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Free blacks in the North and South fought on both sides of the Revolution, but most fought for the patriots. Gary Nash reports that recent research concludes there were about 9000 black Patriot soldiers, counting the Continental Army and Navy, and state militia units, as well as privateers, wagoneers in the Army, servants to officers, and spies.[124] Ray Raphael notes that while thousands did join the Loyalist cause, "A far larger number, free as well as slave, tried to further their interests by siding with the patriots." [125] Crispus Attucks, who was shot dead by British soldiers in the Boston Massacre in 1770, is an iconic martyr to Patriots. Both sides offered freedom and re-settlement to slaves who were willing to fight for them, especially targeting slaves whose owners supported the opposing cause. Many African-American slaves sided with the Loyalists. Tens of thousands used the turmoil of war to escape, and the southern plantation economies of South Carolina and Georgia especially were disrupted. During the Revolution, the British tried to turn slavery against the Americans,[126] but historian David Brion Davis explains the difficulties with a policy of wholesale arming of the slaves: But England greatly feared the effects of any such move on its own West Indies, where Americans had already aroused alarm over a possible threat to incite slave insurrections. The British elites also understood that an all-out attack on one form of property could easily lead to an assault on all boundaries of privilege and social order, as envisioned by radical religious sects in Britain's seventeenth-century civil wars.[127] Davis underscored the British dilemma: "Britain, when confronted by the rebellious American colonists, hoped to exploit their fear of slave revolts while also reassuring the large number of slave-holding Loyalists and wealthy Caribbean planters and merchants that their slave property would be secure".[128] The colonists accused the British of encouraging slave revolts.[129] American advocates of independence were commonly lampooned in Britain for what was termed their hypocritical calls for freedom, at the same time that many of their leaders were planters who held hundreds of slaves. Samuel Johnson snapped, "how is it we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the [slave] drivers of the Negroes?"[130] Benjamin Franklin countered by criticizing the British self-congratulation about "the freeing of one Negro" (Somersett) while they continued to permit the Slave Trade.[131] Phyllis Wheatley, a black poet who popularized the image of Columbia to represent America, came to public attention when her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral appeared in 1773.[132] During the war, slaves escaped from across New England and the mid-Atlantic area to British-occupied cities, such as New York. The effects of the war were more dramatic in the South. In Virginia the royal governor Lord Dunmore recruited black men into the British forces with the promise of freedom, protection for their families, and land grants. Tens of thousands of slaves escaped to British lines throughout the South, causing dramatic losses to slaveholders and disrupting cultivation and harvesting of crops. For instance, South Carolina was estimated to lose about 25,000 slaves, or one third of its slave population, to flight, migration or death. From 1770 to 1790, the black proportion of the population (mostly slaves) in South Carolina dropped from 60.5 percent to 43.8 percent; and in Georgia from 45.2 percent to 36.1 percent.[133] When the British evacuated its forces from Savannah and Charleston, it also gave transportation to 10,000 slaves, carrying through on its commitment to them.[134] They evacuated and resettled more than 3,000 "Black Loyalists" from New York to Nova Scotia, Upper and Lower Canada. Others sailed with the British to England or were resettled in the West Indies of the Caribbean. More than 1200 of the Black Loyalists of Nova Scotia later resettled in the British colony of Sierra Leone, where they became leaders of the Krio ethnic group of Freetown and the later national government. Many of their descendants still live in Sierra Leone, as well as other African countries.[135] Effects of the Revolution Loyalist expatriation About 60,000 to 70,000 Loyalists left the newly founded republic; some left for Britain and the remainder, called United Empire Loyalists, received British subsidies to resettle in British colonies in North America, especially Quebec (concentrating in the Eastern Townships), Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia.[136] The new colonies of Upper Canada (now Ontario) and New Brunswick were created by Britain for their benefit. However, about 80% of the Loyalists stayed and became loyal citizens of the United States, and some of the exiles later returned to the U.S.[137] Interpretations Interpretations about the effect of the Revolution vary. Contemporary participants referred to the events as "the revolution."[138] Greene argues that the events were not "revolutionary," as the colonial society was not transformed but replaced a distant government with a local one.[139] Historians such as Bernard Bailyn, Gordon Wood, and Edmund Morgan accept the contemporary view of the participants that the American Revolution was a unique and radical event that produced deep changes and had a profound effect on world affairs, based on an increasing belief in the principles of the Enlightenment as reflected in how liberalism was understood during the period, and republicanism. These were demonstrated by a leadership and government that espoused protection of natural rights, and a system of laws chosen by the people.[140] However, what was then considered the people was still restricted to free white males who were able to pass a property-qualification, about 1/9 of the population.[141] Such a restriction made a significant gain of the revolution irrelevant to women, African-Americans and slaves, poor white men, young adults, and Native Americans.[142][143] Only with the development of the American system over the following centuries would a government by the people promised by the revolution be won for a greater inclusion of the population.[141] As an example or inspiration Further information: Atlantic Revolutions After the Revolution, genuinely democratic politics became possible.