History UsefulNotes / TheAmericanRevolution

* '''The Progressive School''': Also emerging around the turn of the twentieth century, this interpretation puts the focus on class conflict, originally arguing that a genuine people's revolution was ultimately co-opted by counterrevolutionary elites, i.e. the American Revolution was a FullCircleRevolution. In particular, this interpretation sees the Constitution of 1787 as a reactionary countermeasure against uprisings like Shays' Rebellion. In the late twentieth century, the focus on class conflict evolved into a focus on intersectionality, and it began to be questioned whether there even was a genuine people's revolution in the first place.\\\

* '''The Progressive School''': Also emerging around the turn of the twentieth century, this interpretation puts the focus on class conflict, originally arguing that a genuine people's revolution was ultimately co-opted by counterrevolutionary elites. In particular, this interpretation sees the Constitution of 1787 as a reactionary countermeasure against uprisings like Shays' Rebellion. In the late twentieth century, the focus on class conflict evolved into a focus on intersectionality, and it began to be questioned whether there even was a genuine people's revolution in the first place.\\\

The American Revolution is oddly underrepresented in American films, given its importance. It's possibly because the type of wide-open frontier landscapes necessary to tell such stories have mostly vanished.

* '''The Progressive School''' Also emerging around the turn of the twentieth century, this interpretation puts the focus on class conflict, originally arguing that a genuine people's revolution was ultimately co-opted by counterrevolutionary elites. In particular, this interpretation sees the Constitution of 1787 as a reactionary countermeasure against uprisings like Shays' Rebellion. In the late twentieth century, the focus on class conflict evolved into a focus on intersectionality, and it began to be questioned whether there even was a genuine people's revolution in the first place.\\\

* The 1780 British EpistolaryNovel ''Emma Corbett or, The miseries of civil war. Founded on some recent circumstances which happened in America'', which may hold the distinction of being the earliest novel written about the American Revolution. It's an anti-war novel with a DownerEnding. Back in the day, it managed to be a hit on both sides of the Atlantic.

* The 1780 British EpistolaryNovel ''Emma Corbett or, The miseries of civil war. Founded on some recent circumstances which happened in America'', which may hold the distinction of being the earliest novel written about the American Revolution. It's not propaganda for the British war effort, as you may have thought, but rather an anti-war novel with a DownerEnding. Back in the day, it managed to be a hit on both sides of the Atlantic.

* The 1780 British EpistolaryNovel ''Emma Corbett or, The miseries of civil war. Founded on some recent circumstances which happened in America''.

Britain's colonies on the North American mainland were largely patriotic until after the UsefulNotes/SevenYearsWar--which had been fought to defend the country's colonies and trans-Atlantic trade from France. Though the British East India Company's victory over the French East India Company (with the help of royal fleets on both sides) was much more important in the long-term, Britain's sound victory in the Americas had three very important consequences there. First, the seizure and formal concession of French North America (modern Quebec) effectively removed the immediate security threat France had posed to British America. This meant that local elites no longer had any reason to avoid antagonizing the central government in disputes between the two, while also making a very valid point in their favor (why should we have to support a big army to counter a threat that's no longer needed?).

Second, the loss of its colonies was a huge blow to French Royal prestige; granted, Anglo-French relations hadn't been too great beforehand, what with the UsefulNotes/WarOfTheSpanishSuccession and the UsefulNotes/WarOfTheAustrianSuccession, but defeat on ''this'' scale made the House of Bourbon willing to pay a ''very'' steep price for revenge (just as soon as they weren't broke anymore).

