Constructing Independence

“Winning” a War and defining a New Republic, 1775-1787

Winning the War

• Strategic Advantage—Rebels only had to avoid losing

• George Washington—Battle of Trenton

• Critical Year—1777—Saratoga—1778 Alliance with France

• Valley Forge

• War Shifts to South—Nathaniel Greene

Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze

British North America

Saratoga Campaign

Indians and the Revolution

• Fought for Land in order to preserve freedom• British Incited Indians defeated by G. R. Clark at

Kaskasia and Vincennes in 1778• John Sullivan dispatched Thayendagea and

Iroquois League in 1779• Indians moved beyond line of gringo settlement as

a result of American Revolution

Government During Revolution

• 2d Continental Congress was defacto government

• Articles of Confederation adopted March 1781

• New State Constitutions

Paradox of Slavery

• Africans fought for freedom in order to gain land

• Lord Dunmore’s proclamation• Africans fought alongside of white colonials• Some northern states begin to abolish slavery• Slavery remained a core value of the United

States

Women and the Revolution

• Some women actually saw combat• Some women (Judith Sargent Murray) argued for

political rights for women• Women (Mercy Otis Warren, Abigail Adams)

participated in political discourse• Men confined women to the “domestic sphere.”• Middle and Upper Class White women create

“Republican Motherhood”

Mercy Otis Warren

Abigail Smith Adams

Revolution for Women?

"Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. . . . Emancipating all nations, you insist upon retaining absolute power over Wives. . . . . If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies, we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice or Representation."

Abigail Adams, March 1776 to her husband John Adams, when the Second Continental Congress was drafting the Declaration of Independence

Freedom of Religion

• No Established church

• Dissenters gain legal toleration in most states

• Dissenter denominations organize

• Notion of freedom of religion became part of first amendment.