# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Boston Massacre! - March 5, 1770 by Jennifer Egas | This newsletter was created with Smore, an online tool for creating beautiful newsletters for individual educators, schools and districts

# data[].attributes.body
Check out these resources about the American Revolution!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Revolution! - What? The French & Indian War Caused the Revolution? Really? by Jennifer Egas | This newsletter was created with Smore, an online tool for creating beautiful newsletters for individual educators, schools and districts

# data[].attributes.body
Are you a Patriot or a Loyalist?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Thomas Paine and Samuel Adams were the brains behind the brawl in swaying the colonists toward the cause of independence. Thomas Paine and his 52-page pamphlet (Yes, it's much longer than the "pamphlet" we think of today.) influenced a lot of colonists toward the idea of independence with his arguments (and the arguments were logical.) However, at no point in the American Revolution were there more than 33% of the colonists who were staunch supporters of independence. There were also 33% who were Loyalists and 33% who were neutral. These numbers were fluid depending on how the war effort was going.

The point is that there was never the overwhelming support for this idea that we have been taught in school for all these years-that myth is revisionist history.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Thomas Paine and Samuel Adams were the brains behind the brawl in swaying the colonists toward the cause of independence. Thomas Paine and his 52-page pamphlet (Yes, it's much longer than the "pamphlet" we think of today.) influenced a lot of colonists toward the idea of independence with his arguments (and the arguments were logical.)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Charles Cornwallis was a British army officer who served as a general during the Revolutionary War (also known as the American Revolution). He led British forces to success in New York and Philadelphia before moving to the war's southern theater in 1780. Despite suffering a crushing defeat at the Battle of Yorktown, Cornwallis had a celebrated post-war career, serving as governor general of India and lord lieutenant of Ireland.

Early Life and Military Career

Cornwallis was born on December 31, 1738, in London, England, into an aristocratic family with a distinguished military pedigree. His own military career began in earnest during the Seven Years' War when he traveled to Germany and initially served as an aide-de-camp on the staff of the Marquess of Granby. He quickly rose through the ranks, becoming a regimental commander in 1761 and earning a citation for bravery for his performance in the Battle of Vellinghausen.

Did you know? As Lord Lieutenant and Commander-in-Chief of Ireland, Cornwallis unsuccessfully argued for Catholic emancipation and helped secure passage of the Act of Union, which created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

With his father's death in 1762, Cornwallis was elevated to become the 2nd Earl of Cornwallis and took his father's seat in the House of Lords in Parliament. Amid rising tensions between Britain and its North American colonies, Cornwallis voted against the Stamp Act and other British policies that antagonized the colonists. Despite this, he volunteered to command British troops once the Revolutionary War began in April 1775.

Early Battles of the Revolutionary War

Promoted to the rank of major general, Cornwallis left for North America in early 1776 and arrived in the Carolinas that May to reinforce the British southern expedition led by General Henry Clinton. After British forces failed to take Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island in Charleston, South Carolina, Cornwallis and Clinton headed north to join the forces of General William Howe in New York.

With Howe leading and Cornwallis in command of reserve troops, the British defeated American forces led by General George Washington in the Battle of Long Island in August 1776. Cornwallis, who often risked his own life by visibly leading his men on the battlefield, helped rout Patriot defenders at Kips Bay in mid-September when the British landed on the island of Manhattan. In November, he led a British detachment over the Hudson River to Fort Lee, New Jersey, taking the fort, cannons, ammunition and supplies after a hasty American evacuation.

After pursuing the Continental forces across New Jersey throughout November and December, Cornwallis and the British were caught off guard by Washington's surprise attack on Hessian troops at Trenton on Christmas Eve and another American victory at Princeton in early January 1777. Cornwallis spent the winter in England but returned for the spring campaign, later aiding in the British victory in the Battle of Brandywine (September 1777) and the capture of Philadelphia two weeks later.

British Campaign in the South

In 1780, with the war in the north having reached a virtual stalemate, the British refocused on their southern campaign, counting on a larger number of Loyalists among the southern colonists. Promoted to lieutenant general, Cornwallis became Clinton's second-in-command, but their relationship soon deteriorated. After a three-month-long siege, Charleston fell on May 12, 1780, in the most significant British victory of the war.

Clinton soon left for New York, leaving Cornwallis to secure South Carolina for the British. That August, Cornwallis' forces defeated American troops led by General Horatio Gates at Camden.

But the surrounding region proved more difficult to pacify than Cornwallis expected, as many colonists resisted the order to pledge loyalty to the Crown.

The tide of war began to turn against the British soon after General Nathanael Greene succeeded Gates in charge of American forces in the south. Forces led by Cornwallis' subordinates met defeat in the Battle of King's Mountain (October 1780) and the Battle of Cowpens (January 1781).

Defeat in the Battle of Yorktown

Cornwallis pursued Greene's army, clashing in the indecisive Battle of Guilford Courthouse in March and suffering heavy losses. From there, he took his army into Virginia, capturing Richmond and Charlottesville, before heading toward the coast to establish a naval base on the Chesapeake Bay. Continental forces led by the Marquis de Lafayette and General Anthony Wayne pursued the British to their eventual destination, Yorktown, while a large French fleet commanded by Admiral Comte de Grasse approached the coast.

Surrounded and under siege, with his planned escape route blocked by French ships, Cornwallis was forced to surrender his army of 8,000 British troops on October 17. Claiming illness prevented him from meeting Washington to surrender his sword, Cornwallis sent his second-in-command, Charles O'Hara, in his place. The British defeat at Yorktown effectively ended hostilities in the Revolutionary War, resulting in the Treaty of Paris (1783), which recognized the independence of the United States.

Post-War Career in India and Ireland

Back in England, Cornwallis was greeted as a hero, though he weathered criticisms from Clinton and others for his defeat at Yorktown. His post-war career showcased how the British Empire bounced back from the loss of its North American colonies. Cornwallis served as governor-general of India from 1786-93 and led a military campaign that helped consolidate British control of the southern region of India.

Appointed lord lieutenant and commander of chief of Ireland in 1798, he commanded British troops to victory against an invading French force and survived an assassination attempt in Dublin in 1799. Cornwallis returned to India for a second term as governor-general in 1805, but died shortly after his arrival and was buried in Calcutta.

Sources

Charles Cornwallis. American Battlefield Trust.
Charles Cornwallis. National Park Service.
Gordon Wood. The American Revolution: A History (Random House, 2002)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Charles Cornwallis was a British army officer who served as a general during the Revolutionary War (also known as the American Revolution). He led British forces to success in New York and Philadelphia before moving to the war's southern theater in 1780.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
by Geoffrey Fox

Who in fact are the Green Mountain Boys? Just a group of back country Vermont boys raising havoc. In fact the Green Mountain Boys were a group of a few hundred American patriots in the early American Revolutionary years that would later be considered the founding fathers of the state of Vermont.

The Green Mountain Boys were created in southwestern Vermont, and were made up of men from Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut that held land titles from New Hampshire that entitled them land between Lake Champlain and the Connecticut River, which is modern day Vermont. However, the British crown gave all of that land to New York, and ignored the New Hampshire land grants. The group gathered and joined together to keep New York settlers out of Vermont, and keep all the land for people with New Hampshire titles. They drew their name from the Green Mountains of Vermont.

The "Boys" were led by Ethan Allen, his brother Ira, their cousins Seth Warner and Remember Baker. Then by 1770 the group became an armed militia force, and when officials from New York tried to enforce their laws upon them, they failed in doing so and in certain cases were beaten by Green Mountain Boys or their followers.

Once the American Revolution started in 1775 the Green Mountain Boys marched north to attack and later capture the British held fort, Fort Ticonderoga, which was America's first victory in the war. Ethan Allen led the attack with approximately 83 colonist-militia men, and help from Colonel Benedict Arnold. This proved to be very important in the war effort, because it protected northern America and kept the soil safe from invasion from the British through Canada. The Green Mountain Boys also seized Crown Point in New York on Lake Champlain also held by the British, among other battles. Later on the Green Mountain Boys were the basis of the Vermont militia and choose Seth Warner as their leader, however a number of members decided to stay with Ethan and were later captured after a mucked up attack upon Montreal.

In early 1777, Vermont became an independent nation and named the Green Mountain Boys as the basis for their republic army. Then Vermont applied for statehood, and in 1791 Vermont became the fourteenth state in the United States, and the Green Mountain Boys (Vermont Republic) faded away.

The Flag of the Green Mountain Boys: the green represents the Green Mountains of Vermont where the militia hails, and the 13 stars in the field of blue represents the 13 American colonies.

The important figures, who led the Green Mountain Boys from protecting Vermont from New York settlement, to capturing Fort Ticonderoga, and protecting Vermont as an independent nation, were Ethan Allen, Ira Allen, Seth Warner, and Remember Baker.

Let's first begin with the ring leader, if you will, Ethan Allen. Ethan was born on the 21 st of January, 1738 in Litchfield, Connecticut and the oldest of the Allen children. Then in his early thirties, he moved to modern day Vermont by way of New Hampshire land titles. He organized and founded the volunteer militia known as the Green Mountain Boys, to resist the New York officials' cause. He was later classified as an outlaw in the eyes of the governor of New York. He later became a Lieutenant Colonel of the Continental Army, and a Major General of the militia.

In the late 1770's Ethan went in front of the Continental Congress to recognize Vermont as an independent state. Also, Ethan and his brother Ira, and other devoted Vermonters devoted most of their time to the territorial dispute between New York and New Hampshire and more importantly trying to get Vermont independent and become a British province of Canada. Obviously, Vermont never became part of Canada, and the reason these Vermonters took this action was mostly for the Continental Congress to take Vermont's independence seriously. Ethan died in Burlington on the 12 th of February, 1789 as a patriot of Vermont and the United States.

Another key patriot in the development of the Green Mountain Boys and Vermont was Ethan's younger brother Ira Allen. Ira was born on April 21, 1751 in Cornwall, Connecticut and later formed the Onion River Land Company with his brothers in order to buy lands in Vermont. He worked for the company as a surveyor, until disputes occurred between New Hampshire and New York, which sparked him to become an early member of the Green Mountain Boys. After the revolution and into the early Republic years of Vermont, Ira played a very important role by serving as a member of the Committee of Safety an the Governor and Council, and Treasurer and Surveyor General.

In around 1780 Ira presented the Vermont legislature with fifty acres of land in Burlington and money for the formation of the University of Vermont, which was founded in 1791. Then in 1796 Ira went to France to buy guns and ammo for the state of Vermont, and was sailing back across the sea when he was captured and taken to England and Ira battled the courts of England for eight years for his guns. Ira died in Pennsylvania on January 7, 1814 completely bankrupt and unable to get his affairs in order before his death. Ira, a well educated man, appreciated education and took the first step to creating Vermont's state university and becoming the "Father" of UVM.

Ira and Ethan had two cousins, Seth Warner and Remember Baker, which played intricate parts in the Green Mountain Boys and the early Vermont establishment. Seth was born in Roxbury, Connecticut in May of 1743 and was never really well educated. He joined his cousins in the ranks of the Green Mountain Boys and was later elected as their captain. He was highly respected by the Continental army because of his bravery and military skills and knowledge. Throughout the Green Mountain Boy days and Revolutionary war days he led the men under his command through successful battles and capturing of British held forts. Seth was never much of a business man and did not hop on the land acquisition like his fellow militia men, but due to his heroism, wealthy land owners gave Seth land as a reward, which went unused even until today. He died in December of 1784 in his hometown of Roxbury. He was more military oriented than land oriented, but still help protect the land in the name of Vermont.

The cousin to Ethan and Ira and Seth, Remember Baker was born June, 1737 in Roxbury, Connecticut, and was described as a tough, hot headed, giant. As a young twenty year old he joined the army and was stationed at Fort William Henry, then enlisted again under the command of General Abercrombie who attempted to invade Canada. He married in 1760, and then moved to Arlington, Vermont, where he joined his cousins and the Green Mountain Boys to help protect Vermont. He later joined Ethan to capture Fort Ticonderoga, and then met Seth at Crown Point, NY to capture the fort there. Then he became a scout in the St. John's area, where English troops and Native Americans were camped out. Then in mid August of 1775 he embarked on a scouting expedition and was shot and killed by Indians. The British troops who knew of his death by the Indians went to his body and properly buried it. Remember was more of a soldier fighting against France and England, but was still helpful in protecting and fighting for Vermont and America.

Ethan, Ira, Seth, and Remember were only four of hundreds of men that comprised the ranks of the Green Mountain Boys. All of these men were American and Vermont patriots who helped America become independent from Britain, and help Vermont become what is Vermont as we know it, and protect the land from New York and foreign armies. The Green Mountain Boys all held land titles from New Hampshire for the modern day Vermont region and without these men today's Vermont would not exist and for that, these men can all be called the founding fathers of Vermont.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Billias, George. "Ethan Allen." The American Revolution Homepage. 2004. 11 Nov 2006 <http://www.americanrevwar.homestead.com/files/ALLEN.HTM>.

"Ira Allen." 11 May 2006. 12 Nov 2006 < http://www.virtualvermont.com/index.php?loc=http://www.virtualvermont.com/history/iallen.html >.

Picture: <http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~fjt32/gmb.jpg >.

"Seth Warner." 30 Mar 2006. 12 Nov 2006 < http://www.virtualvermont.com/index.php?loc=http://www.virtualvermont.com/history/swarner.html >.

Wikipedia, "Ethan Allen." 13 Nov 2006. 12 Nov 2006

< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethan_Allen >.

Wikipedia, "Green Mountain Boys." 18 Oct 2006. 10 Nov 2006 < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Mountain_Boys >.

