American Revolution

The war between the American colonies from 1775-1783 against the English crown after which they gained their political freedom and formed the United States of America. It lead to the "Declaration of Independence" of 1776.

Reasons were various. The strongest cause was that after the so called "Seven Years War" with France the British government tried to impose the costs of the war onto its colonial subjects. They did so by increasing the taxes and caused the famous "Boston Tea Party". The tensions intensified with the motherland and thus the British imposed restrictive measures, like the Intolerable Acts and Coercive Acts (1774) which ruled that e.g. ports were closed or assemblies were prohibited. Another reason for the war between the colonies and the crown was that people in the colonies were used to lead their lives without interference from London, since they had lived for several generations abroad. When the King began to levy taxes on the "Americans" and still did not give the people in the colonies members in parliament, they began to resist against this measure. The slogan "No taxation without representation", coined by Boston Reverend Jonathan Mayhew in 1750, gained more public support. Another ideological source for the revolutionaries was Thomas Paine with his work Common Sense (published January 1776) with its cause for human rights. [Bruce Lancaster. The American Revolution. American Heritage: NYC 2001, p. 2-4.] [Joseph C. Morton. "The American Revolution." Greenwood: Westport, 2003, p. 17-21.] Accordingly, for McIlwain, the revolution was a constitutional resistance to political acts, namely the collection of taxes. [Charles Howard McIlwain. "The American Revolution: A Constitutional Interpretation." 2nd edition MacMillan: NYC 2006, p. 2.] For others, it was a war fought for breaking away from the monarchical system that dominated and influenced daily life.[Andrew Frank (Ed.). "American Revolution: people and perspectives." ABC: Santa Barbara, 2008.p. xii.]

Lancaster divides the American revolution into two phases: the first one ranges from 1763, when people started to realize that they could live without interference from the other side of the Atlantic until after they had gained control over some of the French parts. The second part is the actual war. According to Lancaster, the soldiers were driven by four motifs: faith in God, their country, their family and freedom. [Bruce Lancaster. The American Revolution. American Heritage: NYC 2001, p. 3]

Most problematic for the "rebels" was how to finance their army, because they had no income from taxes. In the end, the Americans, lead by General George Washington, won against George III's professionally trained soldiers. Washington was well aware that the English easily outnumbered his troops and so he dragged them into situations advantageous to him and his men. [Bruce Lancaster. The American Revolution. American Heritage: NYC 2001, p. 1-5.]

Sources: Brandt, Stefan, "American Revolution: Pop Quiz", Course Materials: Session 3.

Fiske, John. The American Revolution. New York: Adamant, 2005.

Jensen, Merrill. The Founding of A Nation. A History of the American Revolution 1763-1776. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2004.

Lancaster, Bruce. The American Revolution. New York: American Heritage, 2001.

McIlwain, Charles Howard. The American Revolution: A Constitutional Interpretation. 2nd edition, London/New York: MacMillan, 2006.

Morton, Joseph C. The American Revolution. Westport: Greenwood, 2003.

Frank, Andrew (Ed.). American Revolution: people and perspectives. Santa Barbara: ABC, 2008.