The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the military conflict of the American Revolution in which American Patriot forces under George Washington's command defeated the British, establishing and securing the independence of the United States. Fighting began on April 19, 1775 at the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The war was formalized and intensified following passage of the Lee Resolution, which asserted that the Thirteen Colonies were "free and independent states", and the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia ratified the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.
In the war, American patriot forces were supported by the Kingdom of France and the Kingdom of Spain. The British, in turn, were supported by Hessian soldiers from Germany, some American Indians, Loyalists, and freedmen. The conflict was fought in America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean.
The American colonies were established by Royal charter in the 17th and 18th centuries. They were largely autonomous in domestic affairs and commercially prosperous, trading with Britain, its Caribbean colonies, and other European powers via their Caribbean entrepôts. The British gained victory over the French in the Seven Years' War in 1763, and tensions and disputes arose between Britain and the Thirteen Colonies over policies related to trade, trans-Appalachian settlement, and taxation, including the Stamp and Townshend Acts. Colonial opposition led to the Boston Massacre in 1770, which strengthened American Patriots' desire for independence from Britain. The earlier taxation measures were repealed, but the British Parliament adopted the Tea Act in 1773, a measure which led to the Boston Tea Party on December 16. In response, Parliament imposed the Intolerable Acts in mid-1774, closed Boston Harbor, and revoked Massachusetts' charter, which placed the colony under the British monarchy's direct governance.
These measures stirred unrest throughout the colonies, 12 of which sent delegates to Philadelphia in early September 1774 to organize a protest as the First Continental Congress. The Congress drafted a Petition to the King asking for peace, and threatened a boycott of British goods known as the Continental Association if the Intolerable Acts were not withdrawn. Fighting began in March at the Battle of Lexington on April 19, 1775. In June, the Second Continental Congress formalized Patriot militias into the Continental Army and appointed George Washington commander-in-chief. The coercion policy advocated by the North ministry was opposed by a faction within Parliament, but both sides saw conflict as inevitable. Congress sent the Olive Branch Petition to George III in July 1775, but the King rejected it. Parliament declared the colonies to be in a state of rebellion in August.
Washington's forces drove the British army out of Boston during the Siege of Boston in March 1776, and British commander in chief William Howe launched the New York and New Jersey campaign. Howe captured New York City in November, and Washington responded by secretly crossing the Delaware River and winning small but significant victories at Trenton and Princeton, which restored Patriot confidence. In summer 1777, Howe succeeded in taking Philadelphia, forcing the Continental Congress to flee Philadelphia.
In October, a separate British force under John Burgoyne was forced to surrender at Saratoga. This victory was crucial in convincing France and Spain that an independent United States was a viable entity. With Philadelphia occupied, Washington and 12,000 Continental Army troops secured refuge in Valley Forge from December 1777 to June 1778. At Valley Forge, General von Steuben drilled the Continental Army into a more viable fighting unit, but as many as 2,000 Continental Army troops died from disease and possibly malnutrition over a brutal winter.
France provided the Continental Army with informal economic and military support from the beginning of the war. After Saratoga, the two countries signed a commercial agreement and a Treaty of Alliance in February 1778. Spain also allied with France against Britain in the Treaty of Aranjuez in 1779, though it did not formally ally with the Americans. Nevertheless, access to ports in Spanish Louisiana allowed the Patriots to import arms and supplies, while the Spanish Gulf Coast campaign deprived the Royal Navy of key bases in the south.
This undermined the 1778 strategy devised by Howe's replacement Henry Clinton which took the war into the Southern United States. Despite some initial success, Cornwallis was besieged by a Franco-American force in Yorktown in September and October 1781. He attempted to resupply the garrison but failed; Cornwallis surrendered in October. The British wars with France and Spain continued for another two years, but Britain's forces in America were largely confined to several harbors and Great Lakes forts, and fighting largely ceased in America. In April 1782, the North ministry was replaced by a new British government which accepted American independence and began negotiating the Treaty of Paris which was ratified on September 3, 1783. Britain acknowledged the sovereignty and independence of the United States of America, and the American Revolutionary War came to an end. The Treaties of Versailles resolved Britain's conflicts with France and Spain.[42]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolutionary_War
| Colonial Era of the United States | |||
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| 1492–1776 | |||
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| Location | United States | ||
| Key events | Exploration of North America European colonization Native American epidemics Settlement of Jamestown Atlantic slave trade | ||
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| History of the United States |
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The colonial history of the United States covers the history of European colonization of North America from the early 17th century until the incorporation of the Thirteen Colonies into the United States after the Revolutionary War. In the late 16th century, England (British Empire), Kingdom of France, Spanish Empire, and the Dutch Republic launched major colonization programs in North America.[1] The death rate was very high among early immigrants, and some early attempts disappeared altogether, such as the English Lost Colony of Roanoke. Nevertheless, successful colonies were established within several decades.