.Wikipedia. "Remember Baker." 28 Aug 2006

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remember_Baker>.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
by Geoffrey Fox Who in fact are the Green Mountain Boys? Just a group of back country Vermont boys raising havoc. In fact the Green Mountain Boys were a group of a few hundred American patriots in the early American Revolutionary years that would later be considered the founding fathers of the state of Vermont.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Tories were colonists who helped and even fought with the British during the American Revolutionary War. Also known as Loyalists for their loyalty to the British crown, their contention with the Whigs (Patriots) was so intense that their savage fighting can justly be called America's first civil war.

The American Revolution ... was not a straight battle between Americans and the British. The colonists themselves were divided. In fact Dr [ sic] Wallace Brown went as far as to call it more of a civil war than the 1861-1865 hostilities. (Gail Saunders, Bahamian Loyalists and Their Slaves [MacMillan Education LTD, London and Oxford: 1983] p. 1)

I am going to do something out of the ordinary for Revolutionary-War.net and begin by recommending a book and a web site. The writing of Thomas B. Allen, author of Tories: Fighting for the King in America's First Civil War, is so captivating and thorough that there is no way that we will be able to improve on it.

The research and plethora of quotes in his book and on his web site are exhilarating for people that love history like we do. Such excellent writing deserves to be commended and recommended.

He introduces the subject of the Loyalists at ToriesFightingForTheKing.com with flourish:

The Revolution is usually portrayed as a conflict between the Patriots and the British. But there is another narrative: the bloody fighting between Americans, a civil war whose savagery shocked even battle-hardened Redcoats and Hessians. As debate and protests evolved into war, mudslinging and rhetorical arguments between Rebels and Tories evolved into tar-and-feathering, house-burning, and lynching.

That said, here we provide a shorter and hopefully just as interesting overview of the Loyalists before, during, and after the American Revolutionary War.

Number of Tories

There is no good way to determine what percentage of the colonists remained loyal to Britain. Charles and Mary Beard's History of the United States gives the evidence as cited by both the Patriots and the Tories:

By one process or another, those who were to be citizens of the new republic were separated from those who preferred to be subjects of King George. Just what proportion of the Americans favored independence and what share remained loyal to the British monarchy there is no way of knowing. The question of revolution was not submitted to popular vote, and on the point of numbers we have conflicting evidence. On the patriot side, there is the testimony of a careful and informed observer, John Adams, who asserted that two-thirds of the people were for the American cause and not more than one-third opposed the Revolution at all stages.

On behalf of the loyalists, or Tories as they were popularly known, extravagant claims were made. Joseph Galloway, who had been a member of the first Continental Congress and had fled to England when he saw its temper, testified before a committee of Parliament in 1779 that not one-fifth of the American people supported the insurrection and that "many more than four-fifths of the people prefer a union with Great Britain upon constitutional principles to independence." At the same time General Robertson, who had lived in America twenty-four years, declared that "more than two-thirds of the people would prefer the king's government to the Congress' tyranny." In an address to the king in that year a committee of American loyalists asserted that "the number of Americans in his Majesty's army exceeded the number of troops enlisted by Congress to oppose them."

~(Charles A. & Mary R. Beard, History of the United States [The MacMillan Company, NY:1921])

That is the evidence as presented in the Beard's History of the United States, but in the two sections that follow, also primarily taken from their book, it is plain to see that the Tories could not have been even a majority, much less over 80% of the population.

Tories were clearly outnumbered prior to the war. It is the only way the state governments could have separated them out of the population to imprison or expel them.

When the first Continental Congress agreed not to allow the importation of British goods, it provided for the creation of local committees to enforce the rules. ... Before these bodies those who persisted in buying British goods were summoned and warned or punished according to circumstances. As soon as the new state constitutions were put into effect, local committees set to work in the same way to ferret out all who were not outspoken in their support of the new order of things.( ibid.)

The persecution of the Tories which began in earnest after 1774 was terrible. Each State passed legislation requiring inhabitants to take oaths to the new United States or be deemed traitors. Some Loyalists had their property confiscated; others were socially ostracized and their businesses boycotted. (Gail Saunders, op. cit. p. 2)

Patriot mobs treated them even more cruelly.

The work of the official agencies ... was sometimes supplemented by mob violence. A few Tories were hanged without trial, and others were tarred and feathered. One was placed upon a cake of ice and held there "until his loyalty to King George might cool." (Beard, op. cit.)

Surely this did not happen because the Loyalists feared to defend themselves, for when the British arrived they took up arms in droves.

Without being outnumbered, they could not have been intimidated by state governments. Tories the highest members of society. They held many important positions in both government and society in the colonies, and their allegiance was to the king and Parliament. If they had been the majority there would have been no revolution, for they could easily have prevented it.

When General Howe evacuated Boston, more than a thousand people fled with him. This great company, according to a careful historian, "formed the aristocracy of the province by virtue of their official rank; of their dignified callings and professions; of their hereditary wealth and of their culture." The act of banishment passed by Massachusetts in 1778, listing over 300 Tories, "reads like the social register of the oldest and noblest families of New England," more than one out of five being graduates of Harvard College. The same was true of New York and Philadelphia; namely, that the leading loyalists were prominent officials of the old order, clergymen and wealthy merchants. ( ibid.)

Clearly a batch of Loyalists that "formed the aristocracy of the province by virtue of their official rank," and who were also a majority, could not have been driven from their homes, imprisoned, or run out by mobs.

But they were. The Beards even refer to the conquest of the Loyalists as something The Tories themselves knew was "inevitable."

With passion the loyalists fought against the inevitable or with anguish of heart they left as refugees for a life of uncertainty in Canada or the mother country. ( ibid.)

The Tories Fight Back

While the Tories were under persecution before the war, once the war began they had opportunity to defend themselves.

The Tories who remained in America joined the British army by the thousands or in other ways aided the royal cause. Those who were skillful with the pen assailed the patriots in editorials, rhymes, satires, and political catechisms. They declared that the members of Congress were "obscure, pettifogging attorneys, bankrupt shopkeepers, outlawed smugglers, etc." ( ibid.)

The Tories After the Revolutionary War

As we know, even with the help of the Loyalists, the British lost the war. After the war, however, they continued to provide land in Canada to the Tories:

The greatest reward for loyalty came in the form of grants of land in the Canadian wilderness. As many as 100,000 Loyalists eventually migrated to Canada. (ToriesFightingForTheKing.com)

Others simply fled. Estimates are that between 80,000 and 100,000 Loyalists fled to the West Indies, and a few went to Great Britain, besides the 100,000 that received land in Canada.

Return to Slavery and the Revolutionary War

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Tories were colonists who helped and even fought with the British during the American Revolutionary War. Also known as Loyalists for their loyalty to the British crown, their contention with the Whigs (Patriots) was so intense that their savage fighting can justly be called America's first civil war. The American Revolution ...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Lord Dunmore's Proclamation (1775) | The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Sources: Benjamin Quarles, The Negro and the American Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961); Woody Holton, Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, and the Making of the American Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999); Sylvia R. Frey, Water From the Rock: Black Resistance in a Revolutionary Age (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Nonimportation Agreements - Dictionary definition of Nonimportation Agreements | Encyclopedia.com: FREE online dictionary

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Definition of Nonimportation Agreements - Our online dictionary has Nonimportation Agreements information from Dictionary of American History dictionary. Encyclopedia.com: English, psychology and medical dictionaries

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Britain and the Imperial Crises

Throughout most of colonial history, the British Crown was the only political institution that united the American colonies. The Imperial Crises of the 1760s and 1770s, found England saddled with crippling debt, incurred in large part by wars such as the French and Indian War.

The British government responded by increasing taxes on the American colonists, which drove the colonies toward greater unity. Americans throughout the 13 colonies united in opposition to the new system of imperial taxation initiated by the British government in 1765.

The Stamp Act of that year-the first direct, internal tax imposed on the colonists by the British Parliament-inspired concerted resistance within the colonies. Nine colonial assemblies sent delegates to the Stamp Act Congress, an extralegal convention that met to coordinate the colonies' response to the new tax. Although the Stamp Act Congress was short-lived, it hinted at the enhanced unity among the colonies that would soon follow.

Did you know? Almost every significant political figure of the American Revolution served in the Continental Congress, including Samuel Adams, John Adams, John Hancock, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Patrick Henry and George Washington.

Colonial opposition effectively killed the Stamp Act and brought about its repeal in 1766. The British government did not abandon its claim to the authority to pass laws for the colonies, however, and would make repeated attempts to exert its power over them in the years to follow.

Taxation Without Representation

In response to the violence of the Boston Massacre of 1770 and new taxes like the Tea Act of 1773, a group of frustrated colonists protested taxation without representation by dumping 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor on the night of December 16, 1773 - an event known to history as Boston Tea Party.

Colonists continued to coordinate their resistance to new imperial measures, but between 1766 and 1774, they did so primarily through committees of correspondence, which exchanged ideas and information, rather than through a united political body.

The First Continental Congress

On September 5, 1774, delegates from each of the 13 colonies-except Georgia, which was fighting a Native American uprising and was dependent on the British for military supplies-met at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia as the First Continental Congress to organize colonial resistance to the Intolerable Acts (or Coercive Acts) recently passed by the British Parliament.

The delegates included a number of future luminaries, such as future presidents John Adams of Massachusetts and George Washington of Virginia, and future U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and diplomat John Jay of New York. The Congress was structured with emphasis on the equality of participants, and to promote free debate.

After much discussion, the Congress issued a Declaration of Rights, affirming its loyalty to the British Crown but disputing the British Parliament's right to tax it without representation in the parliament. The Congress also passed the Articles of Association, which called on the colonies to stop importing goods from the British Isles beginning on December 1, 1774, if the Intolerable Acts were not repealed.

Should Britain fail to redress the colonists' grievances in a timely manner, the Congress declared, then it would reconvene on May 10, 1775, and the colonies would cease to export goods to Britain on September 10, 1775. After proclaiming these measures, the First Continental Congress disbanded on October 26, 1774.

Second Continental Congress

As promised, Congress reconvened at Independence Hall in Philadelphia as the Second Continental Congress on May 10, 1775-and by then the American Revolution had already begun.

The British army in Boston had met with armed resistance on the morning of April 19, 1775, when it marched out to the towns of Lexington and Concord to seize a cache of weapons held by colonial Patriots who had ceased to recognize the authority of the royal government of Massachusetts.

The colonists drove the British expedition back to Boston and laid siege to the town. The Revolutionary War had begun.

Fighting for Reconciliation

Although the Congress professed its abiding loyalty to the British Crown, it also took steps to preserve its rights by dint of arms. On June 14, 1775, a month after it reconvened, it created a united colonial fighting force, the Continental Army. The next day, it named George Washington as the new army's commander-in-chief.

The following month, the Continental Congress issued its "Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms," penned by John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, a veteran of the First Congress whose "Letters from a Farmer of Pennsylvania" (1767) had helped arouse opposition to earlier imperial measures, and by a newcomer from Virginia, Thomas Jefferson.

In an effort to avoid a full-scale war, Congress coupled this declaration with the Olive Branch Petition, a personal appeal to Britain's King George III, asking him to help the colonists resolve their differences with Britain. The king dismissed the petition out of hand.

Common Sense, Divided Loyalties

For over a year, the Continental Congress supervised a war against a country to which it proclaimed its loyalty. In fact, both the Congress and the people it represented were divided on the question of independence even after a year of open warfare against Great Britain.

Early in 1776, a number of factors began to strengthen the call for separation. In his stirring pamphlet " Common Sense," published in January of that year, the British immigrant Thomas Paine laid out a convincing argument in favor of independence.

At the same time, many Americans came to realize that their military might not be capable of defeating the British Empire on its own. Independence would allow it to form alliances with Britain's powerful rivals-and France was at the forefront of everyone's mind. Meanwhile, the war itself evoked hostility toward Britain among the citizenry, paving the way for independence.

Declaration of Independence

In the spring of 1776, the provisional colonial governments began to send new instructions to their congressional delegates, obliquely or directly allowing them to vote for independence. The provisional government of Virginia went further: It instructed its delegation to submit a proposal for independence before Congress.

On June 7, Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee complied with his instructions. Congress postponed a final vote on the proposal until July 1, but appointed a committee to draft a provisional declaration of independence for use should the proposal pass.

The committee consisted of five men, including John Adams and Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania. But the declaration was primarily the work of one man, Thomas Jefferson, who penned an eloquent defense of the natural rights of all people, of which, he charged, Parliament and the king had tried to deprive the American nation.

The Continental Congress made several revisions to Jefferson's draft, removing, among other things, an attack on the institution of slavery; but on July 4, 1776, the Congress voted to approve the Declaration of Independence.

Waging the War

The Declaration of Independence allowed Congress to seek alliances with foreign countries, and the fledgling U.S. formed its most important alliance early in 1778 with France, without the support of which America might well have lost the Revolutionary War.

If the Franco-American alliance was one of Congress's greatest successes, funding and supplying the war were among its worst failures. Lacking a pre-existing infrastructure, Congress struggled throughout the war to provide the Continental Army with adequate supplies and provisions.

Exacerbating the problem, Congress had no mechanism to collect taxes to pay for the war; instead, it relied on contributions from the states, which generally directed whatever revenue they raised toward their own needs. As a result, the paper money issued by Congress quickly came to be regarded as worthless.

The Articles of Confederation

Congress's inability to raise revenue would bedevil it for its entire existence, even after it created a constitution, known as the Articles of Confederation, to define its powers. Drafted and adopted by the Congress in 1777 but not ratified until 1781, it effectively established the United States as a collection of 13 sovereign states, each of which had an equal voice in Congress (which became officially known as the Congress of the Confederation) regardless of population.

