| abstract
| - Once upon a time, in 1775, The British Empire dominated North America, having won Canada from France in the Seven Years War. However, a series of unresolved issues of authority and administration met with misunderstandings, misjudgements and tragedies which led to most of the colonies of British North America seceding from the Empire and later declaring themselves the United States of America. In the beginning, roughly a third of colonists felt this was justified; roughly a fifth never did, and a twentieth left the new country to remain the crown's loyal subjects. This was the American Revolution, the era of King George III of the United Kingdom, General Charles Cornwallis, King Louis XVI of France, General Jean-Baptiste de Vimeur, George Washington, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benedict Arnold, the crossing of the Delaware, the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere (which was actually a rather underwhelming affair). As it would later be portrayed, this was a time when idealistic demagogues overthrew a tyrant and gave voting rights to the people -- Well, if you were north-european, owned land, and male. The time of Modern Mythology in America, in short. In reality, it was a lot more complex, and in many ways far more divisive and terrible, and human - and British - than that. Britain's colonies on the North American mainland were largely co-operative and patriotic until after the Seven Years War. Britain's sound victory had three very important consequences. First, the seizure and formal concession of French Canada effectively removed the immediate security threat France had posed to British America. This meant that local elites no longer had any reason to avoid antagonising the central government in disputes between the two. Second, it left France thirsting for revenge and willing to pay a high price to get it. Third, it left the Crown short of cash. This led King George III and his cabinet to conduct an overhaul of the Crown's finances. This meant the cutting of defense expenditure, limited campaigns against governmental corruption, moves to ensure the proper collection of taxes and new laws to close tax loopholes. This led the civil service to re-examine the colonies' fiscal relationship to the crown relative to other possessions. Local elites in northern America worried that this could well mean the introduction of indirect taxes (tariffs, tolls, licenses &c) in line with Britain itself, which would hit themselves hardest of all. Despite the strong sense of patriotism and loyalty to the crown that most colonists possessed, many colonists were unhappy with the government. Allow us to explain; King George III was in many senses the glue that held the United Kingdom of England, Scotland and Ireland together. It was to him that every subject pledged their tacit allegiance as one nation under God, regardless of who might actually govern them in day-to-day affairs. But King George was not his government; they were a separate entity, capable of being judged on their own merits--you know, like, say, a chancellor. And as it happens, for the better part of a century many British citizens considered them Evil Chancellors, few more so than in British America. The American British had a somewhat distorted perception of the country's longer-term political issues due to their geographical remoteness and the Gossip Evolution that came with it. In this way, the American British came to perceive the national parliament at Westminster as being hopeless corrupt and inefficient. Which, to be fair, it was; Cavendish Bentinck's government - toppled after one scandal too many in 1773 - was quite easily the worst administration Britain has ever seen. The upshot of this was that many colonists felt (what they considered to be) a justified reluctance in following the laws and policies set down by Westminster and the Cabinet, despite being fairly co-operative with their own local (un-acknowledged and not always strictly legal) assemblies. Since the signing of the Magna Carta, it had been the right of all Englishmen to be represented before the King in Parliament, through which all laws were passed and by which all taxes had to be approved. However, the colonists - despite accounting for perhaps a fifth of the population of the British Empire by this point in time - had no Members of Parliament representing them; Scotland, a less populous region, had dozens. Just a century ago, the English Civil War had started when the Crown had tried to collect taxes outside of Parliament, ending years after his execution at their hands when Parliament invited his son to become King and rule with their consent. More recently still, when another King started looking a bit too Catholic Parliament invited a Dutchman, William of Orange, to take the Crown. He did so, without too much fuss, in what came to be known as 'The Glorious Revolution'. Long story short: by popular belief, the King ruled only with the consent of Parliament--and by extension, the people. And since the Cabinet and Parliament wielded the King's powers on his behalf (the "royal prerogative"), they ought to do the same in ruling with the consent of the people. In attempting to collect taxes from subjects who were not represented by Parliament, Cabinet was both exceeding its authority and (by omission) denying His Majesty's subjects their constitutional right to have a say in how they were governed. Compounding this issue were administrative issues. Westminster had assumed a largely hands-off policy in regards to the colonies prior to the Seven Years War. Since the beginnings of British colonization the Crown had subsidized the colonies and protected them, but had little to do with their day-to-day affairs and had been largely content to let them manage themselves. The Government was far more interested in the sugar-rich islands of the Caribbean: they were not only three times wealthier than the entire North American colonies, but easier to tax as well, due not just to their smaller size but to a stronger military presence stemming from the proximity of French and Spanish interlopers. As a result, the American-born British aristocracy had gotten used to running the colonies by themselves, and thus did not take it well when Westminster started interfering in their affairs. Tensions waxed and waned in the years after the Seven Years War as Westminster tried pushing the boundaries of collecting and enforcing new taxes in the colonies. Reactions in each colony were different, but