniel Morgan. In 1701 these people caused heavy losses in to battles to the British at Cowpens, South Carolina and Guilford Court House in North Carolina.

Altough the war didn't really look for the patriots to win, there were many factors that were helping them out, like the fact that British were making tactical mistakes, and that they misunderstood the war and political gramdification. It also helped a lot that patriots were united, fighting for a cause.

The Continental Army Faces Challenges

After many battles, wars, fighting, the Continental Army started facing challenges. In Pennsylvania, They spent a harsh winter. They did not have enough supplies or food and they suffered from hunger and cold. Washington reported that 1/3 of his 10,000 men did not have shoes or clothes.  This happenned in Valley Forge. Washington was very preoccupied, because he did not know what to do with his army. He wrotye on his diary that he had two choices, either he dispersed his army, or break it down once and for all; or else, they would die of hunger. But before he could make a desition, the soldiers improved with the help of a german called Baron Von Steuben. He taught them to survive and made them work to impose discipline on them. 

In June 1778, the British marched from Philadelphia into New Jersey, and on their way, they encountered the Continental Amy at Monmouth, where the soldiers demonstrated that they had improved their skills. Even though the British had won many battles, they had little to show, because the only city they had was New York. 

Friedrich Wilhelm August Heinrich Ferdinand von Steuben (born Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin von Steuben; September 17, 1730 – November 28, 1794), also referred to as the Baron von Steuben, was a Prussian-born military officer who served as inspector general and Major general of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He is credited with being one of the fathers of the Continental Army in teaching them the essentials of military drills, tactics, and disciplines. He wrote the Revolutionary War Drill Manual, the book that served as the standard United States drill manual until the War of 1812. He served as General George Washington's chief of staff in the final years of the war.

THE FRONTIER WAR

The frontier war began because of the procalamation of 1763, that started about for the Seven Year War. the proclamation was a treaty made by the king, that did not allow the expansion of land beyond the Appalatian Mountains. In the treaty, the king ordered the indians to remain west of the Appalatian Mountains. Pontiac's Rebellion inflicted a lot in this. To defy the proclamation, the indians started settling to the Appalatian Mountains, so in the year 1770, they settled west, which led to the outbreak of the war. This leaded them to claim more american land. 

Many of the indians started siding with the British, who had promised to keep the colonies to the east. The british were making the native americans attack the colonial settlers. The white settlers were killing the native americans for their land. They would always make truces, but never really kept them. it was all a cycle were they made them, broke them, made them again, broke them again. These men could never keep a promise! The war then moves to the west.

Spring 1778, in the north-west, Colonel George Rogers Clark led the patriot's militia to a fight gainst the British, He took over the settlements of Kaskajia and Cahokia. Clarck had 175 soldiers, and by later summer, the got help of some french settlers and captured all the British posts in that area. They captured Vincennes, but a few months later, the british recaptured it. In february 1774, Clarck and his men reached Vincennes again, and were trying to convince the native americans to abandon their british allies. By the end of the war, the patriot's boundary allowed the Americans to claim the Ohio River Valley. At the same time, in New York, native americans and British forces attacked many froentier posts. In response, the patriot's burned 40 Iroquois towns, which destroyed the power that their nation used to posses. Indians continued their attacks to the settlers, ones that left deadly effects. 

Now, to relax a little bit from all these wars and battles, I'll show you something that may be completely out of the topic, but it's actually sort of interesting:

War Shifts to the Middle States

On december 26th, another battle occured. it was called the Battle of Trenton. General George Washington corssed the Delaware River north of Trenton, New Jersey. He lead the main body of the Contiental Army agains the Garisson, which was a body of troops stationed in a fortified place. After a small battle, almost the entire Hessians were captured.

In the same year, Washington won another battle. the Battle of Princeton. He inflicted on Charles Corwallis's troops and injured many of his soldiers. On fall 1777, he lost Philadelphia, but they still didn't win the war. General John Burgoyne marched from Canada along with his troop to invade New York's Hudson Valley. Unfortunetely for them, they fell into a patriot's trap in Saratoga and he had to surrender in october the same year. In Saratatoga, the patriots defeated Burgoyne, and you could say that it was one of their greatest victories. Saratoga suggested that US might win the war. They were starting to have faith in them.

