After the battles at Lexington and Concord and the Battle of Bunker Hill, the patriots believed that they could easily beat the British army.
George Washington knew they were not an army and tried to reorganize them into one. This caused some old officers to lose their rank and they left the army. Washington had to persuade people to join the army.
While Boston was still under siege and before independence had been declared, Congress invited Canada to join the union. Canada did not respond but reports suggested that Canada would welcome an invading army.
Washington decided to send Benedict Arnold and Richard Montgomery to attack the British in Quebec and Montreal. Once they reached Canada, they had only 1,000 troops and Canada did not want to help. Arnold and Montgomery took Montreal and besieged Quebec during the winter, must in the spring they had to retreat to Ticonderoga. After that, the colonies did not try to get Canada to join with them again.
June 1776: Henry Clinton, Cornwallis, and Sir Peter Parker arrived at Charles Town, South Carolina and after a ten hour �duel�, the British retreated and left Charles Town alone for the next four years.
During March 1776, the British left Boston, and the city was free once again. After independence was declared, the Americans felt that were in a good position. They had beaten the British at Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, and Charles Town, and also caused them to evacuate Boston. But Parliament was sending over a massive number of troops at that time.
General William Howe and his brother Admiral Richard Lord Howe were given the command of the German mercenary troops sent by Parliament. They arrived in New York during August 1776 and not long after landed on Long Island. Washington did not have experienced troops in New York, and had to withdraw to Manhattan. Howe offered a settlement, so Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Edward Rutledge were sent to talk with him, but he only had the power to confer with submissive colonists. By November the Continental Army was in full retreat across New Jersey.
On December 25, 1776 Washington took his troops to Trenton and captured 900 British soldiers, and then gave the British another devastating blow at Princeton. Howe then occupied Philadelphia. Even though Howe occupied New York and Philadelphia, he had not captured any troops and only a small amount of territory.
General John Burgoyne was sent on an expedition for a march from Canada south by the Lake Champlain route. American forces led by Horatio Gates and Benedict Arnold fought him all the way. On October 17, 1777 Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga.
French Alliance
Parliament decided that the Americans had a chance to win the war, so they thought it would be better to give the Americans renunciation of Parliament�s ability to tax the colonies, a repeal of the Intolerable Acts, and a suspension of every other displeasing act passed since 1763. But the Americans were so caught up with the idea of independence that they did not want to return to England.
France decided to enter the war on the side of the colonies. During 1775, Congress had sent a secret committee to France to get foreign aid. Louis XVI sent people to observe the situation. The reports encouraged the Americans to negotiate with France. France gave the Americans one million livres� of munitions and supplies, and Spain had matched the amount.
Later, America asked France to help them in the war, but France would not enter the war unless Spain would, and Spain refused. France also did not want to enter the war when it looked like Britain was winning.
However, when France heard that the Americans had won at Saratoga, they realized that America could win the war. France also realized that Britain might become conciliatory and try to get the colonies to make a settlement with them.
France and the Americans signed an alliance on February 6, 1778. The purpose was to maintain the United States� independence. Neither France nor the U.S. could make peace with England without the others� consent. France renounced claims to British territory in America. This made France the first country to recognize America as an independent nation.
From Saratoga to Yorktown
In the spring of 1778, Howe was replaced by Henry Clinton and Clinton was told to leave Philadelphia and withdraw to New York. On Clinton�s way to New York, he met with General Charles Lee at the Battle of Monmouth Courthouse. However, Lee messed up and most of Clinton�s troops arrived in New York.
French forces were arriving in America at this time. The first French fleet ended up going to the French West Indies. The Americans had only a few ships in their navy. John Paul Jones raided British towns and seized their ships. Since Washington had no naval help, he did not want to attack the British.
Clinton pulled his troops out of Newport (RI) and sailed to Charles Town, capturing it quickly. Clinton went back to New York in June 1780, telling Cornwallis to capture North Carolina.
