The War of Independence.

Despite the differences, the colonies in North America were subjects of the British Crown. The British controlling influence was not strong, though, and the colonies were mainly self-governed. However, in 1775 American Revolution began and in 1776 the colonies declared their independence from Britain. What were their reasons?

In 1754 the Seven-Year-War between Great Britain and France broke out. Fighting took place not only in Europe, but also in overseas territories. In the war the British colonies in North America supported Great Britain, while many Indians sided with the French. That is why it is known in American history as the French and Indian War.

Britain was victorious. In the Peace Treaty of Paris, signed in 1763, France relinquished all of Canada, the Great Lakes and the upper Mississippi valley to the British. In North America alone, British territories had more than doubled. The question of how to govern them rose. Defense and administration would require huge sums of money and increased staff.

The old colonial system was obviously inadequate to these tasks. The British government tried to work out a new colonial system. The first part of it was Organization of the Interior. In order to prevent clashes with hostile Indian tribes, the government passed the Royal Proclamation in1763. According to it, a line was drawn on the map along the Appalachian Mountains. British settlers were prohibited to cross it and move westward. The second part of the system included additional taxes and tariffs. In 1764 the government passed the Sugar Act, according to which a tax was imposed on molasses, coffee and wine, bought outside the British Empire. In 1765 the stamp Act was passed. One-penny stamps were affixed to all news-papers, licenses, legal documents and even on papers for everyday use. The act bore equally on people who did any kind of business. The reaction of colonists was so negative that the act was repealed in 1766. However, the Declaratory Act was passed, which stated that Parliament still had power to make laws for the colonies "in all cases whatsoever”.

All those acts did harm to colonial business, they were called "intolerable”. But Americans were also infuriated by the fact that the acts were passed without consulting colonial governments. The American colonies had no representatives in the British parliament. It was taxation without representation.

Americans started to resist the British policy. In 1765 prominent men organized themselves into the "Sons of Liberty” – a secret society, formed to protest the Stamp Act, often through violent means. Colonists started boycotting British goods.

Boston was the center of resistance. In 1768 British King George the 3d  sent  four thousand soldiers to Boston to stop riots. The soldiers were hated by people. On March 5, 1770 a street fight broke out. Five Bostonians were killed. Thanks to Sam Adams the event became known as the Boston Massacre.

Sam Adams, Patrick Henry and other patriots made speeches, creating public opinion against Great Britain and its policy.  Three years later another event added to the tension between Britain and its American colonies. On December 16, 1773 a group of Bostonians, led by Sam Adams, boarded the British ships in the harbor and threw a great amount of tea, brought to the colonies by East Indian Company, overboard. When the news of Boston "tea party" reached England, Prime Minister ordered the port of Boston closed. More troops were sent to the colonies. They were given power to stay free of charge in private homes. The colonial governments’ independence was undermined, local meetings were forbidden.

Facing the situation, the colonies had to join hands and act together. On September 5, 1774 the first Continental Congress met in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania). The delegates sent the king a long list of complaints, but it was ignored.

Being hit hardest, Massachusetts began to prepare for war by collecting military supplies in the town of Concord, 20 miles away from Boston. The British wanted to destroy those supplies. On April 19, 1775 the British soldiers were met at Lexington, on the way to Concord, by American minutemen. Fighting started. Since that day there was no peaceful way out of the conflict, the War of Independence began.

In May 1775 the second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia. It appointed George Washington Сommander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, which had to be created first. Washington managed to create the army, to save it and lead it to the brilliant victory in 1781, when the British surrendered at Yorktown (Virginia) on October 19.

On July 4, 1776 the Declaration of Independence was adopted in Philadelphia. In it Thomas Jefferson, Virginia’s brilliant lawyer, gave the official explanation why the colonies had started the war. His aim was to show the world that they were just defending their rights from the British tyranny. The quotation from the document has become known all over the world. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their  Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

America produced a new style of the warfare – a primitive form of total war. Conflicts with Indians had taught  Americans  to use every opportunity of destroying the enemy. However, in Europe it was the age of limited warfare. Armies fought according to certain rules, which made a battle in many ways like a football match. Battles took place on open fields, in good weather. Each side knew what forces the other possessed. The only people who fought were professional soldiers and officers. The best trained and most reliable soldiers often were mercenaries, who made a living from hiring themselves out to the highest bidder. Patriotism had very little to do with those battles.

