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Settlement Date
Admission Rank
Connecticut
Y
1635
5 (Jan. 9, 1788)
Ø
1
CONNECTICUT IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
The southernmost of the New England colonies, Connecticut’s first European settlers were Dutchmen who established Fort Good Hope near present day Hartford in 1633. English colonists made their way west from Massachusetts and built settlements in 1635, gradually displacing the Dutch. In 1639 the English created the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut to govern themselves. King Charles II granted the colony a Royal Charter in 1662 and Yale College was chartered in 1701. Wars with Indians and the French and often violent boundary disputes with Massachusetts and Pennsylvania over western territory helped prepare Connecticut for the Revolution.
After Massachusetts patriots engaged the British army at Lexington and Concord in 1775, Connecticut organized six regiments for service in the Continental Army. These Connecticut regulars served with distinction in the war. No major battles or campaigns were fought in Connecticut but local troops often skirmished with the British (based in nearby New York City) through 1781. British raids by led General William Tryon in 1777 and 1779 resulted in the looting and burning of several towns, including Danbury, New Haven, and New London. The turncoat General Benedict Arnold launched a similar raid in late 1781 notable for its destructiveness and the massacre of local militia who had surrendered. The strategic objective of the raids were Connecticut’s important mines and foundries. An iron mine near Salisbury was the colonies’ chief source of ore for casting ordinance. The chains used to block the Hudson river to British traffic were made from Salisbury ore.
During the Revolution, Connecticut was also home to many of the privateers that menaced British commercial shipping. Connecticut declared itself a free state in 1776 and organized a new government based on the charter of 1762. The Continental Congress mediated the boundary dispute with Pennsylvania in 1782. On January 5, 1788 Connecticut ratified the U.S. Constitution becoming the fifth state.
¶Delaware
Y
1627
1 (Dec. 7, 1787)
Ø
1
DELAWARE IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Delaware was first colonized by Sweden in the 1630s. They founded Fort Christina (named after Queen Christina) in 1638 near the site of present day Wilmington. The area was appropriated successively by the Dutch in 1655 and the English in 1664. As an English colony, small Delaware had its own legislative assembly but had to share a Royal Governor with mammoth Pennsylvania to the north. During the colonial period, fears of being annexed by Pennsylvania or by Maryland to the west persisted in the three counties of Delaware. Delaware was a slave colony with an economy dependent on tobacco exports, much like neighboring Maryland.
In 1774 Delaware formed a Provincial Congress and sent delegates to both the First and Second Continental Congresses. No major battles of the Revolution were fought in Delaware but the state provided its share of men and supplies. Food gathered from Delaware helped to feed the Continental Army during the hard winter spent at Valley Forge in 1777-78. Delaware Continentals served in most campaigns of the war. The brave resistance of Delaware troops under Colonel John Haslett was notable amidst the less heroic conduct of others during the American disaster at Long Island in 1776. Delaware regulars helped bolster the largely militia based armies that fought the British in the Southern Campaigns of 1780-81. After the war, Delaware was the first state to ratify the Constitution on Dec. 7, 1787.
¶Georgia
Y
1733
4 (Jan. 2, 1788)
Ø
1
GEORGIA IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
The first European colonists in Georgia were Spaniards who stayed from 1566-68 until the Indians drove them out. Thereafter, the coast of Georgia was of interest to the Spanish, the French, and the English not to mention pirates (like Blackbeard) who all coveted the Sea Islands. George II of England granted a Royal Charter to a group of men in 1732 that finally established a permanent colony there. General James Oglethorpe was the first leader of the colony which was conceived as sort of a rehabilitative penal colony for debtors to be released from British prisons. Many prohibitions were placed on the original colonists. For instance, both rum and slaves were forbidden. The Georgians chafed under the restrictions and soon Georgia became a regular royal colony with an economy similar to that of South Carolina.
