“America” – 1763-1787

Coming of Age in an Age of Revolution

Indicators 3-3.1, 3-3.2,3-3.3, 4-3.1, 4-3.2, 4-3.3, 4-3.4, 4-3.5, 4.3.6, 7-2.2, 7-2.3, 7-3.2, 8-2.1, 8-2.2, 8-2.3, 8-2.4,

USHC 2.2, USHC 2.3, USHC 2.4

French and Indian War ends -1763

• The colonies found themselves free of the terrible threat from the French and their allies

• The continent lay open for them to explore and settle until England closed the way west at the mountains in the Proclamation of 1763

• The colonists found themselves faced with taxation to help pay for the war and the ever-present British soldiers kept for their protection

Seeds of Unrest

• Men like Samuel Adams in Massachusetts, Christopher Gadsden in South Carolina, and George Mason in Virginia, among others, started speaking loudly and often about breaking away from England and making a new country

• Many rallied to their side – especially as the taxes and restrictions continued to pile up

More Reasonable Men

• There were others with cooler heads who wanted to stay tied to England and enjoy the benefits of being a British subject

• They argued for calm and deliberate action that would not bring trouble for the colonies

• The revolutionary ideas of the Age of Enlightenment were taking root as more and more people discussed them.

French Philosophers wrote about freedom and the rights of man

Voltaire was a pen name used by Francois Marie Arouet in Paris in the 18th Century to write books that asked questions about the rights of man and criticized the Church and the Government. He was twice thrown in the prison of Bastille, so he started using satire which blends a criticism with humor and wit to create a story that criticizes as well as entertains. Voltaire wanted people to be able to speak and write freely

Other Philosophers

Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote The Social Contract to describe an ideal relationship between people and the government. He was criticizing the way the government in France was treating her citizens with no regard for their needs. He felt that governments should have a contract with people to protect them and guarantee their rights.

Charles de Secondant, Baron de Montesquieu

Montesquieu was a member of the aristocracy but he wrote books that criticized the leaders of Government and Church in France. He took great risks to criticize but he had specific ideas about how a government should work. France certainly did not fit his description. One idea was that there should be three branches of government and a system of checks and balances to keep one branch from becoming too powerful.

John Locke – an English Philosopher echoed their thoughts

John Locke believed that men were capable of governing themselves and they did not need a king to tell them what to do. Men of good will could take care of themselves and others. Locke believed that all men had basic rights such as Life, Liberty, and Property. He believed that government should respond to the needs of people or the people could replace the government with one that would meet their needs. Do you hear his words in the Declaration of Independence?

If you’d lived in America in 1770 you would have heard from these men -

• Voltaire – men should be able to speak and write freely – and criticize when necessary

• Rousseau – governments and their people should have a social contract to protect the right of the people

• Montesquieu – governments should have three branches with checks and balances

• Locke – men can govern themselves and they all have basic rights that need to be protected. If the government won’t protect them they can replace the government.

Americans Wrote Too!

Thomas Paine wrote about his ideas on Liberty and his criticism of the English government in a pamphlet called Common Sense.

It was as widely read as the Bible in the colonies.

Revolutionary Ideas fell on fertile ground because of English activities

• 1764-1766 -England placed taxes on sugar that came from their North American colonies. England also required colonists to buy stamps to help pay for royal troops. Colonists protested, and the Stamp Act was repealed in 1766.

• 1770 - Boston Massacre: English troops fired on a group of people protesting English taxes.

• 1773 - Boston Tea Party: English tea was thrown into the harbor to protest a tax on tea.

Stamps like this were to be placed on many different documents.

Paul Revere created this image of the Boston Massacre to anger the colonists. John Adams defended the soldiers because “it was the right thing to do.”

The Sons of Liberty, men dressed up as Indians, dumped the tea into Boston Harbor to protest the tax on tea. Tea parties were also held in New York and Charleston, where the tea was “saved.”

Fighting in the Early Days…

• 1775 - Fighting at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, marked the beginning of the American Revolution.

• 1776 – General Clinton sent a fleet of ships south to attack Charleston but the defenders at Fort Sullivan, under the leadership of Colonel William Moultrie in the famous palmetto log fort, forced the English to withdraw.

• July 1776 – The Declaration of Independence was proclaimed and war began in earnest.

This scene from the Battle of Princeton was typical of many early battles…

Sgt. William Jasper rescued the flag over Fort Sullivan, later Fort Moultrie…

Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson revised the Declaration of Independence many times before presenting the final copy.

Fighting did not go well in the North

• Washington and the Continental Army were fighting the finest army in the world and they were losing.

• Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys captured Fort Ticonderoga.

• Benedict Arnold and Horatio Gates were successful at the battle of Saratoga.

• Washington crossed the Delaware to Trenton and defeated the British and Hessians at Christmas.

• However, they lost many battles.

Washington held the army together

• The Winter at Valley Forge, 1777-1778 was the lowest point in the war. 3000 men died of starvation or from the cold.

A bitter George Washington — whose first concern was always his soldiers — accused Congress of "little feeling for the naked and distressed soldiers. I feel superabundantly for them, and from my soul pity those miseries, which it is neither in my power to relieve or prevent."

General Washington watches the suffering of his troops at Valley Forge

Surviving Valley Forge

• One could see bloody footprints in the snow left by bootless, nearly naked soldiers wrapped in thin blankets, huddled around a smoky fire of green wood.

• One could hear a chant from the starving soldiers: "We want meat! We want meat!“

• One could feel that after that winter, as a result of a vigorous, systematic training regime under Baron von Steuben, the army was transformed from ragged amateur troops into a confident 18th century military organization capable of beating the Red Coats in the open field of battle.