the New England colonies in particularly fiercely resented these attempts. Much of this came from resentment at non-representation and Westminster's refusal to officially acknowledge the Colonies' self-appointed legislatures, but a good deal of it came from good old-fashioned greed, as smuggled goods were cheap and career smugglers had no wish to be put out of business. As it was, many people resisted payment, violently even. Eventually a majority of (generally conservative and aristocratic) M Ps came to see the issue less in terms of money and more in terms of their own authority. To them, it was no longer about the amount of money collected but rather their perceived right to collect the money at all. None of the controversial taxes were ever collected. As things stood, the colonies could've likely been appeased if Parliament had simply drawn up a few new electorates in the Americas, as they had done with Scotland and would in the not-too-distant-future do with Ireland: they'd have representation, but they would always be soundly out-voted by the majority of English M Ps on issues concerning them. That said, what the colonial elites really meant when they said they wanted proper representation for their colonies was that they wanted themselves and their own assemblies to be recognised by the crown, and they for one would have been likely to reject proposals for American constituencies for M Ps to Westminster as this would mean they would have to give up much of their semi-official power - in addition to taking a hit to the profits from their trading and smuggling operations in the form of tariffs and tolls. (Even so, Barbara Tuchman in The March of Folly examines the general ignorance and short-sightedness of Parliament and the Cabinet as an example of governments acting against their own self-interest.) Matters came to a head at the 'Boston Tea Party' of December 1773. The Crown had attempted to undercut tea-smuggling by arranging for a surplus of good quality British East India Company tea to be shipped to the colonies at prices which undercut those of the smugglers, whose tea was also of inferior quality. There was a catch, however; the tea was taxed. Anti-tax protestors and smugglers alike opposed the move, and the East India Company's ships were left at their moorings in Colonial harbours, the locals refusing to unload the cargo for sale. One company ship spent several weeks moored in Boston Harbor, holds full of tea, as the matter went back and forth between the authorities. Taking matters into their own hands, a group of wealthy smugglers dressed up as American Indians and dumped the entire cargo of tea overboard, assaulting several company workers in the process. The East India Company was a bit peeved at the enormous expense of this act of defiance, and company executives used their considerable sway with Parliament to persuade them to enact a series of punitive measures which in turn greatly inflamed public opinion in the colonies and led to the first meeting of the Continental Congress, which would become the colonies' revolutionary government. Blood was finally shed in April 1775 at the battles of Lexington and Concord, where local militiamen and regular troops had a stand-off when the regulars attempted to confiscate their weapons. No-one knows who fired the first shot, but the regulars, after brushing aside militia at Lexington, were ambushed by more militia at Concord and retreated in disorder to Boston. The bloody Battle of Bunker Hill two months later, followed by Westminster's rejection of the Olive Branch Petition sent by the Continental Congress, meant civil war. After years of marching to battle crying 'God Save the King!' and 'Long Live King George!' while carrying Union Flags and clashing with the army in the name of King George, it was to everyone's great surprise that representatives of the colonies gathered together to declare treason. That is to say, they wrote a document which said that their colonies were now independent of Britain. The importance of declaring such a permanent break with the government that would, if they were caught, get them all hanged is that they were trying to rally support for their cause - 'Give me Liberty or Give me Death' and all that - and that they were trying to get France on-side by showing that they really, really meant this rebellion business. As it was, it was a few years before Louis XVI felt confident enough in their resolve and ability to fight before he intervened. What underpinned much of the popular support for the declaration was in large part due to Thomas Paine, a very smart man who wrote a best-selling pamphlet called Common Sense. Common Sense attacked the whole concept of monarchy in clear, unambiguous terms, using the Bible to decisively prove that God did not in fact like Kings at all, whatever people might say about 'giving unto Caesar what is Caesar's'. Combined with the usual railing against the corruption of parliament and the cabinet and the potential tyranny of all Kings in general, this led to a sea change in colonial political opinion toward anti-monarchist feeling. By default, this led said anti-monarchists to favor a republican government. On July 2, 1776, the representatives of the Continental Congress voted to divorce the Thirteen Colonies from Great Britain. (For some reason, the new nation wound up celebrating its Independence Day two days later, on July 4, the day that the Declaration announcing the event was approved.) The Declaration was followed by a series of devastating military defeats. A large expeditionary force led by William Howe landed in Jamaica Bay, Long Island, and very nearly trapped and destroyed George Washington's army in Brooklyn. After what was left of the Patriot army escaped across the East River, Howe made another landing in Manhattan, and easily defeated the colonials again. The regulars threw the colonials out of Manhattan Island completely and sent them fleeing in panic all the way across New Jersey and across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania. New York City and all of New Jersey had fallen into the hands of the English. Most of Washington's army had ran away or been captured, and what was left was in dire straits. General Howe, who had defeated the Americans but missed chances to surround and destroy them in Brooklyn and Manhattan, now decided that the weather in December 1776 was too cold for further campaigning and the Army went into winter quarters. Washington seized this opportunity to cross back into New