Early in the Revolution, Georgia was marked more by sympathy for the other colonies than for real dissatisfaction with British rule. In 1775, however, Georgia formed a Provincial Congress and sent delegates to Philadelphia. In 1777 a state constitution was ratified. Georgia was largely untouched by the war until late 1778. British troops seized Savannah, the principal city, from the sea on Dec. 29, 1778. Soon the local Continentals under General Benjamin Lincoln were run out the state and most of settled Georgia was overrun. Partisan warfare like that in the Carolinas broke out all over the state. British troops withdrew to Savannah but they did not leave the city until 1782. In 1788 Georgia became the fourth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
¶Maryland
Y
1634
7 (Apr. 28, 1788)
Ø
1
MARYLAND IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Maryland was born from a land grant by Charles I to George Calvert, Lord Baltimore in 1632. Calvert was a Roman Catholic who wished to build a colony where English Catholics could be free from the persecution they faced at home. The first settlers arrived there in 1634. Catholics never reached great numbers in Maryland but due to the Acts Concerning Religion (articles of religious toleration passed in 1649) they were protected from persecution. The Calvert family retained considerable property and influence in Maryland until the Revolution. Tobacco was the primary industry in colonial Maryland.
In protest of the Tea Acts, Maryland patriots held a Tea Party on Oct. 19, 1774, dumping a load of tea from the Peggy Stewart into Annapolis harbor. The Provincial Congress of Maryland voted for independence on July 3, 1776. The state became home to the Continental Congress when it had to leave Philadelphia to convene in Baltimore. Maryland’s state constitution was adopted on Nov. 8, 1776. Lord Howe’s fleet sailed up Chesapeake Bay to disembark the Redcoat army near Elk River, Maryland. in 1777. Maryland was the scene of little other campaigning in the war but was a generous source of men and stores for General Washington’s army. The 1st and 2nd Maryland Brigades saw conspicuous service in battles far from their homes. The Pulaski Legion of the famous Polish volunteer, Count Casimir Pulaski, was recruited in Baltimore. Peace was concluded in Maryland when the Congress, meeting in Annapolis, ratified the Treaty of Paris in 1784. On April 28, 1788 Maryland became the seventh state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
¶Massachusetts
Y
1620
6 (Feb. 7, 1788)
Ø
1
MASSACHUSETTS IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Many of the acts that led up to the American Revolution occurred in Massachusetts. Its’ merchants were particularly sensitive to the taxes and controls on commerce imposed on the colonies by the Crown in the 1760s & 70s. England had always placed restrictions on colonial trade but generally they were laxly enforced. The French and Indian War (1756-63) however, had run the British government deep into debt. Parliament passed the Sugar Act (1764) and the Stamp Act (1765) to help pay for the war debt and for continued defense of the colonies. These acts, especially the Stamp Act, which taxed all paper items (newspapers, legal documents, etc.), aroused great resentment in America. Massachusetts was hard hit by the revenue measures and Boston merchants started a boycott on English goods that led to the repeal of the acts; but other acts followed and unrest increased.
Massachusetts was home to agitators like Samuel Adams and John Hancock who created “committees of correspondence” to encourage protest against what they considered unfair taxation. British soldiers were moved into Boston but instead of bringing order the “Redcoats” only fanned the flames in a series of incidents of which the most famous was the Boston Massacre (March 5, 1770) when soldiers fired into an angry crowd, killing five. Next came the Tea Act. Protests against the tax on tea and on the East India Company’s monopoly of the trade climaxed in November, 1773 when Sam Adams instigated the Boston Tea Party. Bostonians dressed as Indians dumped three cargoes of tea into the harbor. Governor Thomas Hutchinson replied to the “Party” with a declaration of martial law in Massachusetts.
Parliament responded to the Tea Party with Coercive Acts in 1774. Among the many measures designed to punish the colonies were laws that closed Boston Harbor to commerce, restructured the colonial government of Massachusetts, and provided for the quartering of soldiers in private homes. In June 1774 Massachusetts called for a meeting of representatives from all the colonies that became the First Continental Congress; one of the first acts of the Congress was to endorse a Massachusetts proposal to take up arms. British troops poured into Boston. Patriots in Massachusetts began forming into militia companies called Minutemen. On April 19, 1775 British troops marched from Boston and got involved in a running fight with Minutemen at Lexington and Concord. General Gage’s Redcoats got the worst of these first two battles of the American Revolution.
Massachusetts stood briefly alone against Britain and attacked! Troops from the colony quickly seized Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point on Lake Champlain. Soldiers from other colonies soon came to Massachusetts aid and besieged the British in Boston.
