Featured Exhibit
American Revolutionary War (1775–1783)
The American Revolution, also known as the Revolutionary War, was one of the most significant events in American history. Without it, the United States of America may not have come into existence.
The seeds of the American Revolution began in 1763, when the French and Indian War ended. During the war, the British national debt nearly doubled. To pay for the war and for maintaining a larger British military presence in North America, Britain imposed a series of direct taxes on the colonies. The first of these taxes was the Sugar Act of 1764 followed by the Stamp Act of 1765. American colonists objected to the taxes for economic reasons, but before long they recognized that there were constitutional issues involved. The British Constitution guaranteed that British subjects could not be taxed without their consent, which came in the form of representation in Parliament. The colonists elected no members of Parliament, and so for Parliament to tax them was seen as a violation of the British Constitution.
By 1772, groups of colonists began to create Committees of Correspondence, which led to Provincial Congresses in most of the colonies. In the course of two years, the Provincial Congresses or their equivalents rejected the Parliament and effectively replaced the British ruling apparatus in the colonies, culminating in 1774 with the First Continental Congress.
In response, the British sent combat troops, dissolved local governments, and imposed direct rule by Royal officials. Colonial demonstrations in Boston, Massachusetts; Rhode Island; Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Annapolis, Maryland; Wilmington and New Bern, North Carolina; and Charleston, South Carolina became more violent until fighting finally broke out in 1775. In 1776, representatives from each of the original thirteen colonies voted unanimously in the Second Continental Congress to adopt a Declaration of Independence, which now rejected the British monarchy in addition to its Parliament.
Throughout the war, the British were able to use their naval superiority to capture and occupy coastal cities but control of the countryside, where 90% of the population lived, largely eluded them due to their relatively small land army. In early 1778, shortly after an American victory at Saratoga, France entered the war against Britain; Spain and the Netherlands joined as allies of France over the next two years. French involvement proved decisive, with a French naval victory in the Chesapeake leading to the surrender of a British army at Yorktown in 1781. The Treaty of Paris in 1783 ended the war and recognized the sovereignty of the United States over the territory bounded by what is now Canada to the north, Florida to the south, and the Mississippi River to the west.
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