The Super Summary of World History (31 page)

As the Native Americans endured obliteration new problems arose for the settlers. French colonization of Canada and sections of America triggered a large war. In 1682, France claimed Louisiana and the Mississippi River lands. (All lands drained by the Mississippi River) Then in 1718, the French founded the city of New Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi River, effectively gaining control of the waterway. In fact, all over the world the French and English were having problems with one another, and in
1756
they went to war. (Note the date, 20 years before the American Revolution) The war was termed the
Seven
Years
War
in Europe, but in America it was called the
French
and
Indian
War
because the French took several Indian tribes as allies. This was a world war, with France and England battling over colonies and the seas connecting them. England won a decisive series of victories outside of Europe. In Europe the Seven Years War ended in a draw with England and Prussia fighting France, Austria, and Russia to a standstill. In the New World, England won in Canada and the frontiers of the American colonies. America and Canada became fully English possessions, with France’s last bastion being Louisiana. The war ended in 1763 with the Treaty of Paris which gave England control of much of the world.

The American colonists were not “American” so much as they were English. At least that was what everyone thought at the end of the French and Indian War in 1763; however, back in England the Parliament believed the American colonists should pay their fair share of the war’s cost. After all, the French and Indian war won the colonists a lot in terms of western land and safety from further French attacks. With the French gone, the Indian problems would abate because no outside force remained to unite them against the colonists. As a result, the English Parliament passed a series of acts
taxing
the colonists in America for the war. Some New England colonists objected to the taxes and started stirring up problems for the Crown (the English king and Parliament). These rabble-rousers felt America and England were different and the colonies should govern themselves separately. Early on, most people in the colonies did not want a break with England, although they did want respect. Unfortunately for the Crown, Parliament handled the growing crisis dreadfully, and more and more formerly English colonists became Americans by rejecting the idea of English rule.

The
American
Revolution 1775
to
1782

Background

How did it happen that Englishmen in the colonies became Americans who wanted to rule themselves? This is one of those all important questions that is impossible to answer. How people separate from one government and decide to tie themselves to another is a critical study, but little useful information is around on which to test the theories.

A few items probably played a large role in the changeover. 1)
From
the
start
Americans
ruled
themselves
. The home country was far away, and they simply could not wait for decisions from England to govern their lives. From the
Mayflower
Compact
in
1620
to the
Articles
of
Confederation
(and later the Constitution), the Americans had written their own rules and had put together institutions to enforce these rules. Once a group of people start governing themselves it is hard to put up with someone coming in and overriding local decisions. 2) Another factor might be that the
colonists
had
built
their
lives
around
the
New
World,
not
the
old
. By 1776 they had lived in America for generations, and many of those people living in the New World had never seen the home country. England, as a place, meant little to them. 3) Note that
many
wealthy
men
in
the
colonies
were
self-made,
and they balked at being told what to do.
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The mother country deserved respect, but who gave them the right to order people about like servants? Successful colonists thought Parliament was out to skin them (financially) for a war the colonists did not ask for but fought to a successful conclusion with their own blood and money. Now the Crown wanted more. This aroused the ire of self-made men who wanted to control their own destiny.

Other English colonies such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, and many others stayed with England until about 1950. What was the difference? England gave her colonies protection and prosperity through trade with the mother country. Protection is crucial, and without trade the faraway colonies would struggle to survive. The non-rebelling colonies saw England’s protection and trade as more important than self-rule. The Americans seemed to feel these were not critical items. France was a threat to the west of the American colonies, and Canada would be a threat to the north if the rebellion were successful. How could the Americans be sure of protecting themselves and maintaining their trading relationships? In fact, they could not have been certain of maintaining their freedom or their trade, but freedom was more important than potential problems. Perhaps it came down to good propaganda from American radicals who wanted to be free from England. The distinction between the attitude in America and the other colonies is the critical part. Why the attitudes were so different is hard to say.

With extremists in the American colonies making trouble and some moderates joining in, England decided to get tough and suppress these rumblings of discontent. The English Parliament did not do well in deciding how to handle the problem.
Soon,
the
Parliament
turned
a
problem
into
a
crisis
and
then
a
crisis
into
a
shooting
war
. Propaganda turned out by a rather well-to-do group of men in America made each English move a hammer blow against liberty and another insult to the colonists. In 1774, Britain passed the “Intolerable Acts”
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to punish American colonists for the Boston Tea Party.
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Soon thereafter British troops occupied Boston. The mood in the American colonies grew incredibly sour, and as the British Army stepped up its efforts to make sure no revolution occurred it accomplished the opposite.
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Lexington
and
Concord—the
War
begins

1775

The American Revolution became a shooting war on April 19, 1775, when a group of British soldiers set out to capture and destroy rebel rifles and gunpowder stored at Concord, Massachusetts. As the British advanced on
Lexington
, a small village along the way to Concord, a group of farmers turned riflemen entitled “
Minute
Men
” barred the way at a small bridge. The English commander called for the men to disperse, but they stayed. Someone, no one knows who, fired off a rifle and the Red Coats then leveled a blast at the Minute Men.
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Those who gathered to stop the English advance suffered several casualties, and the unharmed English marched on to Concord. The word of the confrontation spread across the countryside, and the surrounding farmers grabbed their rifles and ran to fight the British troops who had shot down their neighbors.