The British assaulted the American positions at Breed’s Hill on June 17, 1775 in the battle that became known as Bunker Hill. The Patriots were driven from their works but at great cost to the Redcoats. General George Washington arrived to take command of the siege on July 3, 1775 by the authority of the Continental Congress. By March 1776 the British had evacuated Boston. Massachusetts ceased to be a battleground in the Revolution after Boston was abandoned to the Patriots but continued to contribute to the war effort.
Massachusetts soldiers served with distinction in General Washington’s Continental Army up to the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, Va. in 1781. The great contribution of Massachusetts to the Revolutionary Navy was unmatched by any other state. Boston was the chief port in the thirteen colonies. Many Boston ships and seamen served as American Privateers, preying on the British merchant fleet. Also, Boston shipyards built warships for the Revolution. Massachusetts provided many able political leaders as well. John Hancock served as President of the Congress and John Adams helped draft the Declaration of Independence and to negotiate the peace treaty in 1783. Massachusetts’ state constitution, adopted during the Revolution, had many features later incorporated into the national constitution; such as a Bill of Rights. Massachusetts’ place in history as the cradle of the Revolution and as a key state in the victory is well deserved.
¶New Hampshire
Y
1623
9 (June 21, 1788)
Ø
1
NEW HAMPSHIRE IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
New Hampshire was explored by both French from Canada and English from Massachusetts. In 1623 David Thomson led a group of settlers up from Massachusetts to a site near present day Portsmouth. The early history of the colony is one of constant struggle against French and Indians and to stay autonomous of Massachusetts. The frontier conditions of New Hampshire produced independent people who shared the desire for self-government that sparked the Revolution.
British army supplies on the their way to troops at Fort William and Mary near Newcastle were seized by colonists in 1774. The Royal Governor, Wentworth was forced to resign in 1775 and the first Provincial Congress was convened at Exeter. A temporary state constitution was adopted by the Provincial Congress in early 1776 and on Jan. 5 of that year a Declaration Of Independence as well. Vermont, which had long been an area of contention between New Hampshire and New York, was declared an independent territory by the Continental Congress in 1777. No great battles of the Revolution were fought in New Hampshire but her sons fought well. In 1777 General John Stark led state troops into Vermont and defeated the British at Bennington. Poor’s Brigade of Continentals from New Hampshire were very well-regarded. New Hampshire was the “key” ninth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution that established it as the law of the United States.
¶New Jersey
Y
1617
3 (Dec. 18, 1787)
Ø
1
NEW JERSEY IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
New Jersey was a Dutch colony before it was an English colony. In 1618 the Dutch founded Bergen, on the present site of Jersey City. There was a Swedish colony on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River from 1638 until the Dutch absorbed it in 1655. In 1664 England similarly removed the Dutch from the possession of their colonies. The strategic location that made New Jersey the site of so much colonizing also made it the scene of so many Revolutionary War battles that New Jersey is sometimes known as the Cockpit of the Revolution.
The Provincial Congress of New Jersey first met in 1774 and appointed delegates to attend the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. There was also a Tea Party in Greenwich, N.J. that year as local men in Indian costume burned tea shipments in the Delaware River town much the way it happened in Boston. In 1776 the Provincial Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence and elected William Livingston as the Governor. After the loss of New York, General Washington had to retreat across New Jersey and the state was occupied by the British. On Christmas Night, 1776, he crossed back across the Delaware surprising and defeating some Hessian troops at Trenton, N.J.. Then on Jan. 3, 1777, Washington won a victory at Princeton and forced General Howe to withdraw from the state. In 1778, after the hard winter at Valley Forge, Washington won another victory at Monmouth, N.J. driving Howe to New York. This was the battle where a New Jersey wife, Molly Pitcher, took her husbands’ place at a cannon when he was wounded. Washington and the Continental Army spent the winter of 1778-79 at Morristown, New Jersey. New Jersey did not witness any more battles. However, on June 30, 1784 Rocky Hill, New Jersey was the emotional scene of General Washington’s farewell to the army. They fought so many desperate fights there it was the proper state in which to disband and march home. New Jersey was the third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution, doing so Dec. 18, 1787.