After all of this, Europeans started entering the war. The battle of Saratoga made them gain interest. This made France recognize the independence. Now, they had a chance to weaken the British, their old enemies. During the first years of the war, the French really doubted that the patriots would win, so they did not openly confirm that they were allying with the patriots, so they helped them with secret shippings, with ammunitions and weapons. This was the only thing keeping the patriots alive. French volunteers, and Marquis de Lafayette provfided a lot of help for the patriots. Saratoga also, made the French see that the patriots did have a chance to win the war, and that they did not face any risks in an open alliance. So, in february 1778, they negotiated the alliance.

  Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette. 6 September 1757 – 20 May 1834), often known as simply Lafayette, was a French aristocrat and military officer born in Chavaniac, in the province of Auvergne in south central France. Lafayette was a general in the American Revolutionary War and a leader of the Garde Nationale during the French Revolution.

In the American Revolution, Lafayette served as a major-general in the Continental Army under George Washington.

Benjamin Franklin was a ledaing american negotiator in Paris and became popular when he was in France. he becanme known as a simple american who loved the french.

Alliance was made, and the French Army and Navy began attacking the British, so the war became more even. The first tries were miserable, but at the end, the alliance produced the biggest victory if thewar in 1781.  British were suffering from this, and suffered even more when Spain entered the war as a French ally in 1779. Spain's purpose was also to weaken the British, but they were not an official ally of the French because they feared that fighting in this war would inspire their own colonists desire independence. Bernardo de Galvez (a spanish governer) provided the patriots with supplies and money, and also prevented british ships to enter the Mississipi Delta. Both of this allies helped the colonies incredibly.

Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706 – April 17, 1790) was one of the Founding fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author and printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightement and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. He invented the lighting rod, bifocals, the Franklin stove, a carriage odometer, and the glass 'armonica'. He formed both the first public lending library in America and the first fire department in Pennsylvania. Franklin earned the title of "The First American" for his early and indefatigable campaigning for colonial unity; as an author and spokesman in London for several colonies, then as the first United States Ambassador to France, he exemplified the emerging American nation.

The Patriot's Strength

After everything that the patriots had been through, they were getting really tired and they were loosing their strength, the only person that could get them to keep going, and never give up was George Washington. He was a great leader. During these hard times, he read "American Crisis" to his soldiers to preserve them. This kept the soldiers comitted to their jobs even thought they were facing hunger and cold.

To succeed, the continental army needed the support of their people. The woman were very strong during these times, and their work was fundamental. They allowed their husbands and sons to fight in the war, which freed their worried souls. Women used to make shoes, blankets, and clothing, British navi blocked the ports, causing the items to become comre expensive or scarce. Colonial took advantage of this situation and started selling items at a very high price, and the value of moent decreased, because patriots were using paper money.

The paper money issued by the continental congress were called continentals. The army received their salary in this type of money. Women also received money for their work of mantaining camps. Some women would even dress up as soldiers to fire cannons. They were very comitted to their people.

One very recognized woman was Deborah Sampson. She received a military pension from the congress to pay for her services. Another woman was Mary Hays. she was became known as Molly Pitcher, because she used to take water to the troops. She started doing this at Monmouth. As you can see, women defended their people with even more courage and determination than men.

Disguised as a man, Deborah Sampson served admirably as a soldier in the Continental army during the American Revolutionary War (1775–83) and later gave speeches about her time in the military. She established a public presence for women that went far beyond the normal cultural limits of her time. The former soldier then went on to become a wife and mother. She asked for and received a military pension (money benefits) from the U.S. government, also unheard of for a woman of her time.

Deborah Sampson was born on December 17, 1760, to a poor family in Plympton, Massachusetts (located near Plymouth, Massachusetts). Her father, Jonathan Sampson Jr., deserted his family to go to sea.

                                                                                                                                                                        

Molly Pitcher

You can notice easily that the patriot's strength was based in the civilians colaboration, the leadership of George Washington, the Indian War tactics, and the fact that they were united for the same purpose. This helped the patriots a lot and gave them the strength they needed.