Chapter 7: The Road to Revolution, 1763-1775
After the French and Indian War, relations between the colonists and the Americans began to deteriorate. A series of events, including the Stamp Act, the Tea Act, the Townshend Acts, and the Intolerable Acts, among others, caused many colonists to begin to question their blind allegiance to the British Crown, setting the stage of the Revolutionary War. There's a lot to keep track of there, so check out the video to the right to give you an idea of what's going on in the colonies. John Green, as always, delivers a high-energy performance.
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One of the major events of this period was the Boston Massacre, which took place in 1770 in Boston. The image to the left is an engraving that was made by Paul Revere (who also rode a horse once, to much acclaim), that was picked up by many colonial newspapers and widely circulated.
This primary source (and it is a primary source) is very important because it can tell us as modern-day historians quite a bit about the mood of the time. In reality, calling the Boston Massacre a "massacre" is a bit of an overstatement; only five people were killed. That said, it was an event that certainly inflamed colonial tempers, which, in Boston at least, were already running fairly hot.
Revere, the artist, definitely had a certain point of view that he approached this piece of art from. His goal was to motivate other colonists, particularly those who were neutral on the subject, to rally to the anti-British cause. It's important to note that even in 1770, after five men had been "massacred" (including Crispus Attucks), even most of the colonists who were upset with England only wanted a redress of their grievances, not full independence.
This primary source (and it is a primary source) is very important because it can tell us as modern-day historians quite a bit about the mood of the time. In reality, calling the Boston Massacre a "massacre" is a bit of an overstatement; only five people were killed. That said, it was an event that certainly inflamed colonial tempers, which, in Boston at least, were already running fairly hot.
Revere, the artist, definitely had a certain point of view that he approached this piece of art from. His goal was to motivate other colonists, particularly those who were neutral on the subject, to rally to the anti-British cause. It's important to note that even in 1770, after five men had been "massacred" (including Crispus Attucks), even most of the colonists who were upset with England only wanted a redress of their grievances, not full independence.
Chapter 8: America Secedes from the Empire, 1775-1783
Well, this is it. After seven chapters of the text and almost three hundred years of history, the United States of America is finally a real thing. It's not much of a thing, given that it's a loosely affiliated collection of colonies who had only starting shooting at England to avoid paying taxes (you wonder why people dislike the IRS), but it is now a country. It would be an interesting historical adventure to ask Thomas Jefferson what he thinks of the United States today.
The American Revolution was awesome in that it made America a country, but rather paltry in terms of actual warfare or fighting. George Washington, who was given command of the Continental Army at the outset of the war, wasn't that great of a military leader, and he lost the majority of his battles (his record gets even worse if you include his debacles during the French & Indian War). |
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That said, though, Washington did adopt the strategy of waiting the British out and trading space for time (some might say that the Taliban is using the same strategy in Afghanistan today). Saratoga in 1777 was a turning point, bringing the French and, later, the Spanish and Dutch into war against the British. As the war continued, the fighting moved south, reaching the Southern colonies by 1780, when the British took Charleston. However, General Nathanael Green (the "Fighting Quaker;" nicknames were just better back then) got British General Charles Cornwallis on the run, and Cornwallis retreated back to the Chesapeake Bay.
In 1781, after several years of war, Cornwallis surrendered his army to George Washington at Yorktown, Virginia. It marked the end of major combat operations in the Revolutionary War: America had brought a fearsome imperial force to its knees.
In 1781, after several years of war, Cornwallis surrendered his army to George Washington at Yorktown, Virginia. It marked the end of major combat operations in the Revolutionary War: America had brought a fearsome imperial force to its knees.
Chapter 9: The Confederation and the Constitution, 1776-1790
The Constitution of the United States is pretty amazing (just ask Nicholas Cage), but America didn't hit it out of the park on the first try. Prior to the Constitution, the United States experimented with a weak government known as the Articles of Confederation. The video at right examines why this government was pretty much terrible. One of the challenges faced by the early American government was Shays' Rebellion, as detailed below.
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The failure of the Articles of Confederation led to the convening of the Constitutional Convention, which eventually came up with the Constitution. Although this document is now revered as the piece of paper that holds our entire country together, back in 1787 it was quite radical and got a lot of people quite upset. In order to convince Americans that they ought to adopt this Constitution, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Adams got together and drafted the Federalist Papers, which were all signed "Publius" instead of as the actual author. The most famous of the Federalist papers is arguably Federalist #10 (see link to the right), but you can find all of them here, thanks to Yale's Avalon Project.
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Chapter 10: Launching the New Ship of State
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Just because the United States had defeated the English during American Revolution, AND drafted themselves not one, but two different constitutions, life was not all peachy keen in the young country. There were a number of struggles, both foreign and domestic, as well as John Adams' relative lack of any charisma whatsoever, that made the early days of the new republic a bit of a challenge.
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