Jersey on Christmas night and attack the Hessian garrison at Trenton on Dec. 26. This victory, and another victory at Princeton a week later, greatly boosted American morale and eventually led the British to abandon New Jersey. Once the weather got warm in 1777, Howe wasted much of the spring and summer before putting his army into boats, sailing up Chesapeake Bay, and capturing the by-now-American capital of Philadelphia. However, he failed to win a decisive victory against Washington's army. Meanwhile, in New York state, an expeditionary force from Canada was decisively defeated at Saratoga and shortly thereafter surrendered to the Americans. The intensity of the fighting and the result persuaded France that the rebels meant business and that this war would be a good opportunity to get revenge on Britain - even if it meant siding with people who they had once fought against and were opposed to everything they stood for (A strong monarchy, a large nobility, a vibrant Catholic Church). Seeing which way the tide seemed to be turning, the king of Spain also declared war on Britain, and the Dutch - the second-biggest commercial power after Britain - started to bankroll the French and the British-American rebels. The colonies were now the least of Britain's problems; they were now practically at war with every major power except Austria, Russia and China, which had no navies with which to threaten Britain's dominant fleet. The transformation of a reluctant civil war into a world war with the foremost foreign powers of the day threatened Britain's holdings in the Caribbean and India. Britain itself was threatened, with the (Catholic) Irish making rumbles about siding with Britain's (Catholic) enemies again. All this led to a change in strategy. Having failed to achieve decisive victory in the northern colonies, in 1778 the Army shifted its efforts to the South, where there were more Loyalists (colonists still loyal to the Crown) and revolutionary fervor was weaker. The Southern strategy led to a series of successes. Savannah was captured and royal government was restored in Georgia. A Patriot army was captured at Charleston, South Carolina, another Patriot army was annihilated at Camden, and most of South Carolina returned to the Crown. Meanwhile, bitter over General Gates, his senior, stealing his credit, and politicians frustrating his military plans, General Benedict Arnold, hero of the failed Canadian expeditionary force and the great victory at Saratoga, defected back to the Crown in 1780. He conspired with the Army to hand over the Patriot fort at West Point, New York; the plot was discovered before he could act, however. Arnold defected without being caught and American morale suffered another body blow. Just when things seemed darkest for the Patriot cause the Americans again rallied. A Patriot victory at Kings Mountain, North Carolina in October 1780 was followed by an even bigger victory at Cowpens, South Carolina in January 1781, where some of the best units of the Army in South Carolina were captured. The Commander in South Carolina, Lord Cornwallis, abandoned that state and marched into North Carolina in pursuit of the main American army led by Nathanael Greene. Cornwallis defeated Greene at Guilford Court House, but took too many losses in the process. He led his much reduced force into Virginia and conducted a series of raids in the lightly defended Virginia countryside. Finally Cornwallis was ordered by Henry Clinton, the Commander at New York--who feared an attack from Washington there--to march to the coast and establish a fortified position. Cornwallis chose the city of Yorktown, Virginia. Unfortunately for Cornwallis, a French fleet seized control of Chesapeake Bay and beat back all attempts to displace them. This cut Yorktown off from relief by sea. Meanwhile the Franco-American army had left New York and was marching south. It arrived at the end of September and surrounded Cornwallis' army at Yorktown. Now completely cut off by sea and land, Cornwallis surrendered on Oct. 17, 1781, after enemy bombardment rendered Yorktown untenable. This decisive defeat marked the collapse of Parliament's will to prosecute the war, and the end of major combat operations in North America. After further fighting between the French, Spanish, and British at sea, at Gibraltar, and elsewhere around the world, the Treaty of Paris (1783) ended the war and established the United States of America as an independent nation. A twentieth of the population of the former colonies, some hundred thousand people, emigrated to remain under the patronage of George III. Most loyalists emigrated to Canada, a milestone in the history of that nation which effectively secured it for the Empire by reducing the potentially rebellious French majority to a minority. It would be a mistake, however, to think that the fledgling nation was now an incontrovertible fact. The United States of America were - 'were' and not 'was' because the constitution as known today had yet to be drafted and the federal government was very weak - under-populated, poor, debt-ridden and exhausted from a civil war which had practically torn them in half. They had no real army to speak of and no naval forces whatsoever. It remained to be seen if the secessionist colonies could form a strong and coherent state of their own or whether they would return to the Crown, by mutual agreement or by force. If there was one lesson history taught about republics, it was that they inevitably failed, and the state of the republic in the following decades would seem to confirm this assertion. Ironically, the Republic's survival was ultimately due to the actions of some hundred powerful oligarchs acting against the wishes of the majority of the people. Together they conspired to write and have ratified by the states a constitution, one that bound the states under a central government, to keep the fledgling nation afloat. Out of this clandestine agreement came the Constitution and, later on, the Bill of Rights as Americans know it today - the point of the bill being to undercut popular opposition to their attempt to subvert the power of the states to which most people who remained owed their allegiance. It would be another half-century, and a war that nobody really wanted before people could say with confidence that the new nation would be around to stay, in one form or another. The American Revolution is oddly underrepresented in American films, given its importance.
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