[144] The rights of the people were incorporated into state constitutions. Concepts of liberty, individual rights, equality among men and hostility toward corruption became incorporated as core values of liberal republicanism. The greatest challenge to the old order in Europe was the challenge to inherited political power and the democratic idea that government rests on the consent of the governed. The example of the first successful revolution against a European empire, and the first successful establishment of a republican form of democratically elected government, provided a model for many other colonial peoples who realized that they too could break away and become self-governing nations with directly elected representative government.[145] The Dutch Republic, also at war with Britain at that time, was the next country after France to sign a treaty with the United States, on October 8, 1782.[37] On April 3, 1783, Ambassador Extraordinary Gustaf Philip Creutz, representing King Gustav III of Sweden, and Benjamin Franklin, Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States of America, signed a Treaty of Amity and Commerce with the U.S.[37] The American Revolution was the first wave of the Atlantic Revolutions: the French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, and the Latin American wars of independence. Aftershocks reached Ireland in the Irish Rebellion of 1798, in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and in the Netherlands.[146] The Revolution had a strong, immediate influence in Great Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, and France. Many British and Irish Whigs spoke in favor of the American cause. The Revolution, along with the Dutch Revolt (end of the 16th century) and the English Civil War (in the 17th century), was among the examples of overthrowing an old regime for many Europeans who later were active during the era of the French Revolution, such as Marquis de Lafayette. The American Declaration of Independence influenced the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen of 1789.[147][148] The spirit of the Declaration of Independence led to laws ending slavery in all the Northern states and the Northwest Territory, with New Jersey the last in 1804—long before the British Parliament acted in 1833 to abolish slavery in its colonies. States such as New Jersey and New York adopted gradual emancipation, which kept some people as slaves for more than two decades longer.[149] Status of American women The democratic ideals of the Revolution inspired changes in the roles of women.[150] The concept of republican motherhood was inspired by this period and reflects the importance of Republicanism as the dominant American ideology. It assumed that a successful republic rested upon the virtue of its citizens. Women were considered to have the essential role of instilling their children with values conducive to a healthy republic. During this period, the wife's relationship with her husband also became more liberal, as love and affection instead of obedience and subservience began to characterize the ideal marital relationship. In addition, many women contributed to the war effort through fundraising and running family businesses in the absence of husbands. The traditional constraints gave way to more liberal conditions for women. Patriarchy faded as an ideal; young people had more freedom to choose their spouses and more often used birth control to regulate the size of their families. Society emphasized the role of mothers in child rearing, especially the patriotic goal of raising republican children rather than those locked into aristocratic value systems. There was more permissiveness in child-rearing. Patriot women married to Loyalists who left the state could get a divorce and obtain control of the ex-husband's property.[151] Whatever gains they had made, however, women still found themselves subordinated, legally and socially, to their husbands, disfranchised and usually with only the role of mother open to them. But, some women earned livelihoods as midwives and in other roles in the community, which were not originally recognized as significant by men. Abigail Adams expressed to her husband, the president, the desire of women to have a place in the new republic: I desire you would remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands.[152] Zagarri (2007) argues the Revolution created a continuing debate on the rights of woman and an environment favorable to women's participation in politics. She asserts that for a brief decade, a "comprehensive transformation in women's rights, roles, and responsibilities seemed not only possible but perhaps inevitable." But, the changes also engendered a backlash that set back the cause of women's rights and led to a greater rigidity that marginalized women from political life.[153] Memory See also: United States Bicentennial American revolution bicentennial.svg Governor's Palace, Colonial Williamsburg, a restored colonial city, Williamburg, Virginia The American Revolution has a central place in the American memory.[154] It is the founding story, and is covered not only in the schools but in innumerable monuments. Thus Independence Day (the "Fourth of July") is a major national holiday celebrated ubiquitously annually. Besides local sites such as Bunker Hill, one of the first national pilgrimages for memorial tourists was Mount Vernon, George Washington's estate (near Washington DC), which attracted ten thousand visitors a year by the 1850s.[155] Crider points out that in the 1850s editors and orators both North and South claimed their region was the true custodian of the legacy of 1776, as they used the Revolution symbolically in their rhetoric.[156] Ryan, noting that the Bicentennial was celebrated only a year after the humiliating 1975 withdrawal from Vietnam, says the Ford administration stressed the themes of renewal and rebirth based on a restoration of traditional values, and presented a nostalgic approach to 1776 that made it seem eternally young and fresh.[157] Albanese argues that the Revolution became the main source of the non-denominational "American civil religion" that has shaped patriotism and the memory and meaning of the nation's birth ever since.[158] She says that specific battles are not central (as they are for the Civil War) but rather certain events and people have been celebrated as icons of certain virtues (or vices). Thus she points out the Revolution produced a Moses-like leader (George Washington),[159] prophets (Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine), disciples (Alexander Hamilton, James Madison) and martyrs (Boston Massacre, Nathan Hale), as well as devils (Benedict Arnold), sacred places (Valley Forge, Bunker Hill), rituals (Boston Tea Party), emblems (the new flag), sacred holidays (Independence Day) and a holy scripture whose every sentence is carefully studied and applied in current law cases (The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights).[158] |
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