¶New York
Y
1614
11 (July 26, 1788)
Ø
1
NEW YORK IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
The Dutch were the first Europeans to settle present day New York, arriving in 1614. In 1625 they established New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island which Peter Minuit bought from hood-winked Indians for $24 worth of baubles the next year. In 1664 the British, under the Duke of York (the future King James II) took the Dutch possessions in the New World. By the time of the Revolution, New York City was a growing commercial center that serviced the inland farms of the Hudson Valley.
As early as Oct. 1765, the British were having trouble in New York when a Colonial Congress assembled to protest the Revenue Acts. The refusal of the Assembly to vote supplies for the Royal Army led to the Battle of Golden Hill in New York City between the soldiers and the Sons of Liberty (1770). During the years 1770-75, New Yorkers were fighting New Hampshiremen for possession of Vermont. In May 1775 those New Hampshiremen, led by Ethan Allen and Seth Warner took Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point, in upstate New York, from the British in surprise attacks. New York soon formed units of its own to fight the British. The Declaration of Independence was adopted by the state on July 9, 1776.
The British invaded New York in 1776. Both Long Island and Manhattan fell to the British in the summer and after a defeat at White Plains on Oct. 11, General Washington had to retreat west of the Hudson. New York City was occupied by the British and held until 1783. Also in Oct. 1776 the British took Valcour Island from which they could dominate Lake Champlain. The American patriot Nathan Hale was captured and executed by the British on Long Island for spying. Two British forces invaded upstate New York in 1777 from Lake Ontario and Lake Champlain as part the British plan to divide the state and the colonies. The force from Lake Ontario under St. Leger was turned back at Fort Stanwix when General Benedict Arnold brilliantly persuaded the Redcoat’s Indian allies to desert. Arnold again played a lead role in the defeat of the other British force under General Burgoyne at Saratoga whereupon Burgoyne was forced to surrender his entire army of 5,600 (the victory that gained French recognition and alliance). The only major actions in New York after Saratoga were Washington’s siege of New York City and the defeat of an allied Redcoat, Tory, and Indian force at Johnstown in 1781.
New York adopted its first state constitution on April 20, 1777 and elected George Clinton as Governor. The first House of Assembly met at Kingston on Sept. 10, 1777. The state signed the Articles of Confederation Feb. 6, 1778 and adopted the U.S. Constitution on July 26, 1788, becoming the eleventh state.
¶North Carolina
Y
1650
12 (Nov. 21, 1789)
Ø
1
NORTH CAROLINA IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
North Carolina was the site of the first English colony in America. In 1584 Sir Walter Raleigh landed a small group of colonists at Roanoke Island. When the ships returned with supplies for them three years later, there was no sign of the colony. The area saw a trickle of settlers from Virginia before 1663 when the region was included in the Royal Charter of Carolina. Carolina was split into two colonies in 1730. North Carolina had more in common with Virginia to the north -- both were tobacco colonies -- than with South Carolina. In the period just before the Revolution many Scotch Highlanders came to the colony in the wake of the “Highland Clearances” that followed the Prince Charles Stuart’s unsuccessful Highland Rebellion of 1745.
As early as 1768 there was organized resistance to British rule in the form of the Orange County “Regulation” that was defeated in the Battle of Alamance Creek on May 16, 1771, by the Royal Governor William Tryon. Mecklinburg County in North Carolina is reputed to have issued the first Declaration of Independence. As in all the Southern states the guerrilla war between Tory and Rebel irregulars was long and hard fought. The Rebels scored an important victory over the Tories at Moores Creek Bridge in Feb. 1776. North Carolina was the first state to instruct its delegation to the Continental Congress to vote for independence.
North Carolina became a battleground for regular forces late in the war when Lord Cornwallis’ army moved north from Charleston into the state and occupied Charlotte in Sept. 1780. In Oct. 1780 frontier militia from North Carolina as well as other states defeated a large Tory force at King’s Mountain near the border with South Carolina. General Nathaniel Greene’s victory at Guilford Court House on March 15, 1781, forced Cornwallis to Wilmington on the coast. Until word of the peace treaty reached the colonies, there remained constant fighting between the irregular forces. North Carolina ratified the U.S. Constitution on Nov. 21, 1789 to become the twelfth state.