Washington set Nathanael Greene to move south and fight off Cornwallis. Cornwallis failed in keeping control of the Carolinas and was in Yorktown, VA. In August 1781, Washington finally received the news he wanted. A French fleet was heading for the Chesapeake Bay.
Washington took half his troops and marched down to Yorktown. He met up with other French forces and arrived at Yorktown with 16,000 troops. On October 17, even though a relief expedition was coming from New York, Cornwallis surrendered, ending the war.
Peace
Yorktown was both a French and American war, and therefore it could not end with Yorktown because France was burdened by a commitment with Spain. France had succeeded in convincing Spain to enter the war under the stipulation that fighting would not stop until the Spanish had won Gibraltar from England.
The Americans had agreed not to make peace unless France was ready to make peace, so the Americans had to wait for the capture of Gibraltar. Spain would not recognize American independence and once it entered the war on June 21, 1779, it did not pay much attention to the American cause.
After Yorktown, most English were ready to give up the colonies, but George III wanted to continue the struggle. Lord North was forced from office on March 20, 1782, and the king accepted a ministry that wanted peace. The ministry sent agents to speak with the American commissioners in France.
In August 1779, Congress sent John Adams to France as plenipotentiary. Adams was unable to negotiate with Great Britain until it recognized the �liberty, sovereignty, and independence, absolute and unlimited, of these United States�. Then he was to insist on the following boundaries: the Mississippi River to the west, the 31st parallel and the Flint and St. Mary�s rivers in the south, and to the north, the boundary with Canada.
In June 1781, French minister to the United States Chevalier de la Luzerne asked Congress to reconsider its peace-making arrangements. A committee of five men replaced John Adams as the sole negotiator. It consisted of Adams himself, John Jay (minister to Spain), Benjamin Franklin (minister to France), Henry Laurens (designated to be minister to the Netherlands but was captured by the British on the way and held in the Tower of London), and Thomas Jefferson (unable to go and dropped from the committee).
The committee had the following instructions from Congress: demand British recognition of American independence before doing anything, but they could accept any settlement �as circumstances may direct and as the state of the belligerent and the disposition of the mediating powers may direct�. They also were required not to do anything without the knowledge and agreement of the French.
The commission found out that Vergennes would not support the American demand for recognition of their independence, and that his secretary had encouraged the British think of a boundary east of the Mississippi, where Spain and England would divide the territory between them.
The commission then decided it would be in their best interests to negotiate with the British and not inform the French at all. By doing this, they managed to get the recognition of independence and John Adams�s original boundaries. On November 30, 1782 they presented the treaty to Vergennes. The commission had not actually violated the terms of their alliance with France, because the alliance stated that any negotiations would not go into effect until France and England had also made a treaty.
The treaty between England and America allowed France to pressure Spain to take East and West Florida and Minorca, and to give up the fight for Gibraltar. The final treaties were signed on September 3, 1783 in Paris. British troops left New York on November 25.
National Humiliation
When England made peace with America it did not think the country would last. The king sent secret orders to the governor general of Canada to keep Britain�s trading and military posts in the Northwest. Because of America�s weak central government, it was unable to force British troops to leave this area. England also did not establish a legation in America. England tried to acquire Vermont (Vermont had recently claimed its independence from both New York and New Hampshire and was there was fear that Vermont might become part of Canada).
Spain was trying to acquire the area of Kentucky and Tennessee, which had a relatively large American population. These settlers relied on the Mississippi River to trade in New Orleans, which meant they had to do business with Spain, since Spain held New Orleans.
In 1784 Spain closed the Mississippi to navigation by Americans. Spain hoped the settlers would abandon America and become Spanish citizens. In 1772 the Tennessee pioneers created the Watauga Compact, which gave them their own government. North Carolina tried to annex this area and the settlers considered choosing Spain.