Under the Articles, congressional decisions were made based on a state-by-state vote, and the Congress had little ability to enforce its decisions. The Articles of Confederation would prove incapable of governing the new nation in a time of peace, but they did not seriously undermine the war effort, both because the war was effectively winding down before the Articles took effect, and because Congress ceded many executive war powers to General Washington.

Treaty of Paris

Congress's final triumph came in 1783 when it negotiated the Treaty of Paris, officially ending the Revolutionary War. The Congressional delegates Franklin, Jay and Adams secured a favorable peace for the U.S. that included not only the recognition of independence but also claim to almost all of the territory south of Canada and east of the Mississippi River.

On November 25, 1783, the last British troops evacuated New York City. The Revolutionary War was over and Congress had helped to see the country through.

However, the Articles of Confederation proved an imperfect instrument for a nation at peace with the world. The years immediately following the end of the Revolutionary War in 1783 presented the young American nation with a series of difficulties that Congress could not adequately remedy: dire financial straits, interstate rivalries and domestic insurrection.

Legacy of the Continental Congress

A movement developed for constitutional reform, culminating in the Philadelphia Convention of 1787. The delegates at the convention decided to scrap the Articles of Confederation completely and create a new system of government.

In 1789, the new U.S. Constitution went into effect and the Continental Congress adjourned forever and was replaced by the U.S. Congress. Although the Continental Congress did not function well in a time of peace, it had steered the nation through one of its worst crises, declared its independence and helped to win a war to secure that independence.

Sources

Continental Congress, 1774-1781. U.S. Department of State. Office of the Historian.
First Continental Congress. George Washington's Mount Vernon.
The Continental Congress. PBS: American Experience.
Continental and Confederation Congresses. U.S. House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives.
The Second Continental Congress and the Declaration of Independence. National Park Service.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Continental Congress: First, Second & Definition - HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Continental Congress was the first governing body of America. It led the Revolutionary War effort and ratified the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A biography of John Dickinson, Representing Pennsylvania to the Continental Congress

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Treaty of Paris - Definition, Date & Terms

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Treaty of Paris of 1783 formally ended the American Revolutionary War. American statesmen Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and John Jay negotiated the peace treaty with representatives of King George III of Great Britain.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
King George III ruled the British kingdom through turbulent times, including the American Revolutionary War, after which the colonies gained independence. Until Queen Victoria, he was Great Britain's longest-reigning monarch.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Why Did the Boston Tea Party Happen?

In the 1760s, Britain was deep in debt, so British Parliament imposed a series of taxes on American colonists to help pay those debts.

The Stamp Act of 1765 taxed colonists on virtually every piece of printed paper they used, from playing cards and business licenses to newspapers and legal documents. The Townshend Acts of 1767 went a step further, taxing essentials such as paint, paper, glass, lead and tea.

The British government felt the taxes were fair since much of its debt was earned fighting wars on the colonists' behalf. The colonists, however, disagreed. They were furious at being taxed without having any representation in Parliament, and felt it was wrong for Britain to impose taxes on them to gain revenue.

Boston Massacre Enrages Colonists

On March 5, 1770, a street brawl happened in Boston between American colonists and British soldiers.

Later known as the Boston Massacre, the fight began after an unruly group of colonists-frustrated with the presence of British soldiers in their streets- flung snowballs, ice and oyster shells at a British sentinel guarding the Boston Customs House.

Reinforcements arrived and opened fire on the mob, killing five colonists and wounding six. The Boston Massacre and its fallout further incited the colonists' rage towards Britain.

Tea Act Imposed

Britain eventually repealed the taxes it had imposed on the colonists except the tea tax. It wasn't about to give up tax revenue on the nearly 1.2 million pounds of tea the colonists drank each year.

In protest, the colonists boycotted tea sold by British East India Company and smuggled in Dutch tea, leaving British East India Company with millions of pounds of surplus tea and facing bankruptcy.

In May 1773, British Parliament passed the Tea Act which allowed British East India Company to sell tea to the colonies duty-free and much cheaper than other tea companies-but still tax the tea when it reached colonial ports.

Tea smuggling in the colonies increased, although the cost of the smuggled tea soon surpassed that of tea from British East India Company with the added tea tax.

Still, with the help of prominent tea smugglers such as John Hancock and Samuel Adams -who protested taxation without representation but also wanted to protect their tea smuggling operations-colonists continued to rail against the tea tax and Britain's control over their interests.

Sons of Liberty

The Sons of Liberty were a group of colonial merchants and tradesmen founded to protest the Stamp Act and other forms of taxation. The group of revolutionists included prominent patriots such as Benedict Arnold, Patrick Henry and Paul Revere, as well as Adams and Hancock.

Led by Adams, the Sons of Liberty held meetings rallying against British Parliament and protested the Griffin's Wharf arrival of Dartmouth, a British East India Company ship carrying tea. By December 16, 1773, Dartmouth had been joined by her sister ships, Beaver and Eleanor; all three ships loaded with tea from China.

That morning, as thousands of colonists convened at the wharf and its surrounding streets, a meeting was held at the Old South Meeting House where a large group of colonists voted to refuse to pay taxes on the tea or allow the tea to be unloaded, stored, sold or used. (Ironically, the ships were built in America and owned by Americans.)

Governor Thomas Hutchison refused to allow the ships to return to Britain and ordered the tea tariff be paid and the tea unloaded. The colonists refused, and Hutchison never offered a satisfactory compromise.

Facts: What Happened at the Boston Tea Party

That night, a large group of men-many reportedly members of the Sons of Liberty- disguised themselves in Native American garb, boarded the docked ships and threw 342 chests of tea into the water.

Said participant George Hewes, "We then were ordered by our commander to open the hatches and take out all the chests of tea and throw them overboard, and we immediately proceeded to execute his orders, first cutting and splitting the chests with our tomahawks, so as thoroughly to expose them to the effects of the water."

Hewes also noted that "We were surrounded by British armed ships, but no attempt was made to resist us."

Did you know? It took nearly three hours for more than 100 colonists to empty the tea into Boston Harbor. The chests held more than 90,000 lbs. (45 tons) of tea, which would cost nearly $1,000,000 dollars today.

Boston Tea Party Aftermath

While some important colonist leaders such as John Adams were thrilled to learn Boston Harbor was covered in tea leaves, others were not.

In June of 1774, George Washington wrote: "the cause of Boston...ever will be considered as the cause of America." But his personal views of the event were far different. He voiced strong disapproval of "their conduct in destroying the Tea" and claimed Bostonians "were mad." Washington, like many other elites, held private property to be sacrosanct.

Benjamin Franklin insisted the British East India Company be reimbursed for the lost tea and even offered to pay for it himself.

No one was hurt, and aside from the destruction of the tea and a padlock, no property was damaged or looted during the Boston Tea Party. The participants reportedly swept the ships' decks clean before they left.

Who Organized the Boston Tea Party?

Though led by Samuel Adams and his Sons of Liberty and organized by John Hancock, the names of many of those involved in the Boston Tea Party remain unknown. Thanks to their Native American costumes, only one of the tea party culprits, Francis Akeley, was arrested and imprisoned.

Even after American independence, participants refused to reveal their identities, fearing they could still face civil and criminal charges as well as condemnation from elites for the destruction of private property. Most participants in the Boston Tea Party were under the age of 40 and 16 of them were teenagers.

Coercive Acts

But despite the lack of violence, the Boston Tea Party didn't go unanswered by King George III and British Parliament.

In retribution, they passed the Coercive Acts (later known as the Intolerable Acts) which:

Closed Boston Harbor until the tea lost in the Boston Tea Party was paid for

Ended the Massachusetts Constitution and ended free elections of town officials

Moved judicial authority to Britain and British judges, basically creating martial law in Massachusetts

Required colonists to quarter British troops on demand

Extended freedom of worship to French-Canadian Catholics under British rule, which angered the mostly Protestant colonists

Britain hoped the Coercive Acts would squelch rebellion in New England and keep the remaining colonies from uniting, but the opposite happened: All the colonies viewed the punitive laws as further evidence of Britain's tyranny and rallied to Massachusetts' aid, sending supplies and plotting further resistance.

Second Boston Tea Party

A second Boston Tea Party took place in March 1774, when around 60 Bostonians boarded the ship Fortune and dumped nearly 30 chests of tea into the harbor.

The event didn't earn nearly as much notoriety as the first Boston Tea Party, but it did encourage other tea-dumping demonstrations in Maryland, New York and South Carolina.

First Continental Congress Is Convened

Many colonists felt Britain's Coercive Acts went too far. On September 5, 1774, elected delegates from all 13 American colonies except Georgia met in Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia for the First Continental Congress to figure out how to resist British oppression.

The delegates were divided on how to move forward but the Boston Tea Party had united them in their fervor to gain independence. By the time they adjourned in October 1774, they'd written The Declaration and Resolves which:

Censured Britain for passing the Coercive Acts and called for their repeal

Established a boycott of British goods

Declared the colonies had the right to govern independently

Rallied colonists to form and train a colonial militia

Britain didn't capitulate and within months, the " shot heard round the world," rang out in Concord, Massachusetts, sparking the start of the American Revolutionary War.

Sources

A Tea Party Timeline: 1773-1775. Old South Meeting House.
The Boston Tea Party. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
The Boston Tea Party. Massachusetts Historical Society.
The Boston Tea Party, 1773. EyewitnesstoHistory.com.
The Intolerable Acts. U.S.History.org.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Boston Tea Party - Definition, Dates & Facts | HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Boston Tea Party was a political protest staged on December 16, 1773 at Griffin's Wharf in Boston, Massachusetts. American colonists, frustrated at Britain for imposing "taxation without representation," dumped 342 chests of British tea into the harbor. The event was the first major act of defiance to British rule over the colonists.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Function

Soon after the formation of the Boston Committee of Correspondence and the network of Committees of Correspondence which soon sprung up all over Massachusetts, in the spring of 1773 Committees of Correspondence were established in the colonies of Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. By February 1774, eleven of the Thirteen Colonies, excluding Pennsylvania and North Carolina, had established networks of Committees of Correspondence. In terms of power, by early 1774 the Committees of Correspondence had superseded the colonial legislature and royal officials in the Thirteen Colonies. The Committees of Correspondence were influential in revolutionizing the town meeting from discussions of local matters to far-reaching global politics. In effect, the town meeting became the action-level for the Patriot cause. These meetings served as a means for the concerned citizenry to voice their opinions about the grievances they had with Britain.

The primary function of the Committees of Correspondence was the championing and implementation of the Patriot cause through diplomatic means. The vast network of Committees of Correspondence served as a powerful pipeline through which information could be transmitted to all of the Thirteen Colonies. The Committees of Correspondence served as a well-calculated Patriot network for the dissemination of news and information as it related to grievances with Britain from the major cities to the rural communities. The Committees of Correspondence were responsible for ensuring the information they disseminated was accurate and reflected the views of their local parent governments on particular issues, the colonial interpretation of British policy, and that the information they issued was sent to the proper factions. Information was disseminated by the Committees of Correspondence throughout the Thirteen Colonies through pamphlets and letters carried by post riders or onboard ships. Additionally, newspapers served as vital tools and communiqués for the network of Committees of Correspondence. The Boston Committee of Correspondence relied on the Boston Gazette and Massachusetts Spy as a principle means of disseminating information regarding the Patriot cause and grievances with Britain. The Committees of Correspondence promoted manufacturing in the Thirteen Colonies and advised colonists not to buy goods imported from Britain.

The goal of the Committees of Correspondence throughout the Thirteen Colonies was to inform voters of the common threat they faced from their mother country - Britain. The majority of the members of the Committees of Correspondence were also members of their local chapters of the secret Patriot organization the Sons of Liberty. They set up espionage networks to identify disloyal elements and disenfranchised royal officials. The Maryland Committee of Correspondence was influential in establishing the First Continental Congress. They convened in Philadelphia in September and October of 1774 to petition Britain to repeal the Intolerable Acts. Committees of Correspondence worked in conjunction with the Committees of Safety, formally Councils of War - which had been in existence since the 17th century. The Committees of Safety, like the Committees of Correspondence, were formed on the eve of the American Revolution throughout the Thirteen Colonies in response to tensions with Britain and empowered committees to "alarm, muster, and cause to be assembled" as much of the provincial militia as needed at any time. The Committees of Correspondence and the Committees of Safety, most notably in Massachusetts, were influential in the organizing, training, and arming of Patriot militias and establishing companies of minute men prior to the outbreak of the American Revolution on April 19, 1775, at Lexington and Concord. Committees of Correspondence provided the political organization necessary to unite the Thirteen Colonies in opposition to Britain. As a political entity, the Committees of Correspondence were replaced during the American Revolution by the more formal and qualified Provincial Congresses but they still continued to function at the local level.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Committees of Correspondence - Boston Tea Party Ships

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn about the Committees of Correspondence and its role in the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Contents

1. British Colonial Policy After the French and Indian War

2. Forming of Boston Committee of Correspondence

3. Virginia and the Inter-Colonial System of Committees of Correspondence

4. Role of the Committees in the Revolutionary War

Committees of correspondence were emergency provisional governments set up in the 13 American colonies in response to British policies leading up to the Revolutionary War (also known as the American Revolution). The exchange of ideas, information and debate between different committees of correspondence helped organize and mobilize patriotic resistance in communities throughout the colonies and built the foundations for the Continental Congress.

British Colonial Policy After the French and Indian War

Up until the late 18th century, Britain's American colonies enjoyed a high level of autonomy and control over their own political and economic affairs, thanks to the long-standing unofficial policy known as salutary neglect. This began to change soon after the French and Indian War, when King George III and his ministers set out to strengthen Britain's hold on the colonies (and raise revenue to pay the British war debt).

Tensions began rising in 1764 with the British Parliament's passage of the Sugar Act, which imposed a duty on sugar and molasses imported into the colonies. This was followed swiftly by the Currency Act, which prohibited the colonies from printing their own currency; and the Stamp Act, which required colonists to pay a tax on paper and printed materials.

