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Topic: American Revolutionary War, or American War of Independence

American Revolutionary War, or American War of Independence

Years: 1775 - 1783

The American Revolutionary War, also known as the American War of Independence, begins as a civil war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies on the North American continent.

Foreign nations ally with the revolutionaries, which later declare war on Britain, and the war becomes an international conflict.

The war is the culmination of the political American Revolution, whereby the colonists overthrow British rule.

The revolutionary era had begun in 1763, when the French military threat to British North American colonies had ended.

Adopting the view that the colonies should pay a substantial portion of the costs associated with keeping them in the Empire, Britain had imposed a series of taxes followed by other laws that have proved extremely unpopular.

Because the colonies lack elected representation in the governing British Parliament, many colonists consider the laws to be illegitimate and a violation of their rights as Englishmen.

Beginning in 1772, Patriot groups had begun to create Committees of Correspondence which will lead to their own Provincial Congress in each of most of the colonies.

In the course of a few years, the Provincial Congresses or their equivalents effectively replace the British ruling apparatus in the former colonies, and culminate in the Continental Congress.After protests in Boston, the British send combat troops, the Americans mobilize their militia, and fighting breaks out in 1775.

Revolutionaries seize control of each of the thirteen colonial governments, set up the Second Continental Congress, and form a Continental Army.

Although Loyalists are estimated to comprise 15-20% of the population, throughout the war the Patriots generally control 80-90% of the territory; the British can hold only a few coastal cities.In 1776, representatives of the Thirteen Colonies vote unanimously to adopt a Declaration of Independence, by which they establish the United States of America.

From this time on, other European nations that rival Britain as colonial powers provide support for the rebels, at first secretly, later openly.Throughout the war, the British are able to use their naval superiority to capture and occupy coastal cities, but control of the countryside (where 90% of the population lives) largely eludes them due to their relatively small land army.

In early 1778, shortly after an American victory at Saratoga results in the surrender of an entire British army, France signs treaties of alliance with the new nation, and declares war on Britain that summer; Spain and the Dutch Republic also go to war with Britain over the next two years.

French involvement proves decisive, with a French naval victory in the Chesapeake leading to the surrender of a second British army at Yorktown in 1781.

The Treaty of Paris in 1783 ends the war and recognizes 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.

The American Revolution includes a series of broad intellectual and social shifts that occur in the early American society, such as the new republican ideals that take hold in the American population.

In some colonies, sharp political debates breaks out over the role of democracy in government, with some of even the most liberal Founding Fathers fearing "mob rule".

The American shift to republicanism, as well as the gradually expanding democracy, causes an upheaval of the traditional social hierarchy, and creates the ethic that forms the core of American political values.

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“What experience and history teach is that nations and governments have never learned anything from history."

―Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Lectures (1803)