The War took a toll on the English

• The war was costly and difficult for England to maintain so far from home.

• Clinton decided to change tactics and he sent Lord Cornwallis south thinking the citizens of Savannah and Charleston with their close ties to England would welcome them with open arms.

• Some of the people did welcome the English but most rallied to defend their cities in separate sieges. The loss of Charleston in May 1780 was the greatest loss of the war for the patriots.

The Fall of Charleston was a disastrous loss for the patriot cause…

Guerilla Warfare

• With much of the Continental Army in the South in captivity, the highest ranking officer not held by the English in the South was Francis Marion. He had escaped before the surrender due to a leg injury.

• Marion and fellow militia officers like Thomas Sumter and Andrew Pickens began a campaign using farmers and backwoodsmen to make surprise attacks to annoy and harass the English soldiers in an amazing display of guerilla tactics, learned from the Native Americans.

• The ragtag army did its job and the tide began to turn.

Francis Marion led his band of farmers and hunters though countless

battles in the swamps of the low country of South Carolina. He was

known as the Swamp Fox.

Thomas Sumter led his band of militia through the midlands of South Carolina, concentrating his actions on the Tories who were siding with the English. He

was known as The Gamecock.

Andrew Pickens was an old Indian Fighter. He led his backwoodsmen and militia in the fight against the English

mainly in the upcountry . He was known as the Wizard Owl.

The Southern Campaign Succeeds

• On October 7, 1780, the Overmountain Men gathered at Kings Mountain, South Carolina, to give battle to Major Patrick Ferguson. Ferguson had threatened to march over the mountains and lay waste to their land with "fire and sword".  Ferguson was the only English soldier on the field that day. The rest were American Tories fighting with Ferguson.

• The arrogant Ferguson was killed and most of his army captured. Over 1100 of them were killed, wounded or captured. This battle was the turning point of the Revolutionary War in the South. 

At the Battle of Kings Mountain the Overmountain Men, rugged backwoodsmen defending their homes and families, allowed the English to climb the hill and hold the high ground. Then the sharp shooters and guerrilla fighters began their attack. At the end of the day there were no Tory fighters left on the hill, Ferguson was dead, and the tide had turned in favor of the Patriots.

The Battle of Cowpens

The Battle of Cowpens was a great victory by American forces under Brigadier General Daniel Morgan, with 700 militia and 300 Continentals over the forces of Colonel Banastre Tarleton with his legion of 1100 soldiers. American commander Nathanael Greene had taken the daring step of dividing his army, detaching Morgan away from the main Patriot force. Morgan called Americans to gather at the cow pens (a grazing area), a familiar upcountry landmark. From all over the South, patriots came to answer Morgan’scall on January 17, 1781.

Tarleton attacked with his customary boldness but without regard for the fact Morgan had had much more time to prepare. He was consequently caught in a double envelopment. Only Tarleton and about 260 British troops escaped, but the Americans suffered only 73 casualties (12 dead and 61 wounded).

There were other battles in the South

• General Nathanael Greene, known as the Fighting Quaker, and second only to George Washington, was the commander in the South.

• Greene’s plan was to drive the English from the South.• Under traditions of warfare, the English could retain lands

they held when fighting ceased. Greene wanted the English out of the South when the end came.

• He fought many battles, some of which he lost, but these battles caused the English to consolidate and withdraw. That was his goal.

Daniel Morgan was a Virginian who came to join the Southern Campaign. He had gained fame with his sharpshooters at the Battle of Saratoga. Now he applied his efforts in the South at the Cowpens and Eutaw Springs.

Nathanael Greene was a Quaker from Rhode Island who joined the cause despite being a Quaker. He was Washington’s most trusted commander and he put his powerful brain to work against the English.

The end of the Southern Campaign

• Important battles at Guilford Courthouse in North Carolina and Eutaw Springs in South Carolina were the beginning of the end.

• French arrived off Yorktown in October 1781 to put Cornwallis in a place from which he couldn’t escape.

• The fledgling colonial army had defeated the world’s finest standing army. At the surrender, the band played “The World Turned Upside Down”.

• There were other, later skirmishes, but the real fighting was over. A new nation was taking its first breaths of freedom.

Now to create a government for the new nation…

• In 1781 the states approved the framework of the new government – The Articles of Confederation established a loose union of states – a “league of friendship” between the states.

• There were flaws and weaknesses in the Articles of Confederation and soon the states were quarreling over many issues.

• The states had great powers while the central government had almost none. Trouble was brewing.

Leaders of the Committee that drafted the Articles of Confederation included John Adams,

Robert Morris, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson

Weaknesses in the Articles• The Articles united the thirteen American states into a

loose union capable of making war, making diplomatic agreements, resolving issues of the western territories, and little more. It intended that a weak national government could manage an emergency but almost nothing else.

* could not enforce taxes to pay national debts * no leader to enforce laws and no court system * could declare war but could not raise and army * could do nothing about mistreatment by other countries

A special meeting was called in May 1787 with 55 representatives to revise the Articles of Confederation.

The Constitutional Convention

• The Convention was made up of many of the finest men in America. Benjamin Franklin was the oldest at over 80 years of age. George Washington was elected president of the Constitutional Convention.

• Some had served at the creation of the Declaration of Independence.

• Some had served as soldiers in the war.• Some had served their colony and state during the

struggle for independence.

What Happened Next?

• Bringing such a group of powerful men to consensus would be a monumental and tricky task.

• What do you think happened?

“America” 1763-1787

Created by Carol Poole, December 2006