As the English were returning from Concord through the rolling hills and lightly forested area making up the countryside, the Americans gathered in small concealed groups and began to shoot the British column to pieces. Britain’s troops had learned to fight on the broad plains of Europe, where armies smartly lined up about one hundred yards from each other and fired away. As the British troops in their red coats marched in line back to Boston the Americans used low stone walls, trees, and bushes to hide behind while they fired at the soldiers. The British tried to handle the incoming rifle fire by turning squads toward the Americans and firing off a large volley, but the Americans were behind faraway barriers making the English musket fire ineffective. As long as the attackers stayed away from the English column, and behind walls, they could inflict casualties while losing almost none of their own.
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The British march back to base was a nightmare for the troops, and even though they arrived back at the city of Boston intact they lost many men. The American Revolution had commenced.

The
Continental
Congress
assembled and appointed
General
George
Washington
to lead the American cause.
George
Washington
was
the
indispensable
man
for America and the Revolution
.
Washington was the heart and soul of the revolution. Without George Washington there would be no United States of America and no worthwhile constitution. He was a man who did not obsess over power or glory. When offered the office of king after the revolution he turned it down, and he left the office of president after two terms when he could have stayed for 10 if he wanted. Washington was a giant of virtue among men. With all this said, he was human. He made errors, and his army paid dearly for them; however, no better man ever lived, and his honor and courage were the keys to victory as much as his leadership in the field. In terms of his impact on history, it is every bit as great as Julius Caesar or Napoleon.

Washington’s men had managed to surround a British army in Boston, and they had taken the critical high ground of
Bunker
Hill
overlooking the harbor, thus endangering the ability of English warships to stay and support the troops.
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Overnight, it seemed to the astonished British commanders, the American “rebels” on the hill erected dug-in positions with trenches and earthworks.
General
Howe
, the British commander, decided to assault the hill after a crucial maneuver to cut off and isolate the Americans was botched. The English “won” the battle of Bunker Hill, but the cost was very high. It took three assaults to take the bastion, and even the last assault was facing destruction when the rebels ran out of bullets. Most of the Americans got away. The position endangering the harbor was taken, but the English remained surrounded in the town. Howe decided to depart by sea for New York, thus escaping the siege and achieving better accommodations. This left Boston to the American patriots.

The
Declaration
of
Independence

1776

The Continental Congress argued about independence from England. Even though a shooting war was underway many colonists wanted to stay with England. After the revolution was over,
John
Adams
estimated that no more than one-third of Americans actively supported a break with the British Empire. As the debate in Congress droned on, a fellow named
Thomas
Payne
published a pamphlet entitled
Common
Sense
arguing to the vacillating public that Americans should be free. Should an island rule a continent, he asked? Public opinion then shifted strongly toward independence. Congress responded and on
July
4,
1776,
adopted
the
Declaration
of
Independence,
expertly penned by
Thomas
Jefferson
. The break with England was complete, and now the Americans had to make the dream a reality. All those signing the declaration were traitors, and England would be overjoyed to hang them. Each pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to the cause of freedom, and almost to a man they would sacrifice all three in the war for independence. Some died in action, many suffered bankruptcy, and all were stressed to the limit by the needs of the cause. These were the men who not only signed the charter of freedom but
put
everything
they
had
on
the
line
in a bid for success. Modern critics call them “dead white men.” But they were among the greatest men that ever lived. They signed a document declaring war on the mightiest empire of the time—the British Empire—and the chances of success were meager. England had fleets of ships while the Americans possessed none; England benefited from massive numbers of well-trained men while the Americans mustered farmers who never fought in an all-out war; England had money, and lots of it, while the Americans had little money to pay and feed an army. And these were only a few of the problems. The disparity in national strength was profound.

Early
Defeats
and
Trenton—the
Last
Chance

These disadvantages were on display at once as the British inflicted a terrible series of defeats on Washington and his small army in the summer of 1776. New York and New Jersey easily fell to the British. Washington nearly lost his entire army, and the war, in these contests. In battle after battle he was outmaneuvered, and the English regulars and their German mercenaries, the Hessians, outfought his army. Washington’s men fought well enough for a relatively untried army, but they were consistently out flanked, outmaneuvered, or outnumbered so defeat followed defeat. By the winter of 1776, the men in the Continental Army were in rags, starving, and unpaid. Washington’s army had been 20,000 men, but the size had shriveled dramatically as defeat followed defeat. Many of the one year enlistments ended on January 1, 1777, when the army would dwindle to 3,000 men. Without money for food, clothing, and pay for the soldiers how could the revolution survive? The Continental Congress was better at debating than obtaining funds. As the British and the Hessians settled in for the winter, General George Washington determined to risk the Revolution on one gamble. He needed a victory to keep the cause alive, and now he decided to get that victory or lose the cause trying.
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