¶Pennsylvania
Y
1682
2 (Dec. 12, 1787)
Ø
1
PENNSYLVANIA IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Pennsylvania’s first European settlers were Swedes who formed the colony of New Sweden along the Delaware Valley in 1638. In 1655, the Dutch, from their colony of New Netherland, drove the Swedes out. The Dutch in their turn were superseded by the British in 1664. Charles II made the entire area a land grant to William Penn in 1681 to be passed down to his heirs, hence the colony’s name. By the time of the Revolution, Pennsylvania had greater ethnic diversity than any other colony, containing large Scotch-Irish and German populations in its western parts. Philadelphia at that time was the largest and most cosmopolitan city in the colonies.
The First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia in 1774 and passed measures that limited trade with the Britain. 1775 saw the seating of the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia. The Declaration of Independence was written and signed there and the Liberty Bell rung there on July 4, 1776. Benjamin Franklin presided over a state independence convention that year also. The Continental Congress had to flee Philadelphia for Baltimore in late ’76 as the British under Howe approached. Washington crossed the Delaware (Christmas Night, 1776) to save the city for a time. Betsy Ross of Philadelphia presented him with (reputedly) the first American flag.
After British victories at Brandywine and Germantown in late 1777, both in Pennsylvania, the rebels had to abandon Philadelphia to Lord Howe and spend a long winter in Valley Forge west of the city. In 1778 the British left, Congress returned (July 2), and Pennsylvania ceased to be a major battleground of the war. Indians and Tories massacred settlers in the Wyoming Valley (contested with Connecticut) of the state in 1778. Pennsylvania was the first of the states to abolish slavery, doing so in 1780. The disputed Wyoming Valley was awarded to Pennsylvania in 1782. Pennsylvania became the second of the United States when it ratified the U.S. Constitution on Dec. 12, 1787.
¶Rhode Island
Y
1636
13 (May 29, 1790)
Ø
1
RHODE ISLAND IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
The colony of Rhode Island was founded by religious dissenters from Massachusetts. Roger Williams, a minister, and Anne Hutchinson led small, separate groups into the Narragansett Bay area in 1635, fleeing persecution from the Puritans leaders of Massachusetts. British Parliament granted a charter to the Rhode Island and Providence Plantation in 1644 that was later renewed by King Charles II. During the colonial period, Rhode Island, like Connecticut, was virtually self-governing. Religious toleration was practiced in Rhode Island from its founding. Rhode Island merchants in the rival towns of Providence and Newport prospered in the years before the Revolution.
Rhode Island sent troops to aid in the siege of Boston in 1775. In 1776 the British seized Newport on Narragansett Bay as a naval base. In 1778 the Americans and their French allies tried to liberate Newport. General John Sullivan, with a force of Rhode Island militia, some Continentals, and French naval and army support besieged the city. Dissension in the Rebel ranks hampered the effort and the British soon broke the siege. Rhode Islanders served in General Washington’s army at Yorktown in 1781. One Rhode Island unit was a small regiment of free black soldiers with white officers. Rhode Island was the last state to ratify the Constitution on May 29, 1790.
¶South Carolina
Y
1670
8 (May 23, 1788)
Ø
1
SOUTH CAROLINA IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Both the Spanish and the French showed an early interest in South Carolina but England established the first permanent colony when “Charles Town” was founded in 1670. The Royal Charter dated from 1663 when Charles II deeded the colony, then including North Carolina, to a clique of wealthy nobles. South Carolina grew into a rich colony where rice and indigo were raised by slave labor for export to England. Charleston at the time of the Revolution was the only city of any size in the South with 12,000 citizens.
Charleston had a Tea Party on Nov. 1, 1774 in protest of the Tea Acts and as a show of colonial solidarity. A delegation was sent to the First Continental Congress from the colony. In 1775 the Provincial Congress voted funds for the defense of the colony from Britain and secret “action committees” were formed. The Royal Governor, Lord William Campbell, fled the colony. A temporary state constitution was adopted in early 1776. The British tried to take Charleston early in the war but they were repulsed by Colonel William Moultrie’s men fighting from log works on June 28, 1776. In 1778 a second state constitution was adopted.