During the 1760s, Boston, New York and other colonies established committees of correspondence to organize resistance to such unpopular legislation. These early committees of correspondence were assumed to be temporary structures that would be dissolved as soon as a particular policy was rescinded. They proved effective in mobilizing opposition to British policies: By 1770 Britain had repealed the Stamp Act and most of the Townshend Acts, a series of measures that taxed goods like china, glass, lead, paint, paper and tea.

Forming of Boston Committee of Correspondence

In November 1772, Samuel Adams and other leading patriots formed the Boston Committee of Correspondence in response to the news that governors, judges and other high officials in Massachusetts Bay Province would be paid their salaries by the Crown, rather than by colonial legislatures. Adams argued that this threatened colonists' right to fair trials, as the judges were responsible to the British king instead of local institutions. After the Boston committee wrote a list of grievances against the British government and distributed it widely, committees of correspondence began forming in towns throughout Massachusetts and beyond.

Growing patriotic discontent in Boston erupted into the Boston Tea Party in December 1773, and British reprisals-including passage of the Coercive Acts (known in the colonies as the Intolerable Acts) in the spring of 1774-would only fan the flames of colonial resistance. Instead of isolating Massachusetts and preventing unified resistance to British policies, the Intolerable Acts instead served to rally more support behind the growing Patriot cause.

Virginia and the Inter-Colonial System of Committees of Correspondence

Meanwhile, fallout continued from the ​​Gaspee Affair, which involved a group of Rhode Islanders who burned a British customs ship in June 1772. Parliament had ordered a commission to investigate the ship's burning and send the perpetrators back to England to trial. Viewing this as an alarming act of imperialism, the Virginia House of Burgesses formed its own committee of correspondence in March 1773 to open up communication and organize resistance among the colonies.

By the end of 1774, networks of committees of correspondence had been established in 11 of the 13 colonies, excluding Pennsylvania and North Carolina, with an estimated total membership of around 7,000 people.
WATCH: How the Sons of Liberty Helped Ignite the Revolution
Role of the Committees in the Revolutionary War

The committees of correspondence functioned mainly as a means of spreading news and information about the Patriot cause and mobilizing opposition to British policies in cities, towns and rural communities throughout the colonies. Many members were also affiliated with local chapters of the Sons of Liberty, the secret military and political organization that had been instrumental in carrying out the Boston Tea Party.

In the year leading up to the Revolutionary War, committees of correspondence provided the structure for choosing delegates to represent each colony at the First Continental Congress, which convened in Philadelphia in September 1774 to demand an end to British repression of colonial liberties. Local committees of correspondence throughout the colonies later collaborated with committees of safety, which were empowered to organize, train and arm provincial militias as needed.

With the outbreak of war on April 19, 1775 at Lexington and Concord, the committees of correspondence became the de facto government of the rebellious colonies. Though replaced by provincial congresses during the conflict, they continued to function at the local level.

Sources

Committees of Correspondence. American Battlefield Trust.
"The Committees of Correspondence: The Voice of the Patriots." Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum.
Catherine Treesh. "Committees of Correspondence." George Washington's Mount Vernon.
Benjamin Warford-Johnston. "American Colonial Committees of Correspondence: Encountering Oppression, Exploring Unity, and Exchanging Visions of the Future." The History Teacher, Vol. 50, No. 1 (November 2016)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
British Colonial Policy After the French and Indian War Forming of Boston Committee of Correspondence Virginia and the Inter-Colonial System of Committees of Correspondence Role of the Committees in the Revolutionary War Committees of correspondence were emergency provisional governments set up in the 13 American colonies in response to British policies leading up to the Revolutionary War (also known as the American Revolution).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Sons of Liberty was a group of political dissidents that formed in the North American British colonies during the early days of the American Revolution in Boston, Mass.

The following are some facts about the Sons of Liberty:

The Sons of Liberty formed to protest the passage of the Stamp Act of 1765. The Stamp Act was a tax that required printed materials in the colony, such as newspapers and legal documents, to be published on paper produced in London and embossed with the revenue stamp.

The colonists resented the Stamp Act and felt that being taxed without their consent was a violation of their rights as British citizens.

The Loyal Nine:

When the Sons of Liberty first formed in the summer of 1765, the group was originally known as the Loyal Nine, which consisted of nine Boston shopkeepers and artisans:

John Avery Jr, distiller
Henry Bass, merchant and cousin to Samuel Adams
Thomas Chase, distiller
Thomas Crafts, painter
Stephen Cleverly, brazier
Benjamin Edes, printer of the Boston Gazette
Joseph Field, ship captain
John Smith, brazier
George Trott, jeweler

The ninth member was either Henry Welles, a mariner, or Joseph Field, master of a vessel.

How the Sons of Liberty Got Their Name:

The term "the Sons of Liberty" actually came from a debate over the Stamp Act in Parliament in February of 1765, during which Irishman Isaac Barre made a speech defending the colonists and criticizing the British government's actions against them, according to the book The Eve of the Revolution:

"[Were] they nourished by your indulgence? They grew by your neglect of them. As soon as you began to care about them, that care was exercised in sending persons to rule over them, in one department and another... sent to spy out their liberty, to misrepresent their actions and to prey upon them; men whose behaviour on many occasions has caused the blood of these sons of liberty to recoil within them..."

When the group officially expanded and adopted the name "The Sons of Liberty" is not known since the secretive group left virtually no paper trail.

Sons of Liberty & the Stamp Act Riot:

What is known about the group is that in August of 1765, the Loyal Nine acquired the help of Ebenezer McIntosh, a local cordwainer and leader of the South End Pope's Day Company (Pope's Day was the Boston colonial version of Guy Fawkes Day) to pull off its first protest, according to the book A True Republican: The Life of Paul Revere:

"On the morning of August 14, 1765, Bostonians witnessed a ritual of protest similar to the mocking, world-turned-upside-down festivities of the Pope's Day processions. The Loyal Nine prepared effigies of Andrew Oliver, the stamp master, and Lord Bute, the king's favorite, who, though out of office since the end of 1763, was considered the instigator of the unpopular revenue measures. McIntosh's men, mostly artisans from the lower ranks of the craft hierarchy, laborers and mariners, hung the effigies from a large elm tree at Essex and Orange Streets in the South End, a tree soon to become famous as Liberty Tree. A label on the breast of Oliver's effigy praised liberty and denounced 'Vengence on the Subvertors of it,' and another label warned: 'He that takes this down is an enemy to his country.' At sunset, forty or fifty artisans and tradesman took down the effigies and carried them in a procession to Andrew Oliver's dock, where the mob leveled a building they believed would be the stamp office, and then to Fort Hill, where they burned the figures. In his journal, John Boyle stressed that the procession was 'followed by a great concourse of people, some of the highest reputation, and in the greatest order.' At this point, the less genteel members of the mob, led my McIntosh and angered by Thomas Hutchinson's attempts to disperse them, proceeded to wreak havoc on Andrew Oliver's house, pulling down fences, breaking windows, looking glasses, and furniture, stripping his trees of fruit, and drinking his wine."

The following night, August 15, the mob formed a blockade in front of Governor Thomas Hutchinson's mansion, demanding that he denounce the Stamp Act in his official letters to London.

Hutchinson, a loyalist who had written the book The History of the Province of Massachusetts-Bay in which he condemned a revolt by Boston citizens in 1689 against the rule of governor Sir Edmund Andros, refused. A few weeks later, on August 26, the mob returned.

After attacking the homes of William Story, deputy register of the Vice-Admiralty Court, and Benjamin Hallowell, comptroller of customs, they then attacked Hutchinson's house.

Hutchinson and his family were able to escape the home just minutes before the mob arrived. Upon breaking into the mansion, the mob destroyed Hutchinson's furniture, wrecked the garden, tore out the windows, walls, wainscoting, tiles and even tore down the cupola on the roof.

In addition, they stole the contents of his wine cellar, £900 in sterling, every valuable object in his home and destroyed his collection of books and papers from his research for his history book.

For a number of years after the Stamp Act riot, the Sons of Liberty organized annual celebrations to mark the event, which consisted of parades and gatherings at the Liberty Tree on Boston Common or large dinners, known as "Liberty dinners," under a tent at the Liberty Tree Tavern in Dorchester.

By the end of 1765, Sons of Liberty groups had sprouted up in every state in the colony.

Women also joined the cause by forming local chapters of the Daughters of Liberty, which organized spinning groups to spin cloth and supported a boycott against British imports.

Members of the Sons of Liberty:

Due to the secret nature of the Sons of Liberty, the group never kept any official rosters of its members. Yet, in 1869 a handwritten list titled "An Alphabetical List of the Sons of Liberty Who Dined at the Liberty Tree, Dorchester Aug. 14, 1769" was donated to the Massachusetts Historical Society.

This list of over 300 names was compiled by an attendee of the event, William Palfrey, and was donated by his grandson on the 100th anniversary of the event. The names on the list are as follows:

E.
Erving, John, Hon.
Erving, George, Esq.
Edes, Benjamin
Edwards, John
Eliot, Deacon
Eliot, Joseph, Jr.
Edes, Thomas
Emmes, Samuel
Edwards, Alex.

F.
Freeman, Jon., Capt.
Fleet, Thomas
Fleet, John
Foster, Deacon
Foster, Timothy
Foster, Bossenger
Foster, William
Fitch, Timothy
Flagg, Josiah
Fowle, William
Farmer, Paul

Harris, Stephen
Harris, Stephen, Jr.
Hinckley, Ebenezer
Hoskins, William
Hill, Dr.
Hewes, Robert
Honeywell, Richard
Horry, Thomas

K.
Kent, Benj., Esq.
Knox, Thomas
Knox, Thomas
Kennedy, William
Kneeland, Barth.

L.
Langdon, John
Lucas, John
Lovell, James
Lasinby, Joseph
Langdon, John, Jr.
Langdon, Timothy
Leach, John
Laggett, Thomas
Loring, John
Loring, Caleb
Leverett, John, Capt.
Leverett, Thomas
Lowell, John

N.
Noyes, Nathaniel

O.
Otis, James, The Hon. jr.
Otis, Samuel Allyne
Otis, Joseph

Q.
Quincy, Samuel, Esq.
Quincy, Josiah

R.
Ruddock, John, Esq.
Revere, Paul
Rand, Isaac, Dr.
Ray, Caleb
Richardson, James
Reid, Mr., Secretary to Gov.
Franklin, Jerseys.
Read, William, Esq.
Ruggles, Samuel
Robinson, Lemuel
Ratcliffe, Mr., Carolina.
Roberts, Peter

V.
Vose, Joseph
Vernon, Fortescue

Y.
Young, Thomas, Dr.

Paul Revere, one of the most famous members of the Sons of Liberty, was reportedly admitted to the group because he had many qualities that they found desirable in their members, according to the book A True Republican: The Life of Paul Revere:

"Esther Forbes wrote that the leaders of the Revolution in Boston admitted Paul Revere into their society 'because they wished the sympathy of the large artisan class with whom he was immensely popular, and he represented an important point of view.' His position as a respected master artisan whose ties of business and friendship connected him to Boston's artisans, mariners, merchants and Freemasons surely made Paul Revere a desirable member of the patriot cause...Revere's Masonic experience taught him both to know when to defer to those of superior authority and achievement and when and how to exercise leadership. Revere had also learned to appreciate the opportunity of enlightening his mind through reading, discussion, and fellowship with like-minded men. Revere's standing in the community, his personality, and his Masonic experience would all make him a worthy member of the patriot circle."

Public Reaction to the Sons of Liberty:

Newspapers across the colonies praised the Sons of Liberty, calling them "the only guardians and protectors of of the rights and liberties of America" and encouraged them to continue their activities.

Yet, the general public were not as enamored with the group, according to the book The Founding of a Nation:

"The glowing picture of the Sons of Liberty presented by the newspapers was not accepted by many alarmed Americans who looked upon them as nothing but dangerous, and all too often drunken, mobs. Naturally they kept such opinions to themselves or wrote of them in private letters to friends whom they could trust. There is no doubt that the leaders often found the mobs hard to control. In New York, even children paraded at night carrying effigies and candles. Mobs sometimes appeared on the streets in daytime, as upon the occasion when a British naval lieutenant said that John Holt of the New York Gazette ought to be sent to England and hanged 'for the licentiousness of his papers.' For three days mobs paraded the streets, threatening to murder the lieutenant, and order was not restored until General Gage provided the commanders of the naval vessel with extra arms."

After nearly a year of protests, the Sons of Liberty were finally victorious in March of 1766 when Parliament decided to repeal the Stamp Act.

The group organized celebrations across the city to mark the occasion, which included bonfires, fireworks, celebratory cannon fire, ringing church bells and decorating ships and houses with flags and streamers.

Since the group's primary objective was to protest the Stamp Act, it disbanded after the act was repealed.

Yet, the group was revived two years later when the passage of the Townshend Act threatened the colonist's rights once again, according to the book Revolts, Protests, Demonstrations, and Rebellions in America:

"In 1768, the Townshend Revenue Act was passed, placing special taxes on common goods such as lead, paint, glass, paper and tea. The Townshend Act garnered an even quicker response from colonists than the Stamp Act. The newly revived Sons of Liberty embarked on a two-year campaign against the Townshend Acts, playing a vital role in spreading rebellion throughout the colonies. In Boston, the Sons of Liberty invited hundreds of citizens to dine with them each August 14 to commemorate the first Stamp Act uprising. In Charlestown, the Sons of Liberty held their meetings in public, so that all could attend and listen. This helped spread the word of resistance to ordinary folks, including the illiterate who could not read pamphlets, newspapers or petitions....The Sons of Liberty helped to establish and enforce a boycott on British goods, causing trade to dry up. It was not long before the British merchants stepped in on behalf of the colonies and the Townshend Acts were repealed in 1770, except for the tax on tea. This would lead to one of the most infamous chapters of American history, the Boston Tea Party."

