American Revolution

The immediate effect of the American Revolution was that the American colonies became a free and independent country. This revolution did not bring about any other huge and immediate changes....

These famous words were spoken by Colonel William Prescott, the military commander in charge of patriot forces at the Battle of Bunker Hill. His order passed into legend almost as soon as it was...

During the lead up to the American Revolution, and even during its first year or so, most colonists had no intention of declaring independence from Great Britain. As far as they were concerned,...

The American Revolution was undoubtedly a success in its immediate aims of ending British rule and establishing a system of republican self-government. It was less successful, however, in putting...

The Enlightenment, a cultural and scientific movement that started in Europe, stressed the idea of reason and rationality over superstition and religion. Enlightenment thinkers dedicated themselves...

One of the factors that increased nationalism in the 1760s was the French and Indian War, or Seven Years' War (1756-1763). During the war, colonists were connected through fighting for the British,...

Many colonists were quite upset with the King and Parliament for the perceived erosion of civil liberties that began in the latter part of the eighteenth-century. This began with the implementation...

The American Revolutionary War impacted African Americans and Native Americans in a negative manner. Despite the ideals of the American Revolutionary War regarding equality and freedom, slavery...

Getting support from any foreign country was very important for the colonists during the Revolutionary War. We wanted to get support from both France and Spain. The colonists had many disadvantages...

The answer to this question will vary somewhat depending on the geographic region of the colonies we are looking at, the class and political orientation of the British people in question, and many...

Women experienced the Revolution and the war in a number of different ways. Many, of course, experienced bereavement as they lost husbands, sons, brothers, and other loved ones in the conflict....

The British and American leaders during the Revolutionary War faced different sets of challenges that made for a difficult war to fight. British challenges often centered around the fact that they...

The colonies were able to achieve their independence through the Revolutionary War. The Continental Army was not successful during the early years of the war; however, Washington made sure that his...

There were several causes of the American Revolutionary War, and some of them were ideological. The colonists were upset that the British Parliament was violating their rights by passing tax laws...

One major difference was the social composition of the respective revolutionaries. In America, the leaders of the revolution tended to be men of property, men who had a stake in the stability of...

Despite disparate backgrounds and socioeconomic levels, the colonists had developed a sense of unity by the time of the American Revolution. They overcame their differences to unite in the fight...

The "Southern Strategy" was aimed at severing the Southern states (or colonies, as the British still imagined them) from the North. In this way, they would break the essential stalemate that had...

Even before February of 1778, when an alliance was established between US Congress and the French, France had provided unofficial support to the colonies with shipments of weapons. When the treaty...

The problem was that the British made no serious attempts to win over the hearts and minds of the American colonists. They continued to treat them with utter contempt even after the initial...

The colonists pinned the legitimacy of their rebellion on the concept of "natural law." This conflicted with British monarchial thinking, which said the colonists needed to obey their king because...

In my view there's little doubt that the Civil Rights movement and changing attitudes about race have affected the way the American Revolution has been perceived, by historians and to some extent...

There were many reasons why the colonial soldiers, though outnumbered, defeated the British in the Revolutionary War, among them the following: The colonists were more motivated than the British....

The greatest political change from the American Revolution was the formation of a new government. The Revolution proved that the colonies could work together toward a common goal—independence from...

Ideas from the Enlightenment contributed to the American Revolution in at least two ways. First, ideas from the Enlightenment helped to convince the American colonists that they ought to break...

In some ways, the American Revolution was revolutionary. In other ways, it wasn’t so revolutionary. The concept of a revolution as it relates to government is for a group of people to replace their...

Political compromise ultimately proved impossible because both sides had radically different understandings of what the American colonies were for. The British tended to regard the colonies as...

While there is much to be said for the previous answer, there are also places where I would take issue with it. Mainly, it is very hard to agree with the idea that those who won the war were “not...

This statement is false. The Continental Army could not have spent the winter of 1777-1778 in Philadelphia in any conditions. Philadelphia was, at that time, in the hands of the British. The...

This statement is true. The French did not send their entire military to join in the fight, but they did formally take the side of the colonists after this battle. Before the British surrendered...

Leaders of the the American Revolutionary War used the rhetoric of republican ideologies of liberty for all, freedom from oppression, individual liberty, and so on to encourage masses of people to...

After the French and Indian War ended in 1763, the British Parliament needed to raise a significant amount of money to pay off the debts it had accrued during the long conflict. The lawmakers in...

The answer to this question is subjective. Either answer can be adequately defended, and neither answer is more correct than the other. Additionally, "radical" and "conservative" are subjective,...

The Siege of Boston was important both politically/in terms of morale and in strategic terms. Politically, the siege (and the fact that the colonists won the siege) was important because it showed...

I assume that this question refers to the American victory in the Revolutionary War. This is the most prominent war in which exactly two countries helped America to win. I have changed the question...

It is overly simplistic to place the blame for this series of events on either side; in fact blame is hardly an issue. It is more nearly correct to say that America and Great Britain had over time...

The California Gold Rush was one of the greatest catalysts of westward expansion in the United States. Before it began in 1849, California was a sparsely settled region at the far end of the...

First, we should acknowledge that neither Britons nor Americans agreed amongst themselves about politics, including the nature of the proper relationship between the colonists and Great Britain....

There are at least two reasons for this. First, General Henry Clinton handled the Southern strategy badly. He antagonized many in the South who might have been loyal to the Crown. He did this,...

One can argue that the American Revolution was not a revolution because it did not fundamentally change the social or even the political system of the American colonies. Before the Revolution, the...

Manifest destiny had very little to do with the American Revolution. The term “manifest destiny” was not used until the 1840s. It referred to the idea that the American people were superior to...

When thinking about this kind of question you should stop to think about what the Tea Act was actually trying to accomplish. When the Tea Act was passed, the British East India Company was...

A true revolution can be defined as an event that causes a fundamental change in society. It brings about a true change in the organization of the society or in its power structure. Given this...

In order to create such an argument, you should look at who held power before and after the new country became independent. You can argue that the same class of people held power both before and...

Much of the history of the War of Independence is explainable in terms of the British inability to grasp the seriousness and the sheer extent of the resistance they were to encounter from the...

There is no objectively correct answer to this question. People could argue for the importance of more than one battle in this war. I would argue, however, that the Battle of Saratoga was the...

One of the central ironies of the American revolutionary spirit was how laden it was with internal contradictions. The Constitution of the United States commenced with the timeless words, "We the...