In 1785, Don Diego de Gardoqui was sent from Spain to visit Congress and force it to accept Spain�s exclusive control of the Mississippi. John Jay (Secretary of Foreign Affairs) was told to insist that Americans should have the right to navigate the river. Gardoqui said that if America would give up navigation of the Mississippi for 25 years, Spain would recognize American territory as far west as the Mississippi and give Americans new trading privileges in Spain.
The northern states liked Gardoqui�s proposal because they needed new trading markets. The Southerners did not feel it offered them anything they did not have already, and those on the Ohio River disliked it most. The Northern delegates in Congress pushed through a vote allowing John Jay to accept Gardoqui�s offer. This caused Congress to be divided on north-south lines.
As Gardoqui was trying to cause Jay to �alienate� those in the Tennessee and Kentucky areas, Lousiana�s governor Esteban Rodriguez Miro was bribing the Westerners. In 1787, General James Wilkinson visited New Orleans and took a secret oath of allegiance with to Spain In exchange for trading concessions. In 1788, Wilkinson accepted a Spanish pension, and in return he had to cause the Tennessee settlers to renounce the United States. Other Tennessee settlers were writing the Spanish governor and telling him that if the United States broke up, they would want to become Spanish citizens.
American ships in the Mediterranean had problems also. In the Mediterranean, countries could protect their merchant ships from pirates by paying the Moroccan leaders an annual tribute. American ships were safe while they had the British flag, but once they were independent and flew the Stars and Stripes the pirates preyed on them. American captains and crews were auctioned off as slaves. Congress paid Morocco in 1787 to save its ships, but Morocco could not stop the ships from being attacked by other North African pirates.
While peace was being negotiated, many American merchants purchased British dry goods and hardware. The British extended credits to many of these merchants and the merchants then extended these credits to the retailers and consumers. Under the colonial economy, Americans paid for British imports by selling their own goods to world markets and other markets in the British Empire. Now that Americans were no longer part of the Empire, Britain closed West Indies� ports to Americans. The price of American produce dropped, merchants did not have markets to trade in, and an economic depression occurred, while British merchants wanted their debts repaid.
By extending credit and closing ports to Americans, Britain tried to regain economic dominance over the country it had lost political dominance of. John Adams tried to ask England for a commercial treaty but Britain would not listen.
American citizens demanded retaliation for British restrictions on trade and some states passed laws that discouraged imports. However, the regulations imposed by each state harmed the economies of sister states. A national regulation of commerce to create a balanced economy was needed. However, under the Articles of Confederation, Congress had no power to regulate commerce and therefore could not do anything to help the suffering economy.
Thinking Continentally (Shays�s Rebellion)
After the five states in the Annapolis Convention had convened, they disbanded the convention calling for a convention in Philadelphia in 1787 to make �the constitution of the Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union�.
News of the convention reached all thirteen states, as did some news from Massachusetts. In the summer of 1786, the farmers in the poor western part of the state, laboring under a heavy debt, had called many local conventions to demand change in the state government. They disliked the state senate and claimed it was needless and easily influenced by the aristocracy. They also disliked the heavy taxation of land and the high fees charged by lawyers and county courts. After these conventions, mobs prevented county courts from sitting and put an end to the collection of debts.
In the winter of 1786-87, 2,000 western farmers under Daniel Shays led an armed rebellion. The Massachusetts militia easily put down the rebellion, but it caused alarm in other states because the rebellion threatened law and order, property, and deprived creditors of money owed to them. State governments feared that poor debtors in their states might follow Shays�s example. For many states, peace had not stopped the continued minting of paper money, which caused inflation and defrauded creditors. Rhode Island had made it illegal to refuse the worthless paper money for debt payments.
Many people began to realize that the feared aristocratic danger of a strong national government could be no worse than the harsh state governments, and that the states� actions were threatening the principles of the Revolution. A strong national government was needed to answer the country�s needs and to prevent the states from treating their citizens irresponsibly. Madison believed the existence of a republican government was at stake, and so every state but Rhode Island agreed to send delegates to the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia.