Sons of Liberty & the Boston Tea Party:

This controversy over the tea tax was made worse by the passage of the Tea Act of 1773, which allowed for tea sold by British companies to be shipped directly to the colonies and sold at a discount. As the tax on tea was still in place, this act was a subtle way to persuade colonists to comply with the tax.

The act served two purposes, it helped prop up the struggling East India Company, whose sales had taken a huge hit when the colonists started to boycott imported tea after the passage of the Townshend Act, and it goaded colonists into complying with the tax.

The colonists were not pleased. They saw through the British government's plan and the Sons of Liberty groups across the colonies responded by chasing away the tea ships in New York and Philadelphia or abandoning the cargo on the docks in Charlestown.

In Boston, the group threatened captains with tarring and feathering until the whole issue came to a head in December of 1773, when colonists refused to let three cargo ships carrying British tea, the Dartmouth, the Eleanor and the Beaver, dock in Boston harbor and unload its cargo.

A series of meetings were held, first at Faneuil Hall, then at the Old South Meetinghouse when the number of attendees grew too big for Faneuil Hall to accommodate.

During the meetings, a series of proposals and counter-proposals were explored but ultimately, on December 16th, Hutchinson refused to send the ships back to England and ordered the colonists to stop blocking the ships from landing.

According to various sources, the Sons of Liberty had anticipated this response and activated their secret plan to rush to the harbor where they rowed out to the ships and threw 90,000 pounds of tea into the harbor. This protest became the group's most famous act of rebellion.

The identity of all the participants in the Boston Tea Party is not completely known but it has been confirmed that at least four of the Loyal Nine: Thomas Chase, Thomas Crafts, Benjamin Edes and Stephen Cleverly, as well as several Sons of Liberty: including Paul Revere and Thomas Young, participated.

The Sons of Liberty continued to be active until the Revolutionary War ended in 1783 and the group finally disbanded.

Sources:
"Sons of Liberty." Massachusetts Historical Society, www.masshist.org/objects/cabinet/august2001/august2001.html
Carp, Benjamin L."Terms of Estrangement: Who Were the Sons of Liberty?" Colonial Williamsburg Official History & Citizenship Site, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, www.history.org/Foundation/journal/winter12/liberty.cfm
"Sons of Liberty." Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum, www.bostonteapartyship.com/sons-of-liberty
The Oxford Handbook of the History of Nationalism. Edited by John Breuilly. Oxford University Press, 2013.
Jensen, Merrill. The Founding of a Nation: A History of the American Revolution, 1763-1776. Hackett Publishing Company, 1968.
Revolts, Protests, Demonstrations, and Rebellions in American History. Edited by Steven Laurence Danver. Vol. I, ABC-CLIO, 2011.
Becker, Carl. The Eve of the Revolution. Yale University Press, 1918.
Triber, Jayne E. A True Republican: The Life of Paul Revere. University of Massachusetts Press, 1998.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Sons of Liberty: Who Were They and What Did They Do? - History of Massachusetts Blog

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Sons of Liberty was a group of political dissidents that formed in the North American British colonies during the early days of the American Revolution in Boston, Mass. The following are some facts about the Sons of Liberty: The Sons of Liberty formed to protest the passage of the...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Kings Mountain National Military Park (U.S. National Park Service)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Thomas Jefferson called it "The turn of the tide of success." The battle of Kings Mountain, fought October 7th, 1780, was an important American victory during the Revolutionary War. The battle was the first major patriot victory to occur after the British invasion of Charleston, SC in May 1780.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Battle of Cowpens by Charles McBarron

In 1779-80, British redcoats indeed came South en masse, capturing first, Savannah ⁷ and then Charleston ⁸ and Camden 8A in South Carolina, in the process, defeating and capturing much of the Southern Continental Army ⁹. Such victories gave the British confidence they would soon control the entire South and that Loyalists would flock to their cause. Conquering these population centers, however, gave the British such a false sense of victory that they didn't count on so much opposition in the backcountry ¹⁰. Conflict in the backcountry, to their rear, turned out to be their Achilles' heel.

The Southern Campaign, especially in the backcountry, was essentially a civil war as the colonial population split between Patriot and Loyalist. Conflict came, often pitting neighbor against neighbor and re-igniting old feuds and animosities. Those of both sides organized militia, often engaging each other. The countryside was devastated, and raids and reprisals were the order of the day.

Into this conflict, General George Washington sent the very capable Nathanael Greene to take command of the Southern army. Against military custom, Greene, just two weeks into his command, split his army, sending General Daniel Morgan southwest of the Catawba River to cut supply lines and hamper British operations in the backcountry, and, in doing so "spirit up the people". General Cornwallis, British commander in the South, countered Greene's move by sending Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton to block Morgan's actions. Tarleton was only twenty-six, but he was an able commander, both feared and hated - hated especially for his victory at the Waxhaws. ¹¹ There, Tarleton was said to have continued the fight against remnants of the Continental Army trying to surrender. According to tradition, his refusal to offer quarter, led to the derisive term "Tarleton's Quarter".

The term " cowpens" ¹⁵, endemic to such South Carolina pastureland and associated early cattle industry, would be etched in history. The field itself was some 500 yards long and just as wide, a park-like setting dotted with trees, but devoid of undergrowth, having been kept clear by cattle grazing in the spring on native grasses and peavine ¹⁶.

There was forage ¹⁷ at the Cowpens for horses, and evidence of free-ranging cattle for food. Since he had learned of Tarleton's pursuit, Morgan also had spread the word for militia ¹⁸ units to rendezvous at the Cowpens. Many knew the geography; some were Overmountain men who had camped at the Cowpens on their journey to the Battle of Kings Mountain. ¹⁹ They made camp in a swale between two small hills, and through the night Andrew Pickens' militia drifted into camp. Morgan moved among the campfires and offered encouragement; his speeches to militia and Continentals alike were command performances. He spoke emotionally of past battles, talked of the battle plan, and lashed out against the British. His words were especially effective with the militia the " Old Waggoner" ²⁰ of French and Indian War days and the hero of Saratoga ²¹, spoke their language. He knew how to motivate them even proposing a competition of bravery between Georgia and Carolina units. By the time he was through, one soldier observed that the army was "in good spirits and very willing to fight". But, as one observed, Morgan hardly slept a wink that night.

Dawn at the Cowpens on January 17, 1781, was clear and bitterly cold. Morgan, his scouts bearing news of Tarleton's approach, moved among his men, shouting, "Boys, get up! Benny's ²² coming! Tarleton, playing catch up, and having marched his army since two in the morning, ordered formation on the Green River Road for the attack. His aggressive style was made even more urgent, since there were rumors of Overmountain men on the way, reminiscent of events at Kings Mountain. Yet he was confident of victory: he reasoned he had Morgan hemmed in by the Broad, and the undulating park-like terrain was ideal for his dragoons ²³. He thought Morgan must be desperate, indeed, to have stopped at such a place. Perhaps Morgan saw it differently: in some past battles, Patriot militia had fled in face of fearsome bayonet charges - but now the Broad River at Morgan's back could prevent such a retreat. In reality, though, Morgan had no choice - to cross the flood-swollen Broad risked having his army cut down by the feared and fast-traveling Tarleton.

Tarleton pressed the attack head-on, his line extending across the meadow, his artillery in the middle, and fifty Dragoons on each side. It was as if Morgan knew he would make a frontal assault - it was his style of fighting. To face Tarleton, he organized his troops into three lines. First, out front and hiding behind trees were selected sharpshooters. At the onset of battle they picked off numbers of Tarleton's Dragoons, traditionally listed as fifteen ²⁴, shooting especially at officers, and warding off an attempt to gain initial supremacy. With the Dragoons in retreat, and their initial part completed, the sharpshooters retreated 150 yards or more back to join the second line, the militia commanded by Andrew Pickens. Morgan used the militia well, asking them to get off two volleys and promised their retreat to the third line made up of John Eager Howard's ²⁵ Continentals, again close to 150 yards back. Some of the militia indeed got off two volleys as the British neared, but, as they retreated and reached supposed safety behind the Continental line, Tarleton sent his feared Dragoons after them. As the militia dodged behind trees and parried saber slashes with their rifles, William Washington's ²⁶ Patriot cavalry thundered onto the field of battle, seemingly, out of nowhere. The surprised British Dragoons, already scattered and sensing a rout, were overwhelmed, and according to historian Lawrence Babits, lost eighteen men in the clash. As they fled the field, infantry on both sides fired volley after volley. The British advanced in a trot, with beating drums, the shrill sounds of fifes, and shouts of halloo. Morgan, in response, cheering his men on, said to give them the Indian halloo back. Riding to the front, he rallied the militia, crying out, "form, form, my brave fellows! Old Morgan was never beaten!"

Now Tarleton's 71st Highlanders ²⁷, held in reserve, entered the charge toward the Continental line, the wild wail of bagpipes adding to the noise and confusion. John Eager Howard's order for the right flank to face slightly right to counter a charge from that direction, was, in the noise of battle, misunderstood as a call to retreat. As other companies along the line followed suit, Morgan rode up to ask Howard if he were beaten. As Howard pointed to the unbroken ranks and the orderly retreat and assured him they were not, Morgan spurred his horse on and ordered the retreating units to face about, and then, on order, fire in unison. The firing took a heavy toll on the British, who, by that time had sensed victory and had broken ranks in a wild charge. This event and a fierce Patriot bayonet charge in return broke the British charge and turned the tide of battle. The re-formed militia and cavalry re-entered the battle, leading to double envelopment ²⁸ of the British, perfectly timed. British infantry began surrendering en masse.

Tarleton and some of his army fought valiantly on; others refused his orders and fled the field. Finally, Tarleton, himself, saw the futility of continued battle, and with a handful of his men, fled from whence he came, down the Green River Road. In one of the most dramatic moments of the battle, William Washington, racing ahead of his cavalry, dueled hand-to-hand with Tarleton and two of his officers. Washington's life was saved only when his young bugler ²⁹ fired his pistol at an Englishman with raised saber. Tarleton and his remaining forces galloped away to Cornwallis' camp. Stragglers from the battle were overtaken, but Tarleton escaped to tell the awful news to Cornwallis.

The battle was over in less than an hour. It was a complete victory for the Patriot force. British losses were staggering: 110 dead, over 200 wounded and 500 captured. Morgan lost only 12 killed and 60 wounded, a count he received from those reporting directly to him.

Now it was Greene and his army on the move north. Cornwallis, distressed by the news from Cowpens, and wondering aloud how such an inferior force could defeat Tarleton's crack troops, indeed came after him. Now it was a race for the Dan River ³³ on the Virginia line, Cornwallis having burned his baggage ³⁴ and swiftly pursuing Greene. Cornwallis was subsequently delayed by Patriot units stationed at Catawba River ³⁵ crossings. Greene won the race, and, in doing so, believed he had Cornwallis where he wanted -- far from urban supply centers and short of food. Returning to Guilford Courthouse ³⁶, he fought Cornwallis' army employing with some success, Morgan's tactics at Cowpens. At battle's end, the British were technically the winners as Greene's forces retreated. If it could be called a victory, it was a costly one: Five hundred British lay dead or wounded. When the news of the battle reached London, a member of the House of Commons said, "Another such victory would ruin the British army". Perhaps the army was already ruined, and Greene's strategy of attrition was working.

Soon, Greene's strategy was evident: Cornwallis and his weary army gave up on the Carolinas and moved on to Virginia. On October 18, 1781, the British army surrendered at Yorktown. Cowpens, in its part in the Revolution, was a surprising victory and a turning point that changed the psychology of the entire war. Now, there was revenge - the Patriot rallying cry Tarleton's Quarter ³⁷. Morgan's unorthodox but tactical masterpiece had indeed "spirited up the people", not just those of the backcountry Carolinas, but those in all the colonies. In the process, he gave Tarleton and the British a "devil of a whipping".

¹ Battle of Cowpens - At the Cowpens, a frontier pastureland, on January 17, 1781, Daniel Morgan led his army of tough Continentals and backwoods militia to a brilliant victory over Banastre Tarleton's battle-hardened force of British regulars. Located in present-day South Carolina north of Spartanburg.

¹¹ Waxhaws - On May 29, a1780, Tarleton's Legion overtook and defeated Colonel Abraham Buford and his Third Virginia Continentals as they returned through the Waxhaws area toward North Carolina after the fall of Charleston. (Known also today as Buford's massacre) There is some contention over the origin of the name Waxhaws. It was the name of Native Americans of the region, derived, some historians, believe, from native language. Others believe it is an English corruption of the original and described not only the Native Americans of the region but also the waxy-looking haw and "hawfields", (shrubs, either Black Haw ( vibernum prunifolium) or hawthorns ( crataegus linnaeus) prominent in the region. The Waxhaw settlement, just off the Great Wagon Road, today covers parts of both Carolinas in an area southeast of Charlotte.

²⁴ 15 - Dr. Lawrence E. Babits in his book, A Devil of a Whipping: The Battle of Cowpens,believes this figure is wrong and has been perpetuated by writers over the years.

