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Years’ War, and British efforts to suppress American smuggling, to prevent warfare with Indians. And to pay the cost of stationing troops in the colonies. You will also read about the emerging patterns of resistance in the colonies, including petitions, pamphlets, intimidation, boycotts, and international meetings. You will also learn about the series of events, including the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, and the Coercive Acts, that ruptured relations between Britain and its American colonies.
In addition, you will learn why many colonists hesitated before declaring independence and how the Declaration of Independence summarized colonial grievances and provided a vision of a future independent American republic. This chapter will discuss the composition of the British and American military forces; the Revolution’s implications for the institution of slavery; and the role of the French, Spanish, Dutch, and Native Americans in the colonists’ struggle for independence. Finally, you will learn why the Americans emerged victorious in the Revolution.
The roots of the American Revolution an be traced to the year 1763 when British leaders began to tighten imperial reins. Once harmonious relations between Britain and the colonies became increasingly conflict-river. Britain’s land policy prohibiting settlement in the West irritated colonists as did the arrival Of British troops. The most serious problem was the need for money to support the empire. Attempts through the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, and the Townsend Acts to raise money rather than control trade met with growing resistance in the colonies.
Tensions increased further after Parliament passed the Coercive Acts and the First Continental Congress took the first steps toward independence from Britain. Before the colonies gained independence, they had to fight a long and bitter war. The British had many advantages in the war, including a large, well-trained army and navy and many Loyalists who supported the British Empire. But many white colonists were alienated by Lord Denture’s promise of freedom to slaves who joined the royal army, and were inspired by Thomas Pain’s Common Sense.
Excellent leadership y George Washington; the aid of such European nations as France; and tactical errors by British commanders contributed to the American victory. British strategy called for crushing the rebellion in the North, Several times the British nearly defeated the Continental Army. But victories at Trenton and Princeton, in late 1776 and early 1777 restored patriot hopes, and victory at Saratoga, N. Y. , which halted a British advance from Canada, led France to intervene on behalf of the rebels. In 1 778, fighting shifted to the South.
Britain succeeded n capturing Georgia and Charleston, S. C. And defeating an American army at Camden, S. C But bands of patriots harassed loyalists and disrupted supply lines, and Britain failed to achieve control over the southern countryside before advancing northward to Yorktown, Va. In 1781, an American and French force defeated the British at Yorktown in the war’s last major battle. As a result of the war the States adopted written constitutions that guaranteed religious freedom, increased the legislature’s size and powers, made taxation more progressive, and reformed inheritance laws.