Christopher Coller - The American Revolution 1763-1783

T HE D RAMA OF A MERICAN H ISTORY

The AMERICAN REVOLUTION

17631783

Christopher Collier

James Lincoln Collier

ACKNOWLEDGMENT: The authors wish to thank Richard D. Brown, Professor of History, University of Connecticut, for his careful reading of the text of this volume of The Drama of American History, and his thoughtful and useful comments. The work has been much improved by Professor Brown's notes. The authors are deeply in his debt but, of course, assume full responsibility for the substance of the work, including any errors that may appear.

Photo research by James Lincoln Collier

COVER PHOTO: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of John Stewart Kennedy, 1897. (97.34).
Photograph 1992 The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

PICTURE CREDITS: The photographs in this book are used by permission and through the courtesy of:

Chapter I: Corbis-Bettmann: "Join, or Die," William Penn's treaty with the Indians. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation: dress fitting, tavern scene, oxen, slaves grinding corn, trader making a bid.

Chapter II: Corbis-Bettmann: various stamps, John Adams. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation: Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry, teapot.

Chapter III: Corbis-Bettmann: Samuel Adams, Zachariah Hood hanged in effigy, caricature of Britain without limbs, Boston Tea Party. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation: George III, tarred and feathered exciseman, Boston Massacre, afternoon tea.

Chapter IV: Corbis-Bettmann: Tory newspaper editor, battle at Concord. Jamestown-Yorktown Educational Trust: Brown Bess musket, Charleville musket.

Chapter V: Corbis-Bettmann: George Washington on a white horse, Indians fighting for the British, John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence, George III being thrown off a horse. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, Williamsburg, Virginia: Edward Hicks's Declaration of Independence.

Chapter VI: Corbis-Bettmann: General Burgoyne's surrender. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation: the Marquis de Lafayette, surrender at Yorktown. Jamestown-Yorktown Educational Trust: soldiers firing muskets. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of John Stewart Kennedy, 1897; (97.34); photograph 1992 The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Washington Crossing the Delaware .

AUTHORS' NOTE: The human beings who first peopled what we now call the Americas have traditionally been called Indians, because the first Europeans who landed in the Americas thought they had reached India. The term Indians is therefore not very accurate, and other terms have been used: Amerinds, and more recently, Native Americans. The Indians had no collective term for themselves. Today, most of them refer to themselves as Indians, and we will use that term here, while understanding that it is not very accurate.

1998 Christopher Collier and James Lincoln Collier

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the copyright holders.

First ebook edition 2012 by AudioGO. All Rights Reserved.

Trade ISBN 978-1-62064-499-7

Library ISBN 978-0-7927-9545-2

The AMERICAN REVOLUTION

17631783

C ONTENTS

P REFACE

OVER MANY YEARS of both teaching and writing for students at all levels, from grammar school to graduate school, it has been borne in on us that many, if not most, American history textbooks suffer from trying to include everything of any moment in the history of the nation. Students become lost in a swamp of factual information, and as a consequence lose track of how those facts fit together, and why they are significant and relevant to the world today.

In this series, our effort has been to strip the vast amount of available detail down to a central core. Our aim is to draw in bold strokes, providing enough information, but no more than is necessary, to bring out the basic themes of the American story, and what they mean to us now. We believe that it is surely more important for students to grasp the underlying concepts and ideas that emerge from the movement of history than to memorize an array of facts and figures.

The difference between this series and many standard texts lies in what has been left out. We are convinced that students will better remember the important themes if they are not buried under a heap of names, dates, and places.

In this sense, our primary goal is what might be called citizenship education. We think it is critically important for America as a nation and Americans as individuals to understand the origins and workings of the public institutions which are central to American society. We have asked ourselves again and again what is most important for citizens of our democracy to know so they can most effectively make the system work for them and the nation. For this reason, we have focused on political and institutional history, leaving social and cultural history less well developed.

This series is divided into volumes that move chronologically through the American story. Each is built around a single topic, such as the pilgrims, the Constitutional Convention, or immigration. Each volume has been written so that it can stand alone, for students who wish to research a given topic. As a consequence, in many cases material from previous volumes is repeated, usually in abbreviated form, to set the topic in its historical context. That is to say, students of the Constitutional Convention must be given some idea of relations with England, and why the revolution was fought, even though the material was covered in detail in a previous volume. Readers should find that each volume tells an entire story that can be read with or without reference to other volumes.

Despite our belief that it is of the first importance to outline sharply basic concepts and generalizations, we have not neglected the great dramas of American history. The stories that will hold the attention of students are here, and we believe they will help the concepts they illustrate to stick in their minds. We think, for example, that knowing of Abraham Baldwin's brave and dramatic decision to vote with the small states at the Constitutional Convention will bring alive the Connecticut Compromise, out of which grew the American Senate.

Each of these volumes has been read by esteemed specialists in its particular topic; we have benefited from their comments.

C HAPTER I : A R EVOLUTION IN THE H EARTS AND M INDS OF A MERICANS

THE BIGGEST PUZZLE about the American Revolution, one of the most important events of the modern age, is whether it had to happen at all. Was it inevitable? Couldn't leaders on both sides, most of them intelligent, educated, thoughtful people, have found a way around it? After all, only these thirteen of Britain's some thirty-odd colonies in the New World chose to break with England. To this day nations like Canada, the Cayman Islands, and some of the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean are still loosely joined to what remains of the British Empire. But the thirteen colonies from Georgia through New Hampshire on the Atlantic Coast of North America chose to fight for their independence from England, and thus brought into being the nation whose history we are studying, the United States of America.