²⁷ 71 st Highlanders - Two battalions of highland Scottish troops raised by England and sent to America in 1775. 71 st Highlanders fought at Charleston, Camden, and Cowpens, among other battles. At Cowpens, Tarleton initially kept his Highlanders in reserve, but, as the advance faltered, he ordered them into action against the American right. The Highlanders bore the brunt of the last dramatic events of the Battle.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Battle of Cowpens - Cowpens National Battlefield (U.S. National Park Service)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In 1779-80, British redcoats indeed came South en masse, capturing first, Savannah 7 and then Charleston 8 and Camden 8A in South Carolina, in the process, defeating and capturing much of the Southern Continental Army 9. Such victories gave the British confidence they would soon control the entire South and that Loyalists would flock to their cause.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
On August 27, 1776 the British Army successfully moved against the American Continental Army led by George Washington. The battlewas part of aBritish campaign to seize control of New York and thereby isolate New England from the rest of the colonies. Washington's defeat could have led to the surrender of his entire force, but his ingenuity instead allowed him to escape and continue the fight.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On August 27, 1776 the British Army successfully moved against the American Continental Army led by George Washington. The battlewas part of aBritish campaign to seize control of New York and thereby isolate New England from the rest of the colonies.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Betsy Ross: Disputed Maker of the First American Flag

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
According to legend, Betsy Ross made the first American flag. Despite a lack of credible evidence to support this, she remains an icon of American history.

# data[].attributes.body
Website about the founding fathers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
America’s Founding Fathers included George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, James Monroe and Benjamin Franklin.

# data[].attributes.body
George Washington's Plantation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
George Washington's Mount Vernon is the historic home of George and Martha Washington, located 13 miles south of Washington, DC. Guests can see the historic mansion, stately rooms, and outbuildings preserved to the year 1799, the last year of George Washington's life.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Who Was Thomas Jefferson?

Thomas Jefferson was the primary draftsman of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, the nation's first secretary of state and the second vice president (under John Adams). As the third president of the United States, Jefferson stabilized the U.S. economy and defeated pirates from North Africa during the Barbary War. He was responsible for doubling the size of the United States by successfully brokering the Louisiana Purchase. He also founded the University of Virginia.

Early Life

Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743, at the Shadwell plantation located just outside of Charlottesville, Virginia.

Jefferson was born into one of the most prominent families of Virginia's planter elite. His mother, Jane Randolph Jefferson, was a member of the proud Randolph clan, a family claiming descent from English and Scottish royalty.

His father, Peter Jefferson, was a successful farmer as well as a skilled surveyor and cartographer who produced the first accurate map of the Province of Virginia. The young Jefferson was the third born of 10 siblings.

As a boy, Jefferson's favorite pastimes were playing in the woods, practicing the violin and reading. He began his formal education at the age of nine, studying Latin and Greek at a local private school run by the Reverend William Douglas.

In 1757, at the age of 14, he took up further study of the classical languages as well as literature and mathematics with the Reverend James Maury, whom Jefferson later described as "a correct classical scholar."

College of William and Mary

In 1760, having learned all he could from Maury, Jefferson left home to attend the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia's capital.

Although it was the second oldest college in America (after Harvard), William and Mary was not at that time an especially rigorous academic institution. Jefferson was dismayed to discover that his classmates expended their energies betting on horse races, playing cards and courting women rather than studying.

Nevertheless, the serious and precocious Jefferson fell in with a circle of older scholars that included Professor William Small, Lieutenant Governor Francis Fauquier and lawyer George Wythe, and it was from them that he received his true education.

Becoming a Lawyer

After three years at William and Mary, Jefferson decided to read law under Wythe, one of the preeminent lawyers of the American colonies. There were no law schools at this time; instead aspiring attorneys "read law" under the supervision of an established lawyer before being examined by the bar.

Wythe guided Jefferson through an extraordinarily rigorous five-year course of study (more than double the typical duration); by the time Jefferson won admission to the Virginia bar in 1767, he was already one of the most learned lawyers in America.

Monticello

In 1770, Jefferson began construction of what was perhaps his greatest labor of love: Monticello, his house atop a small rise in the Piedmont region of Virginia. The house was built on land his father had owned since 1735.

In keeping with the interests of one of America's greatest "Renaissance Men" - Jefferson's interests ranged from botany and archaeology to music and birdwatching - Jefferson himself drafted the blueprints for Monticello's neoclassical mansion, outbuildings and gardens.

More than just a residence, Monticello was also a working plantation, where Jefferson kept roughly 130 African Americans in slavery. Their duties included tending gardens and livestock, plowing fields and working at the on-site textile factory.

Thomas Jefferson's Children

From 1767 to 1774, Jefferson practiced law in Virginia with great success, trying many cases and winning most of them. During these years, he also met and fell in love with Martha Wayles Skelton, a recent widow and one of the wealthiest women in Virginia.

The pair married on January 1, 1772. Thomas and Martha Jefferson had six children together, but only two survived into adulthood: Martha, their firstborn, and Mary, their fourth. Only Martha survived her father.

His six children with Martha, however, were not the only children Jefferson fathered.

Sally Hemings

History scholars and a significant body of DNA evidence indicate that Jefferson had an affair - and at least one child - with one of his slaves, a woman named Sally Hemings, who was in fact Martha Jefferson's half-sister.

Sally's mother, Betty Hemings, was a slave owned by Jefferson's father-in-law, John Wayles, who was the father of Betty's daughter Sally. It is overwhelmingly likely, if not absolutely certain, that Jefferson fathered all six of Sally Hemings' children.

Most compelling is DNA evidence showing that some male member of the Jefferson family fathered Hemings' children, and that it was not Samuel or Peter Carr, the only two of Jefferson's male relatives in the vicinity at the relevant times.

Political Career

The beginning of Jefferson's professional life coincided with great changes in Great Britain's 13 colonies in America.

The conclusion of the French and Indian War in 1763 left Great Britain in dire financial straits; to raise revenue, the Crown levied a host of new taxes on its American colonies. In particular, the Stamp Act of 1765, imposing a tax on printed and paper goods, outraged the colonists, giving rise to the American revolutionary slogan, "No taxation without representation."

Eight years later, on December 16, 1773, colonists protesting a British tea tax dumped 342 chests of tea into the Boston Harbor in what is known as the Boston Tea Party. In April 1775, American militiamen clashed with British soldiers at the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the first battles in what developed into the Revolutionary War.

Jefferson was one of the earliest and most fervent supporters of the cause of American independence from Great Britain. He was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1768 and joined its radical bloc, led by Patrick Henry and George Washington.

In 1774, Jefferson penned his first major political work, A Summary View of the Rights of British America, which established his reputation as one of the most eloquent advocates of the American cause.

A year later, in 1775, Jefferson attended the Second Continental Congress, which created the Continental Army and appointed Jefferson's fellow Virginian, George Washington, as its commander-in-chief. However, the Congress' most significant work fell to Jefferson himself.

Declaration of Independence

In June 1776, the Congress appointed a five-man committee (Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston) to draft a Declaration of Independence.

The committee then chose Jefferson to author the declaration's first draft, selecting him for what Adams called his "happy talent for composition and singular felicity of expression." Over the next 17 days, Jefferson drafted one of the most beautiful and powerful testaments to liberty and equality in world history.

The document opened with a preamble stating the natural rights of all human beings and then continued on to enumerate specific grievances against King George III that absolved the American colonies of any allegiance to the British Crown.

Although the version of the Declaration of Independence adopted on July 4, 1776, had undergone a series of revisions from Jefferson's original draft, its immortal words remain essentially his own: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

After authoring the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson returned to Virginia, where, from 1776 to 1779, he served as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates. There he sought to revise Virginia's laws to fit the American ideals he had outlined in the Declaration of Independence.

Jefferson successfully abolished the doctrine of entail, which dictated that only a property owner's heirs could inherit his land, and the doctrine of primogeniture, which required that in the absence of a will a property owner's oldest son inherited his entire estate.

DOWNLOAD BIOGRAPHY'S THOMAS JEFFERSON FACT CARD

Separation of Church and State

In 1777, Jefferson wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which established freedom of religion and the separation of church and state.

Although the document was not adopted as Virginia state law for another nine years, it was one of Jefferson's proudest life accomplishments.

Governor of Virginia

On June 1, 1779, the Virginia legislature elected Jefferson as the state's second governor. His two years as governor proved the low point of Jefferson's political career. Torn between the Continental Army's desperate pleas for more men and supplies and Virginians' strong desire to keep such resources for their own defense, Jefferson waffled and pleased no one.

As the Revolutionary War progressed into the South, Jefferson moved the capital from Williamsburg to Richmond, only to be forced to evacuate that city when it, rather than Williamsburg, turned out to be the target of British attack.

On June 1, 1781, the day before the end of his second term as governor, Jefferson was forced to flee his home at Monticello (located near Charlottesville, Virginia), only narrowly escaping capture by the British cavalry. Although he had no choice but to flee, his political enemies later pointed to this inglorious incident as evidence of cowardice.

Jefferson declined to seek a third term as governor and stepped down on June 4, 1781. Claiming that he was giving up public life for good, he returned to Monticello, where he intended to live out the rest of his days as a gentleman farmer surrounded by the domestic pleasures of his family, his farm and his books.

Notes on the State of Virginia

To fill his time at home, in late 1781, Jefferson began working on his only full-length book, the modestly titled Notes on the State of Virginia.

While the book's ostensible purpose was to outline the history, culture and geography of Virginia, it also provides a window into Jefferson's political philosophy and worldview.

Contained in Notes on the State of Virginia is Jefferson's vision of the good society he hoped America would become: a virtuous agricultural republic, based on the values of liberty, honesty and simplicity and centered on the self-sufficient yeoman farmer.

Thomas Jefferson's Slaves

Jefferson's writings also shed light on his contradictory, controversial and much-debated views on race and slavery. Jefferson owned slaves through his entire life, and his very existence as a gentleman farmer depended on the institution of slavery.

Like most white Americans of that time, Jefferson held views we would now describe as nakedly racist: He believed that blacks were innately inferior to whites in terms of both mental and physical capacity.

Nevertheless, he claimed to abhor slavery as a violation of the natural rights of man. He saw the eventual solution of America's race problem as the abolition of slavery followed by the exile of former slaves to either Africa or Haiti, because, he believed, former slaves could not live peacefully alongside their former masters.

As Jefferson wrote, "We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other."

Minister to France

Jefferson was spurred back into public life by private tragedy: the untimely death of his beloved wife, Martha, on September 6, 1782, at the age of 34.

After months of mourning, in June 1783, Jefferson returned to Philadelphia to lead the Virginia delegation to the Confederation Congress. In 1785, that body appointed Jefferson to replace Benjamin Franklin as U.S. minister to France.

Although Jefferson appreciated much about European culture - its arts, architecture, literature, food and wines - he found the juxtaposition of the aristocracy's grandeur and the masses' poverty repellant. "I find the general fate of humanity here, most deplorable," he wrote in one letter.

In Europe, Jefferson rekindled his friendship with John Adams, who served as minister to Great Britain, and Adams' wife, Abigail Adams. The educated and erudite Abigail, with whom Jefferson maintained a lengthy correspondence on a wide variety of subjects, was perhaps the only woman he ever treated as an intellectual equal.

Jefferson's official duties as minister consisted primarily of negotiating loans and trade agreements with private citizens and government officials in Paris and Amsterdam.

After nearly five years in Paris, Jefferson returned to America at the end of 1789 with a much greater appreciation for his home country. As he wrote to his good friend, James Monroe, "My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy."

Secretary of State

Jefferson arrived in Virginia in November 1789 to find George Washington waiting for him with news that Washington had been elected the first president of the United States of America, and that he was appointing Jefferson as his secretary of state.

Besides Jefferson, Washington's most trusted advisor was Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. A dozen years younger than Jefferson, Hamilton was a New Yorker and war hero who, unlike Jefferson and Washington, had risen from humble beginnings.

Jefferson's Political Party

Rancorous partisan battles emerged to divide the new American government during Washington's presidency.

On one side, the Federalists, led by Hamilton, advocated for a strong national government, broad interpretation of the U.S. Constitution and neutrality in European affairs.

On the other side, the Republican political party, led by Jefferson, promoted the supremacy of state governments, a strict constructionist interpretation of the Constitution and support for the French Revolution.

Washington's two most trusted advisors thus provided nearly opposite advice on the most pressing issues of the day: the creation of a national bank, the appointment of federal judges and the official posture toward France.

On January 5, 1794, frustrated by the endless conflicts, Jefferson resigned as secretary of state, once again abandoning politics in favor of his family and farm at his beloved Monticello.

Jefferson as Vice President

In 1797, despite Jefferson's public ambivalence and previous claims that he was through with politics, the Republicans selected Jefferson as their candidate to succeed George Washington as president.

In those days, candidates did not campaign for office openly, so Jefferson did little more than remain at home on the way to finishing a close second to then-Vice President John Adams in the electoral college, which, by the rules of the time, made Jefferson the new vice president.

Besides presiding over the U.S. Senate, the vice president had essentially no substantive role in government. The long friendship between Adams and Jefferson had cooled due to political differences (Adams was a Federalist), and Adams did not consult his vice president on any important decisions.

To occupy his time during his four years as vice president, Jefferson authored A Manual of Parliamentary Practice, one of the most useful guides to legislative proceedings ever written, and served as the president of the American Philosophical Society.

Presidency

John Adams' presidency revealed deep fissures in the Federalist Party between moderates such as Adams and Washington and more extreme Federalists like Alexander Hamilton.

In the presidential election of 1800, the Federalists refused to back Adams, clearing the way for the Republican candidates Jefferson and Aaron Burr to tie for first place with 73 electoral votes each. After a long and contentious debate, the House of Representatives selected Jefferson to serve as the third U.S. president, with Burr as his vice president.

The election of Jefferson in 1800 was a landmark of world history, the first peacetime transfer of power from one party to another in a modern republic.

Delivering his inaugural address on March 4, 1801, Jefferson spoke to the fundamental commonalities uniting all Americans despite their partisan differences. "Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle," he stated. "We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists."

Accomplishments

President Jefferson's accomplishments during his first term in office were numerous, remarkably successful and productive.