South Carolina became the cauldron of the war in the South. Moving north from Savannah, General Clinton attacked the colonist stronghold at Charleston in 1780. The defenses had fallen into disrepair since 1776 and after a two month siege (March 12 to May 12, 1780), the city fell. Lord Cornwallis moved inland and defeated a force of Continentals and militia under General Horatio Gates at Camden, August 16, 1780. Meanwhile guerrilla warfare raged all over the state. Men like General Francis “Swamp Fox” Marion, General Andrew Pickens, and General Thomas Sumter led partisans against both the British and the Tories. The Rebel/Tory war of neighbor against neighbor grew increasingly brutal. Local militia won a victory at King’s Mountain in Oct. 1780 and then, with the help of some Continentals, won again at Cowpens in Jan. 1781. South Carolinians aided General Greene in the Battle of Guilford Court House, N.C. He then came to South Carolina to engage the British at Hobkirk’s Hill and Eutaw Springs. Those were the last major engagements in the state but in the bitter partisan war over 100 skirmishes remained to be fought before the British left Charleston in 1782. South Carolina was the eighth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution on May 23, 1788.
¶Virginia
Y
1607
10 (June 26, 1788)
Ø
1
VIRGINIA IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Of the original thirteen states, Virginia was settled first. The first colonists, led by Captain John Smith, arrived in 1607, and established Jamestown. The early years, when the colony was run as a commercial venture by the London Company, were hard on both the colonists and the investors. The House of Burgesses, the first representative assembly in the colonies, was established in 1619. Virginia stopped being run for profit and was changed to a royal colony in 1624. Tobacco dominated the economy of colonial Virginia. Slavery was used in the cultivation of the crop from the earliest days and became widespread in the 1700s. Indian policy was the major issue in a brief rebellion led by Nathaniel Bacon against Governor William Berkeley in 1676. In 1693 William and Mary’s College was chartered. By the time of the Revolution, Virginia was the most populous and wealthy of the American colonies.
Virginia became a leader in the fight for colonial liberty in 1765 when the House of Burgesses, goaded by Patrick Henry, declared that Parliament had no right to tax the colony. Second only to Massachusetts, Virginia was the chief instigator of resistance to the various Revenue Acts. Virginia’s delegation to the First Continental Congress contained Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee and Peyton Randolph among others. More than any other state, Virginia shone for the quality of her sons that served the Revolutionary cause. Foremost of these were the man Congress appointed to lead the Continental armies, General George Washington, and the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson.
Besides these great leaders, Virginia provided large numbers of troops for Washington’s army. Virginia riflemen were famous for their skills as light infantrymen. Virginia regulars saw action in many of the great battles while Virginia itself was free of large-scale campaigning until late in the war. In late 1780 while Lord Cornwallis was fighting in the Carolinas, he dispatched Benedict Arnold (recently turned traitor) to raid north into Virginia. Arnold’s raid destroyed much property, heated up the local partisan war, and almost captured Governor Thomas Jefferson at Monticello but failed to slow Virginian reinforcements to General Greene. When Cornwallis tired of the Carolina war, he moved his forces north to Virginia, preparing a campaign to control the Chesapeake region. His forces defeated Virginia troops under Lafayette and then fell back to Yorktown on the Bay. Washington, with the aid of French forces under De Grasse and Rochambeau, trapped Cornwallis at Yorktown and forced him to surrender. The last major fighting of the war ended there in Virginia on Oct. 19, 1781. Virginia adopted a state constitution during the wartime administration of Governor Jefferson that was a partial model for the U.S. Constitution which Virginia ratified on June 25, 1788 -- the tenth state to do so.
¶Disputed land
Y
Ø
Ø
Ø
1
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION OUTSIDE THE COLONIES
The Revolutionary War as fought in the vast area outside the thirteen colonies is easily divided into two phases. The first is General George Rogers Clark’s campaign of 1778-79. The later is the Spanish campaigns against the British in 1780-81.