Everything was different in America. At first the colonies had no army. Instead, the colonists had their "militia” – the men who bore arms, ready to defend their homes. Though militiamen had a great fighting spirit and knew the territory quite well, they lacked training and discipline. It would be impossible to win the war having only the militia, an army was necessary.

The Continental Army was made up of men who were enlisted and paid by the Continental Congress. It was a small regular army of the European sort, but it could always be helped by militia, spread all over the country.

The military history of the American Revolution falls into two stages. The first one was the critical period from 1776 to 1778, when fighting took place in the north. Washington had to create the army and also to fight the British. One could hardly expect that Americans would win a battle. They actually lost many territories – Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and  Pennsylvania.

A true victory was necessary to raise the fighting spirit. In December  1776 Washington crossed the Delaware River into Pennsylvania. Across the river in Trenton (New Jersey) were 1,500 enemy soldiers. They had come from the small German state of Hesse and were called Hessians. Washington attacked them on Christmas night, when Hessians were sleeping after the Christmas party. More than 900 of the enemy were taken prisoner. About 100 Hessians were killed or wounded. Only 2 of Washington’s men were killed and 3 were wounded. After the battle Washington retreated across the Delaware. A few days later he set out again, that time doing battle with British troops at Princeton. The Americans were victorious. After that the British went to their winter quarters in New York and Washington spent six months in New Jersey.

The Americans were amazed by their victories at Trenton and Princeton. They wore rags, yet they had beaten a tough, well-trained army. As a result many Americans signed up for more service. The British gave up all hope of ending the war in the winter of 1776-1777. Washington’s army was saved.

In October 1777, Americans won another important victory. General  John Burgoine surrendered his army of more than 5000 British and Hessian troops at Saratoga (New York). The victory was a turning point in history. The French, who were secretly helping Americans, now openly proclaimed themselves allies. On February 7, 1778, the French signed a treaty of alliance with the new American nation. Now American independence seemed assured. The Revolution could hardly fail with the help of the money, supplies, troops and, most important of all, the navy of one of the world’s great powers.

Washington heard the welcome news of the French alliance at Valley Forge (Pennsylvania), where he and his army had spent a terrible winter. Still, he had kept his army together and Baron Von Steuben, who had come from Prussia and became Washington’s right-hand man, had drilled it into a better fighting force. Many other European officers came to help the American cause. From France came young Marquise de Lafayette, from Poland – Thaddeus Kosciusko.

The second period of the war came in the years 1779-1781. Washington had proved that he could not be easily defeated, so fighting moved to the south, where the British hoped that Loyalists would help them. In December 1778, Savannah (Georgia) fell to the British, and they swiftly brought Georgia under their control. In May 1780, Charleston (South Carolina) was captured. It seemed that the southern states were lost to the patriotic cause. But then on October  7, 1780, several regiments of backwoods militia caught a British force of 1200 Loyalists at King’s Mountain (South Carolina) and killed or captured all of them. The battle struck terror into the British army and aroused the patriots throughout the Carolinas. The Continental Army now proceeded to pick to pieces the British army, under Lord Cornwallis. Finally, the British general decided to head for Virginia. He fortified a position at Yorktown. It was a trap. American troops under Washington and a French force under General Rochambeau blocked the British on the land. The French navy under Admiral de Grasse cut Cornwallis off from the British ships. On October 19, 1781, Cornwallis surrendered his entire army and all his military stores. The British lost the war they had expected to win. They lost their 13 American colonies as well.

After signing the peace treaty in Paris in 1783, the 13 American colonies got not only independence, but also the territory between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River. The new country was to govern itself. The first President, George Washington, was elected on April 30, 1789.