Lecture Objective
• Understand the impact the war had on
women, loyalists, and blacks (freed and
slaved).
• Understand the factors that allowed
Americans to win the war.
Britain
• Army advantages
a) Best equipped
b) Highly disciplined
• Problems:
a) Underestimated Americans
b) View: few disgruntled conspirators
c) Unfamiliar with geography/terrain
Patriots
• Advantaged
a) Own territory
b) Pockets of resistance
1) Various regions
Patriot Forces
• 200,000 men (action)
a) 100,000 Continental Army
b) Militia companies (local communities)
1) Resisted discipline
2) High desertion levels
African Americans
• Patriot forces
a) 5,000 blacks
• Southern protests
a) No black soldiers
• Lord Dunmore’s offer
a) Emancipation for British support
1) 800 slaves
By Jean Baptiste Antoine de Verger,
soldiers, watercolor
“Battle of Cowpens,” by William
Ranney (1845)
Cost of War
• 25, 324 Am. casualties
a) Continental Army
1) Highest casualty rate
• South and backcountry
a) Noncombatant casualties
Loyalists (Did not support war
for independence)
• ½ to 1 million
• Loyalists
a) Recent immigrants
b) Royal office holders
• 50,000 loyalist fought
• 80,000 fled
a) Canada, Europe, and West Indies
Treason Acts
• No speaking/writing against war
• Impact on Loyalists
a) Bills of attainder
1) lost property and civil rights
b)Violence from mobs
Loyalist attacked
Discussion Question
• During wars civilians are discourage from
expressing an anti-war sentiment? In your
opinion is this form of discouragement
justified?
Women and the War
• Managed farms
• Camp followers
a) Nurses
b) Cooks
c) Laundresses/seamstresses
• Prostitutes (few)
• Spies (few)
“Mrs. James Warren (Mercy Otis),”
by John S. Copley, 1765
Abigail Adams
Trenton Victory
• Nov. 1776 (morale down)
• Christmas Eve
a) Patriot surprise attack
• Trenton victory
a) No strategic importance
1) Significance: boost morale
Campaign of 1777
• Saratoga
a) British defeat
1) Surrender army (Oct. 19)
• Significant: Europe recognized Americans
had a chance
Foreign Support
• France and Spain
• Loans and troops (France)
• Beef (Spain)
• Why support?
a) regain lost territory
Native Americans
• Few neutral
• Most support British
a) Why?
1) Fear of American expansion
• Few support Americans (Oneidas and
Tuscarora)
“The Mohawk
Chief Joseph
Brant,” by Gilbert
Stuart, 1786.
-Sided with
British
-British
Canada
a) After war
Yorktown
• French and American
a) Alliance
1) Spring 1781
• American & French
a) Hammered British
• Gen. Cornwallis surrendered (Oct. 19,
1781)
“Yorktown Surrender,” by John
Trumbull, 1797
British Reaction
• Lord North resigned
a) March 1782
• No support for war
a) Parliament and public
1) Too expensive
• American independence recognized
Articles of Confederation
• Document
a) First national government
• Congress (assembly)
a) foreign affairs and matters of war
b) Maintain armed forces
c) Postal service
Financing the War
• Grants and loans
a) Foreign powers
• Paper currency issued
Paper
Currency
• complex
design
•No
counterfeiting
Solutions to Currency Problem
• Congress
a) States: raise taxes
• Problems
a) States refused
b) Own currency
• Bank of North America
a) Deposits: silver/gold coins
Negotiations in Paris
• When: July 1782 (signed: Sept. 3,1783)
• American demands
a) Independence
b) Removal of British forces
c) Territorial boundary: Mississippi River
Negotiations: Foreign Powers
• British
a) Loyalists
1) End confiscation
2) Compensate exiles
• Spain: regains Florida
Problems after the American
Revolution
• British troops
a) Great Lakes region
b) Encouraged Indian attacks
• Spain
a) Closed New Orleans Port
1) Blocks Mississippi
Incorporating Western Territory
• Northwest Ordinance of 1787
a) Requirements for statehood
• Land Ordinance of 1785
a) Survey and sale of land
1) problems: squatters
After the Revolution
• Slavery questioned
• African Americans
a) Many left w/British
b) Granted freedom
• Sympathy for women
a) Education opportunities
Slavery After Revolution
• Slavery abolish
a) Vermont (1777)
b) Massachusetts (1780)
• Gradual Emancipation
a) Penn., Connecticut, and Rhode Island
African Americas After
Revolution
• Growth of free African Americans
• end 1700s: 200,000
• Impact (institutions)
a) schools
b) Churches
• Phyllis Wheatley (poet)
Phyllis
Wheatley
• Kidnapped in
Africa
•Owners
a) daughter
• Died 1784