European settlers came from a variety of social and religious groups, including adventurers, farmers, indentured servants, tradesmen, and a very few from the aristocracy. Settlers included the Dutch of New Netherland, the Swedes and Finns of New Sweden, the English Quakers of the Province of Pennsylvania, the English Puritans of New England, the Virginian Cavaliers, the English Catholics and Protestant Nonconformists of the Province of Maryland, the "worthy poor" of the Province of Georgia, the Germans who settled the mid-Atlantic colonies, and the Ulster Scots of the Appalachian Mountains. These groups all became part of the United States when it gained its independence in 1776. Russian America and parts of New France and New Spain were also incorporated into the United States at later times. The diverse colonists from these various regions built colonies of distinctive social, religious, political, and economic style.
Over time, non-British colonies East of the Mississippi River were taken over and most of the inhabitants were assimilated. In Nova Scotia, however, the British expelled the French Acadians, and many relocated to Louisiana. No civil wars occurred in the Thirteen Colonies. The two chief armed rebellions were short-lived failures in Virginia in 1676 and in New York in 1689–1691. Some of the colonies developed legalized systems of slavery,[2] centered largely around the Atlantic slave trade. Wars were recurrent between the French and the British during the French and Indian Wars. By 1760, France was defeated and its colonies were seized by Britain.
On the eastern seaboard, the four distinct English regions were New England, the Middle Colonies, the Chesapeake Bay Colonies (Upper South), and the Southern Colonies (Lower South). Some historians add a fifth region of the "Frontier", which was never separately organized.[1] A significant percentage of the native Americans living in the eastern region had been ravaged by disease before 1620, possibly introduced to them decades before by explorers and sailors (although no conclusive cause has been established).[3]
The goals of colonization
Colonists came from European kingdoms that had highly developed military, naval, governmental, and entrepreneurial capabilities. The Spanish and Portuguese centuries-old experience of conquest and colonization during the Reconquista, coupled with new oceanic ship navigation skills, provided the tools, ability, and desire to colonize the New World. These efforts were managed respectively by the Casa de Contratación and the Casa da Índia.
England, France, and the Netherlands had also started colonies in the West Indies and North America. They had the ability to build ocean-worthy ships but did not have as strong a history of colonization in foreign lands as did Portugal and Spain. However, English entrepreneurs gave their colonies a foundation of merchant-based investment that seemed to need much less government support.[4]
Initially, matters concerning the colonies were dealt with primarily by the Privy Council of England and its committees. The Commission of Trade was set up in 1625 as the first special body convened to advise on colonial (plantation) questions. From 1696 until the end of the American Revolution, colonial affairs were the responsibility of the Board of Trade in partnership with the relevant secretaries of state,[5][6][7] which changed from the Secretary of State for the Southern Department to the Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1768.[8]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_history_of_the_United_States
The history of the lands that became the United States began with the arrival of the first people in the Americas around 15,000 BC. Numerous indigenous cultures formed, and many saw transformations in the 16th century away from more densely populated lifestyles and towards reorganized polities elsewhere. The European colonization of the Americas began in the late 15th century, however most colonies in what would later become the United States were settled after 1600. By the 1760s, the thirteen British colonies contained 2.5 million people and were established along the Atlantic Coast east of the Appalachian Mountains. The Southern Colonies built an agricultural system on slave labor, importing slaves from Africa for this purpose. After defeating France, the British government imposed a series of taxes, including the Stamp Act of 1765, rejecting the colonists' constitutional argument that new taxes needed their approval. Resistance to these taxes, especially the Boston Tea Party in 1773, led to Parliament issuing punitive laws designed to end self-government. Armed conflict began in Massachusetts in 1775.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands,[i] and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area.[c] It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations.[j] With a population of over 333 million,[k] it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C., and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States
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