In keeping with his Republican values, Jefferson stripped the presidency of all the trappings of European royalty, reduced the size of the armed forces and government bureaucracy and lowered the national debt from $80 million to $57 million in his first two years in office.

Nevertheless, Jefferson's most important achievements as president all involved bold assertions of national government power and surprisingly liberal readings of the U.S. Constitution.

Louisiana Purchase

Jefferson's most significant accomplishment as president was the Louisiana Purchase. In 1803, he acquired land stretching from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains from cash-strapped Napoleonic France for the bargain price of $15 million, thereby doubling the size of the nation in a single stroke.

He then devised the wonderfully informative Lewis and Clark Expedition to explore, map out and report back on the new American territories.

Tripoli Pirates

Jefferson also put an end to the centuries-old problem of Tripoli pirates from North Africa disrupting American shipping in the Mediterranean. During the Barbary War, Jefferson forced the pirates to capitulate by deploying new American warships.

Notably, both the Louisiana Purchase and the undeclared war against the Barbary pirates conflicted with Jefferson's much-avowed Republican values. Both actions represented unprecedented expansions of national government power, and neither was explicitly sanctioned by the Constitution.

Second Term as President

Although Jefferson easily won re-election in 1804, his second term in office proved much more difficult and less productive than his first. He largely failed in his efforts to impeach the many Federalist judges swept into government by the Judiciary Act of 1801.

However, the greatest challenges of Jefferson's second term were posed by the war between Napoleonic France and Great Britain. Both Britain and France attempted to prevent American commerce with the other power by harassing American shipping, and Britain in particular sought to impress American sailors into the British Navy.

In response, Jefferson passed the Embargo Act of 1807, suspending all trade with Europe. The move wrecked the American economy as exports crashed from $108 million to $22 million by the time he left office in 1809. The embargo also led to the War of 1812 with Great Britain after Jefferson left office.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Thomas Jefferson was the primary draftsman of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, the nation's first secretary of state and the second vice president (under John Adams). As the third president of the United States, Jefferson stabilized the U.S. economy and defeated pirates from North Africa during the Barbary War.

# data[].attributes.body
In Philadelphia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Visiting Independence Hall - Independence National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Visitors must pass through a security screening area to visit the buildings on Independence Square, including Independence Hall. The screening area is located adjacent to Old City Hall, near the corner of 5th and Chestnut Streets. To maximize your visit to the park, and minimize your security screening time, the park recommends that you bring only small bags, if necessary.

# data[].attributes.body
National Battlefield

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Valley Forge National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Valley Forge is the encampment site of the Continental Army during the winter of 1777-1778. The park features 3,500 acres of monuments, meadows, and woodlands commemorating the sacrifices and perseverance of the Revolutionary War generation and honoring the power of people to pull together and overc…

# data[].attributes.body
Lexington and Concord

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Battles of Lexington and Concord, fought on April 19, 1775, were the first military clashes of the American Revolutionary War.

The Massachusetts militia routed the British Army forces and were soon joined by militias from Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. These militias would become the core of the Continental Army.

Growing tensions leading to the American Revolution

In February 1775, British Parliament declared that the colony of Massachusetts was in a state of rebellion.

After Parliament had passed the Intolerable Acts-largely aimed at punishing Boston's revolutionaries for the Boston Tea Party -the British government had tightened its grip on the government of Massachusetts. The royally appointed governor, Thomas Gage, had been granted broadly expanded powers, and the British had sent thousands of troops to Boston.

The Massachusetts colonial assembly responded to these provocations by directing townships to ready their militias. War was coming, and Boston's patriots were preparing for it.

The British were preparing, too, and in April 1775, they directed Gage to disarm the rebels. Gage ordered Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith to gather 700 British Army soldiers and march to Concord, where the rebels were reportedly storing mass quantities of arms and ammunition. Their orders were to find the stash and destroy it.

The Patriots, as the anti-British rebels were known, had established a fairly effective intelligence network, and some historians even believe that Gage's American wife, Margaret Kemble Gage, was a rebel spy. Whether or not she was the one who provided the Patriots with the information about the planned seizure and destruction of the armory at Concord, they received word of the British orders.

On April 18, Patriot Paul Revere rode to Concord and notified local militias in the area to be on the alert for the British army forces.

The "shot heard round the world"

On April 18, Revere was warned that British Army regulars were making their way to the towns of Lexington and Concord. Having already warned the militia in Concord, which had secured the weapons supply, Revere rode quickly to Lexington to warn the townspeople of the expected British onslaught. The rebel intelligence network suggested that the British aim in Lexington was to capture Samuel Adams and John Hancock, two of the most prominent Patriot leaders, but the size of the British army force was large enough to suggest they had bigger goals in mind.

The British soldiers and rebel militiamen raced to Lexington during the night; they confronted each other at Lexington Green-a village common area-just as the sun was rising on the morning of April 19. Captain John Parker, a veteran of the Seven Years' War, led a contingent of 80 Lexington militiamen, known as minutemen because they had to be ready to fight at a minute's notice. Years later, one of the participants recalled Parker's words right before the deadly skirmish: "Stand your ground; don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here."

A British officer demanded that the militia disarm and disperse, and in the ensuing confusion, shots were fired. To this day, there exists considerable uncertainty over whether the militiamen or the British soldiers fired first. Regardless, the British soldiers rushed forward with their bayonets. A skirmish ensued, during which eight militiamen were killed and only one British soldier wounded.

After order was restored, the British soldiers began the march to Concord, where militias from Concord and the nearby town of Lincoln were waiting. After the British found and destroyed rebel weapons caches, they squared off against the colonial forces at the North Bridge. Outnumbered and outmaneuvered, the British soldiers broke rank and fled, handing the stunned colonists a victory.

The militiamen proceeded to lay siege to Boston, where they were joined by militias from Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. These colonial forces would be constituted as the Continental Army by the Second Continental Congress.

What do you think?

In your opinion, was the Battle of Lexington really a battle? Why was it so significant?

Do you think the confrontation at Lexington and Concord made war with Britain inevitable?

What role do you think spies might have played in shaping the course of the first military clash between the British army and the colonial militias?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Battles of Lexington and Concord (article) | Khan Academy

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Lead-Up to the Battles of Lexington and Concord

Starting in 1764, Great Britain enacted a series of measures aimed at raising revenue from its 13 American colonies. Many of those measures, including the Sugar Act, Stamp Act and Townshend Acts, generated fierce resentment among the colonists, who protested against "taxation without representation." Boston, the site of the 1770 Boston Massacre and the 1773 Boston Tea Party, was one of the main points of resistance. King George III of Britain ramped up the military presence there, and in June 1774 he shut down the city's harbor until colonists paid for tea dumped overboard the previous year. Soon after, the British Parliament declared that Massachusetts was in open rebellion.
Did you know? Paul Revere never shouted the legendary phrase later attributed to him ("The British are coming!") as he passed from town to town during his midnight ride on April 18, 1775. The operation was meant to be conducted as discreetly as possible since scores of British troops were hiding out in the Massachusetts countryside. Furthermore, colonial Americans at that time still considered themselves British.
On April 18, 1775, Joseph Warren, a physician and member of the Sons of Liberty, learned from a source inside the British high command that Redcoat troops would march that night on Concord. Warren dispatched two couriers, silversmith Paul Revere and tanner William Dawes, to alert residents of the news.

They went by separate routes in case one of them was captured. Revere crossed the Charles River by boat to get to Charlestown, where fellow patriots were waiting for a signal about the movement of British troops. The patriots had been instructed to look at the steeple of Boston's Old North Church, which was visible to them because it was the highest point in the city.

If there was one lantern hanging in the steeple, the British were arriving by land. If there were two, the British were coming by sea. Two lanterns were set out, and the covert signal was memorialized in American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, "Paul Revere's Ride," in which he wrote:

As Revere carried out his mission in Charlestown, Dawes left Boston and traveled along the Boston Neck peninsula. The two met up in Lexington, a few miles east of Concord, where revolutionary leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock had temporarily holed up. Having persuaded those two to flee, a weary Revere and Dawes then set out again. On the road, they met a third rider, Samuel Prescott, who alone made it all the way to Concord. Revere was captured by a British patrol, while Dawes was thrown from his horse and forced to proceed back to Lexington on foot.

Fighting Breaks Out in Lexington and Concord

At dawn on April 19, some 700 British troops arrived in Lexington and came upon 77 militiamen gathered on the town green. A British major yelled, "Throw down your arms! Ye villains, ye rebels."

The heavily outnumbered militiamen had just been ordered by their commander to disperse when a shot rang out. To this day, no one knows which side fired first. Several British volleys were subsequently unleashed before order could be restored. When the smoke cleared, eight militiamen lay dead and nine were wounded, while only one Redcoat was injured.

The British then continued into Concord to search for arms, not realizing that the vast majority had already been relocated. They decided to burn what little they found, and the fire got slightly out of control. Hundreds of militiamen occupying the high ground outside of Concord incorrectly thought the whole town would be torched. The militiamen hustled to Concord's North Bridge, which was being defended by a contingent of British soldiers. The British fired first but fell back when the colonists returned the volley.

This was the "shot heard 'round the world" later immortalized by poet Ralph Waldo Emerson. (Emerson was not the only artist moved to depict the battle; painter Amos Doolittle, known as "The Revere of Connecticut," created four celebrated engravings of the Battles of Lexington and Concord.)

After searching Concord for about four hours, the British prepared to return to Boston, located 18 miles away. By that time, almost 2,000 militiamen-known as minutemen for their ability to be ready on a moment's notice-had descended to the area, and more were constantly arriving.

At first, the militiamen simply followed the British column. Fighting started again soon after, however, with the militiamen firing at the British from behind trees, stone walls, houses and sheds. Before long, British troops were abandoning weapons, clothing and equipment in order to retreat faster.

When the British column reached Lexington, it ran into an entire brigade of fresh Redcoats that had answered a call for reinforcements. But that did not stop the colonists from resuming their attack all the way through Menotomy (now Arlington) and Cambridge.

The British, for their part, tried to keep the colonists at bay with flanking parties and canon fire. In the evening a contingent of newly arrived minutemen from Salem and Marblehead, Massachusetts, purportedly had a chance to cut off the Redcoats and perhaps finish them off. Instead, their commander ordered them not to attack, and the British were able to reach the safety of Charlestown Neck, where they had naval support.

Effects of Lexington and Concord

The colonists did not show great marksmanship that day. As many as 3,500 militiamen firing constantly for 18 miles only killed or wounded roughly 250 Redcoats, compared to about 90 killed and wounded on their side.

The relatively low casualties of the Battles of Lexington and Concord proved they could stand up to one of the most powerful armies in the world. News of the battle quickly spread, reaching London on May 28. A few months later, the British narrowly defeated the Americans in Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775, the low number of casualties once again showing the strength of patriot forces. By the following summer, a full-scale war of independence had broken out, paving the way for the creation of the United States of America.

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Battles of Lexington and Concord - Winner, Date, Summary | HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Battles of Lexington and Concord, fought between colonial militiamen and British Redcoats on April 19, 1775, kicked off the American Revolutionary War.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Special thanks to Marge and Ben Edwards and their son Ben L. Edwards of Walking Boston for generously funding the redesign of our website. ©2019 Paul Revere Memorial Association. All rights reserved.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Who Was Paul Revere?

Paul Revere was born in the North End neighborhood of Boston at the end of 1734 (the exact date is unknown) to a French Huguenot father who ran a silversmith shop and a mother from a local family.

The young Revere was educated in reading and writing in school before completing his training as an apprentice to his silversmith father. At age 19, Revere inherited the business upon his father's death. But he left the business briefly and enlisted in a provincial army in 1756 during the French and Indian War.

Children

Revere returned to Boston after a failed military expedition and started to build his family life and business. He wed Sarah Orne in 1765, and they had eight children before she died nearly two decades later.

The silversmith was resourceful and dabbled in a range of work, taking on apprentices and workers who created specialty flatware, silver bowls, tea sets and even casting the first bell in Boston in his foundry. He turned to dentistry to augment his income when the colonial economy faltered during a recession.

Revere's network was also expanding to include local activists angered by British rule. In the mid-1760s, as tensions were rising between the colonists and the British, he joined the rebellious Sons of Liberty.

Revere took part in the Stamp Act protests in 1765, which eventually led the Crown to repeal a tax that ignited the colonists' hatred of taxation without representation.

Did you know? Paul Revere did not gain immediate fame for his April 1775 "Midnight Ride." In fact, it wasn't until Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1861 poem, which greatly embellished Revere's role, that he became the folk hero we think of today.

Boston Massacre

With British troops in Boston and a rebellion stewing, Revere became a master propagandist, using his artisan skills to craft engravings that incited the colonists to join in the rebellion.

The growing unrest boiled over on March 5, 1770, when British troops and a crowd of colonists faced off on Boston's King Street near the Customs house. The tense standoff ended in the Boston Massacre, as the British used their bayonet rifles to shoot and kill five unarmed colonists.

One of Reveres' best-known pieces of propaganda depicted the violent night. He reworked a Henry Pelham drawing in an engraving and widely distributed prints of the stark image of armed British troops taking aim at the colonists.

Paul Revere's House

Amid the growing political tensions in Boston, Revere continued to strengthen his roots in the colonial harbor city. In 1770, he bought the now-landmarked Paul Revere House at 19 North Square for his growing family.

Revere lived in his North End home on and off for 30 years as his family continued to evolve. After the death of his wife, Sarah, in 1773, he married Rachel Walker and they had eight additional children.

Revere sold the home in 1800, and it was purchased by his great-grandson roughly a century later to ensure it was preserved. The 1680 structure still stands today as the oldest building in downtown Boston.

