|
The American War Of Independence (or American Revolution as it is also known) was an inevitable conflict by which the thirteen British colonies in America separated themselves, or rather were separated by the French Army and navy, from Great Britain.
The conflict was the result of a number of issues, not least of which was an increasing population in the colonies would inevitably lead to a desire for independence, a desire which became stronger after the eviction of the French in 1763. Around this time the government of George III under Grenville, resolved to enforce more strictly the Navigation Act and other laws restricting American trade in the interest of England, and this also contributed to resentment among the colonists.
The war started in April 1775 when Gage, the British commander at Boston, encountered resistance at Lexington and Concord, and a Declaration of Independence was issued on the 4th of July 1776 which described the colonies as states and the country as the republic of the United States of America.
The colonists were supported by France who was at the time at war against England, and a number of private individuals, mainly investors such as Pierre Beaumarchais who both sought to damage England and sought rewards for lending money to the colonists, but were cheated by them following independence and the loans never repaid. Eventually the English were forced to surrender in America to a combined French-American army and the French naval fleet, and a peace treaty was signed in Paris in 1783.
It is a common misconception that the American War of Independence was somehow a heroic struggle by the oppressed colonists against the British government. In reality, no colony had an overwhelming majority in favour of revolution. Indeed in some colonies the majority was unfavourable. The loyalists in New England and the Middle States comprised a large part of the most respectable and eminent men and a large number of them were patriotic in their resistance to the efforts to overturn the existing government. As the Revolution progressed they were treated. with increasing harshness.
Exasperation against the American loyalists was so great that at the end of the American War of Independence most of them felt obliged to go into exile when the British troops withdrew. Thousands from the North went to New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Canada. From the South many went to the Bahamas and West Indies.
 Research American War Of Independence
|
Abbreviations
Warfare