General Clark, in command of a force of Virginians, left Redstone, Va. in early 1778 with the objective of clearing the British from the Ohio River Valley and to protect the settlers in the Kentucky - Ohio area. In 1778, Clark proceeded down the Ohio River taking the Indian towns of Kaskaskia and Cahokia on the Mississippi and Vincennes on the Wabash River. In 1779, Clark defeated a British force, under Hamilton, at Vincennes. Clark never captured Detroit, the principal British fort in the West nor gained full control of the Ohio River but he did divert the Indians from the Kentucky settlers.
Spain declared war on Britain in 1779. Bernardo Galvez, the Governor of vast Spanish Louisiana was ordered to attack the British along the Gulf Coast and the Mississippi. In the South Galvez won victories over isolated British posts at present day Baton Rouge and Natchez in 1780. Then he forced the surrender of the British garrison in the formidable fort at Pensacola in 1781. To the north, Galvez’s lieutenant, Pouree, captured Fort St. Joseph in 1781. Britain still occupied posts in American territory after 1783.
¶USA 1783
N
Ø
Ø
Ø
2
OVERVIEW OF COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY
The first permanent settlement in the original thirteen North American colonies was founded in Virginia in 1607, by the London Company, a joint stock company set up to find riches in the New World. These colonists were an unfortunate crew of fortune hunters unprepared for life in an unexplored wilderness. Of 6,000 colonists sent to Virginia between 1606 and 1622 fully two-thirds succumbed to disease, malnutrition, and the elements. As the colonists slowly learned to raise their own food and live in the forest the colony began to prosper.
Massachusetts to the north was settled by the “Pilgrims” many of whom were Puritans seeking religious tolerance (for themselves). The Pilgrims had a hard beginning but they were determined and diligent. They originally received their land from the Plymouth Company, but another firm, the Massachusetts Bay Company, purchased and ran the colony until, like Virginia, it became a Royal Colony. By the 1630s the Atlantic Coast of North America was dotted with small colonies. The Dutch and Swedes competed with England for the region, but by 1664 England controlled the land between Spanish Florida and French Canada.
The English colonies in America had three different forms of government. Rhode Island and Connecticut were “Charter Colonies”, that operated under Charters granted by the king and Parliament; they were almost autonomous. The Governors of these colonies were chosen by the colonists. Massachusetts and Virginia were “Royal Colonies” administered for the Crown by Governors appointed by the king. The “Proprietary Colonies” were colonies started by royal favorites who were granted huge estates in North America. Lord Baltimore, William Penn, and the Duke of York were among the recipients of these grants. New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, the Carolinas, and Georgia all started as Proprietary Colonies, although most had become Royal Colonies by the time of the Revolution.
The British colonies gradually became more prosperous than other colonies in North America. The British sent many more colonists over than did France or Spain. Numbers helped the British to resist both Indian and European enemies. By 1763, Britain had sole title to the area east of the Mississippi River. It was at this time of triumph that the British began to quarrel with their colonies. The French and Indian War (1756-63) had, in the British view, been fought for the benefit of the American Colonists. The British Parliament decided the Colonists should help pay for the debt incurred in the war. The colonists resented the new taxes that were imposed. They also resented the commercial restrictions Britain placed on them and the fact that, although they were free-born British citizens, they had no effective voice in the government that taxed them. As British efforts to squeeze money from the colonies increased so did the resentment and resistance of the colonists. Finally, in the Spring of 1775, resistance became open revolt in Boston, a center of defiance.
Led by Virginia, other colonies rallied to Boston’s aid. Some sent men, all sent delegates to a Continental Congress that spoke for the United Colonies. As violence between the British Army and the colonial forces increased the rebels grew more estranged from England. On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress passed a “Declaration of Independence” from Britain. The war intensified thereafter. The British occupied all of the major American cities (New York for seven years) and defeated the main American army of General George Washington several times. But they never destroyed Washington’s army and America was too large and its people too scattered to be occupied. The British hoped that large numbers of Loyalists, or Tories, would arise and defeat the rebels but it proved to be a pipe-dream. The Americans, fighting at home, could absorb defeats and fight on but a defeated British army had no where to go. The British defeat by Benedict Arnold at Saratoga (Oct. 7, 1777) secured French aid. A final rebel victory by Washington (with French help) at Yorktown (Oct. 19, 1781) decided the war. The Treaty of Paris (1783) brought peace and independence to the newly United States of America.