The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere

As Revere was settling into his Boston home in the early 1770s, he became active politically. He responded to the new laws about tea imports that bypassed Boston's merchants by attending secret meetings with the inner circle who planned the Boston Tea Party. Revere joined other activists and dumped tea from the British East India Company on December 16, 1773, into Boston's harbor.

His activism extended beyond the confines of Boston when Revere began work as a courier and rode from Boston to New York on horse to spread information about the colonies.

When his associates learned the British were moving troops out of Boston and planned to arrest revolutionary leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock in Lexington, Massachusetts, Revere was tasked with tipping them off to help them avoid arrest.

He first used his signal system and had two lanterns placed on the Old North Church steeple in Boston to alert those on the harbor that the troops had left Boston and were crossing the Charles River.

Then, at about 10 p.m. on April 18, 1775, Revere set out in the dark from his North Boston home by horse with William Dawes to reach Adams and Hancock. The two riders met Adams and Hancock in Lexington and enabled the revolutionaries to avoid arrest.

Revere's next stop that late night was Concord, Massachusetts, a hotbed of the resistance and the suspected location of the British troops' second attack. But Revere, Dawes and a third rider named Samuel Prescott were captured by the British en route, and only Prescott reached Concord.

Revere was soon released, but he had already helped give the colonial militia a key advantage by alerting them to the impending attack by the British. The Battles of Lexington and Concord would spark the Revolutionary War.

Paul Revere's Ride

Revere remained active in the Revolutionary War, building Boston's first gunpowder mill and joining a Massachusetts infantry, but his remaining war record was lackluster, and he was largely unknown in his lifetime.

He became an American folk hero about 100 years later because of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's stirring retelling of his act of patriotism in "Paul Revere's Ride."

It begins with the now-famous lines, "Listen, my children, and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere" and depicts a dangerous, midnight ride as Revere warns the colonists about the British attack. The poem recounts his lantern signal system in the lines "one if by land, two if by sea."

The stirring poem made him an American hero, and while it contains historical inaccuracies-such as claiming Revere rode alone-the poem highlights the risks taken by this patriot at the start of the American Revolution.
READ MORE: 7 Events That Led to the American Revolution
Sources

The Paul Revere House. Paul Revere Memorial Association.
"Paul Revere's Ride." Academy of American Poets.
Revolutionary War Battles. American Battlefield Trust.
Paul Revere. Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum.
Voices of the Revolution: The Five Riders. Constitution Facts.

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Paul Revere: House, Midnight Ride, Boston Massacre - HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Paul Revere was born in the North End neighborhood of Boston at the end of 1734 (the exact date is unknown) to a French Huguenot father who ran a silversmith shop and a mother from a local family. The young Revere was educated in reading and writing in school before completing his training as an apprentice to his silversmith father.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Freedom Trail Foundation's most popular tour highlights the revolutionary history that took place at 11 of the 16 official Freedom Trail historic sites.

North End Tours highlight official Freedom Trail historic sites such as Faneuil Hall, Paul Revere House, Old North Church, and Copp's Hill Burying Ground, and other historic places in Boston's oldest neighborhood.

Tour Schedule

Saturdays through December 30, 1:30 pm

All Freedom Trail tours led by 18 th-century costumed guides are excellent for families, school field trips, corporate team building, incentives, and convention activities. These tours can be customized to fit your group's schedule and are available year round.

Freedom Trail Preservation

Boston's iconic 2.5 mile-Freedom Trail connects 16 nationally significant historic sites, each one an authentic treasure. Thanks to preservation efforts, these cultural assets are still intact, which makes Boston truly unique as one of the few places in America to experience the actual sites and learn the history they tell while walking through modern city streets.

Preservation

Freedom Trail Sites

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Freedom Trail Foundation's most popular tour highlights the revolutionary history that took place at 11 of the 16 official Freedom Trail historic sites. North End Tours highlight official Freedom Trail historic sites such as Faneuil Hall, Paul Revere House, Old North Church, and Copp's Hill Burying Ground, and other historic places in Boston's oldest neighborhood.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Take in the Revolution through dynamic gallery exhibits, films and outdoor living history.

The American Revolution Museum at Yorktown tells anew the story of the nation's founding, from the twilight of the colonial period to the dawn of the Constitution and beyond. Exciting new indoor galleries feature period artifacts, immersive environments, interactive exhibits and films, including "The Siege of Yorktown," with a 180-degree surround screen and dramatic special effects.

In the outdoor living-history areas, visitors can witness artillery demonstrations, drill with wooden muskets at a re-created Continental Army encampment and explore a Revolution-era farm based on a real-life 18th-century family. The state-operated museum of the American Revolution is an excellent starting point for a tour of Yorktown.
Open year-round 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily (9 a.m. to 6 p.m. June 15-August 15), except Christmas and New Year's days.
Living History

Journey to the past at re-creations of a Continental army camp and Revolution-era farm, with historical interpreters as your guides.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Yorktown Victory Center, living history, american revolution

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Take in the Revolution through dynamic gallery exhibits, films and outdoor living history. The American Revolution Museum at Yorktown tells anew the story of the nation's founding, from the twilight of the colonial period to the dawn of the Constitution and beyond.

# data[].attributes.body
American Revolution

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The American Revolution, 1763 - 1783 | U.S. History Primary Source Timeline | Classroom Materials at the Library of Congress | Library of Congress

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Explore important topics and moments in U.S. history through historical primary sources from the Library of Congress.

# data[].attributes.body
American Revolution Resources

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The American Revolution was an event of sweeping worldwide importance. A costly war that lasted from 1775 to 1783 secured American independence and gave revolutionary reforms of government and society the chance to continue. At its core, the war pitted colonists who wanted independence and the creation of a republic against the power of the British crown, which wanted to keep its empire whole.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Welcome to The American Revolution Website

# data[].attributes.body
American Revolution

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Featured

The Revolutionary War (1775-1783) arose from growing tensions between residents of Great Britain's 13 North American colonies and the colonial government. The American colonists, led by General George Washington, won political independence and eventually formed the United States of America.
Read more Read more about Revolutionary War

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
American Revolution: Causes and Timeline | HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Revolutionary War waged by the American colonies against Britain influenced political ideas around the globe, as a small fledgling nation won its freedom from the greatest military force of its time.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Causes of the Revolutionary War

For more than a decade before the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775, tensions had been building between colonists and the British authorities.

The French and Indian War, or Seven Years' War (1756-1763), brought new territories under the power of the crown, but the expensive conflict lead to new and unpopular taxes. Attempts by the British government to raise revenue by taxing the colonies (notably the Stamp Act of 1765, the Townshend Acts of 1767 and the Tea Act of 1773) met with heated protest among many colonists, who resented their lack of representation in Parliament and demanded the same rights as other British subjects.

Colonial resistance led to violence in 1770, when British soldiers opened fire on a mob of colonists, killing five men in what was known as the Boston Massacre. After December 1773, when a band of Bostonians altered their appearance to hide their identity boarded British ships and dumped 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor during the Boston Tea Party, an outraged Parliament passed a series of measures (known as the Intolerable, or Coercive Acts) designed to reassert imperial authority in Massachusetts.

Did you know? Now most famous as a traitor to the American cause, General Benedict Arnold began the Revolutionary War as one of its earliest heroes, helping lead rebel forces in the capture of Fort Ticonderoga in May 1775.

In response, a group of colonial delegates (including George Washington of Virginia, John and Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, Patrick Henry of Virginia and John Jay of New York) met in Philadelphia in September 1774 to give voice to their grievances against the British crown. This First Continental Congress did not go so far as to demand independence from Britain, but it denounced taxation without representation, as well as the maintenance of the British army in the colonies without their consent. It issued a declaration of the rights due every citizen, including life, liberty, property, assembly and trial by jury. The Continental Congress voted to meet again in May 1775 to consider further action, but by that time violence had already broken out.

On the night of April 18, 1775, hundreds of British troops marched from Boston to nearby Concord, Massachusetts in order to seize an arms cache. Paul Revere and other riders sounded the alarm, and colonial militiamen began mobilizing to intercept the Redcoats. On April 19, local militiamen clashed with British soldiers in the Battles of Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts, marking the "shot heard round the world" that signified the start of the Revolutionary War.

HISTORY Vault: The Revolution

Declaring Independence (1775-76)

When the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia, delegates-including new additions Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson-voted to form a Continental Army, with Washington as its commander in chief. On June 17, in the Revolution's first major battle, colonial forces inflicted heavy casualties on the British regiment of General William Howe at Breed's Hill in Boston. The engagement, known as the Battle of Bunker Hill, ended in British victory, but lent encouragement to the revolutionary cause.

Throughout that fall and winter, Washington's forces struggled to keep the British contained in Boston, but artillery captured at Fort Ticonderoga in New York helped shift the balance of that struggle in late winter. The British evacuated the city in March 1776, with Howe and his men retreating to Canada to prepare a major invasion of New York.

By June 1776, with the Revolutionary War in full swing, a growing majority of the colonists had come to favor independence from Britain. On July 4, the Continental Congress voted to adopt the Declaration of Independence, drafted by a five-man committee including Franklin and John Adams but written mainly by Jefferson. That same month, determined to crush the rebellion, the British government sent a large fleet, along with more than 34,000 troops to New York. In August, Howe's Redcoats routed the Continental Army on Long Island; Washington was forced to evacuate his troops from New York City by September. Pushed across the Delaware River, Washington fought back with a surprise attack in Trenton, New Jersey, on Christmas night and won another victory at Princeton to revive the rebels' flagging hopes before making winter quarters at Morristown.

Saratoga: Revolutionary War Turning Point (1777-78)

British strategy in 1777 involved two main prongs of attack aimed at separating New England (where the rebellion enjoyed the most popular support) from the other colonies. To that end, General John Burgoyne's army marched south from Canada toward a planned meeting with Howe's forces on the Hudson River. Burgoyne's men dealt a devastating loss to the Americans in July by retaking Fort Ticonderoga, while Howe decided to move his troops southward from New York to confront Washington's army near the Chesapeake Bay. The British defeated the Americans at Brandywine Creek, Pennsylvania, on September 11 and entered Philadelphia on September 25. Washington rebounded to strike Germantown in early October before withdrawing to winter quarters near Valley Forge.

Howe's move had left Burgoyne's army exposed near Saratoga, New York, and the British suffered the consequences of this on September 19, when an American force under General Horatio Gates defeated them at Freeman's Farm in the first Battle of Saratoga. After suffering another defeat on October 7 at Bemis Heights (the Second Battle of Saratoga), Burgoyne surrendered his remaining forces on October 17. The American victory Saratoga would prove to be a turning point of the American Revolution, as it prompted France (which had been secretly aiding the rebels since 1776) to enter the war openly on the American side, though it would not formally declare war on Great Britain until June 1778. The American Revolution, which had begun as a civil conflict between Britain and its colonies, had become a world war.

Stalemate in the North, Battle in the South (1778-81)

During the long, hard winter at Valley Forge, Washington's troops benefited from the training and discipline of the Prussian military officer Baron Friedrich von Steuben (sent by the French) and the leadership of the French aristocrat Marquis de Lafayette. On June 28, 1778, as British forces under Sir Henry Clinton (who had replaced Howe as supreme commander) attempted to withdraw from Philadelphia to New York, Washington's army attacked them near Monmouth, New Jersey. The battle effectively ended in a draw, as the Americans held their ground, but Clinton was able to get his army and supplies safely to New York. On July 8, a French fleet commanded by the Comte d'Estaing arrived off the Atlantic coast, ready to do battle with the British. A joint attack on the British at Newport, Rhode Island, in late July failed, and for the most part the war settled into a stalemate phase in the North.

The Americans suffered a number of setbacks from 1779 to 1781, including the defection of General Benedict Arnold to the British and the first serious mutinies within the Continental Army. In the South, the British occupied Georgia by early 1779 and captured Charleston, South Carolina in May 1780. British forces under Lord Charles Cornwallis then began an offensive in the region, crushing Gates' American troops at Camden in mid-August, though the Americans scored a victory over Loyalist forces at King's Mountain in early October. Nathanael Green replaced Gates as the American commander in the South that December. Under Green's command, General Daniel Morgan scored a victory against a British force led by Colonel Banastre Tarleton at Cowpens, South Carolina, on January 17, 1781.

Revolutionary War Draws to a Close (1781-83)

By the fall of 1781, Greene's American forces had managed to force Cornwallis and his men to withdraw to Virginia's Yorktown peninsula, near where the York River empties into Chesapeake Bay. Supported by a French army commanded by General Jean Baptiste de Rochambeau, Washington moved against Yorktown with a total of around 14,000 soldiers, while a fleet of 36 French warships offshore prevented British reinforcement or evacuation. Trapped and overpowered, Cornwallis was forced to surrender his entire army on October 19. Claiming illness, the British general sent his deputy, Charles O'Hara, to surrender; after O'Hara approached Rochambeau to surrender his sword (the Frenchman deferred to Washington), Washington gave the nod to his own deputy, Benjamin Lincoln, who accepted it.

Though the movement for American independence effectively triumphed at the Battle of Yorktown, contemporary observers did not see that as the decisive victory yet. British forces remained stationed around Charleston, and the powerful main army still resided in New York. Though neither side would take decisive action over the better part of the next two years, the British removal of their troops from Charleston and Savannah in late 1782 finally pointed to the end of the conflict. British and American negotiators in Paris signed preliminary peace terms in Paris late that November, and on September 3, 1783, Great Britain formally recognized the independence of the United States in the Treaty of Paris. At the same time, Britain signed separate peace treaties with France and Spain (which had entered the conflict in 1779), bringing the American Revolution to a close after eight long years.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Revolutionary War - Timeline, Facts & Battles | HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Revolutionary War (1775-83), also known as the American Revolution, arose from growing tensions between residents of Great Britain's 13 North American colonies and the colonial government, which represented the British crown.