Third, it left the British Crown short of cash; the war had only ended when it did because Britain had been less broke than France because the royal banking system of the latter was kind of a mess. Even so, the cabinet had to conduct an overhaul of the Crown's finances now that they didn't have all those special war-taxes. This meant the cutting of defense expenditure, limited campaigns against governmental corruption, moves to ensure the proper collection of taxes and new laws to close tax loopholes. This led the civil service to reexamine the colonies' fiscal relationship to the crown relative to other possessions. Local elites in the North American colonies worried that this could well mean for the first time the parliamentary introduction of indirect, revenue-raising taxes (tariffs, tolls, licenses etc.) in line with the Caribbean territories and the homeland itself, which would hit themselves hardest of all.

Despite the strong sense of patriotism and loyalty to the Crown that most colonists possessed, many colonists were unhappy with the government. King George III was in many senses the glue that held the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland together. It was to him that every subject pledged their tacit allegiance as one nation under God, regardless of who might actually govern them in day-to-day affairs. But King George was not his government; they were a separate entity, capable of being judged on their own merits. The American British had a somewhat distorted perception of the country's longer-term political issues due to their geographical remoteness and the GossipEvolution that came with it. In this way, the American British came to perceive the national parliament at Westminster as being hopelessly corrupt and inefficient. And since the colonists had no parliamentary representation of their own (for a whole host of reasons, not the least being royal prerogatives, though primarily because they would have posed a threat to the status quo) there were no American parliamentarians to gainsay this impression.

Complicating things was that much of the American colonial populace was composed of descendants of the so-called religious "dissenters": Puritans, Quakers, Methodists, Baptists, and dozens of other small denominations who'd come to America to escape the iron hand that the Church of England had upon public life and where they were often prohibited from owning land or practicing professions.[[note]]To say nothing of the Germans who showed up in the country because their prince was a Catholic and didn't like Protestants--or was a Protestant and thought they were the wrong kind of Protestant--and the Dutch Reformed who had been there longer in the first place. The kicker with these was that the English Dissenters often found that they had more in common religiously with these Germans and Dutchmen than with the Anglicans in charge back home; the Dutch in particular were generally Calvinist Presbyterians, agreeing with the Dissenters completely on theological matters and being only a little different ecclesiastically.[[/note]] Most common in northeastern colonies known as New England, these groups (collectively known as "Congregationalists") had spent nearly two centuries of mostly benign neglect developing their local political institutions. And as the name suggests, these institutions naturally grew out of the direct democracy inherent in the congregational nature of their worship, although Church of England-dominated Virginia possessed the oldest of the colonial legislatures. The upshot of this was that many colonists felt reluctant to follow the laws and policies set down by the Cabinet, despite being fairly co-operative with their own home-grown charter-based (often unacknowledged by the crown, and thus not strictly legal) local assemblies. This belief in superiority of local representation was to prove to be the true sticking point. It effectively meant that while the colonists had no parliamentary representation of their own[[note]]The colonists--despite accounting for perhaps a fifth of the population of the British Empire by this point in time--had no Members of Parliament representing them. Scotland, a less populous region, had dozens.[[/note]], having grown accustomed to running their own affairs via local governments meant they had no desire for such representation either.

Since the signing of the Magna Carta, it had been the right of all Englishmen to be represented before the King in Parliament, through which all laws were passed and by which all taxes had to be approved. Just a century ago, the UsefulNotes/EnglishCivilWar ([[NonIndicativeName which deeply involved all three kingdoms]], and killed maybe 2% of their total population) had started when King Charles I had tried to collect taxes outside of Parliament and ended years after his execution at their hands. Parliament later invited his son to become King and rule with their consent. More recently still, when another King started looking a bit too Catholic, Parliament invited a Dutchman (William of Orange) to take the Crown. He did so without too much fuss in what came to be known as 'The Glorious Revolution'. Long story short: by popular belief, the King ruled only ''with the consent of Parliament''--and by extension, the people. And since the Cabinet and Parliament wielded the King's powers on his behalf (the "royal prerogative"), they ought to do the same in ruling with the consent of the people. In attempting to collect taxes from subjects who were not represented by Parliament, Cabinet was both exceeding its authority and (by omission and trying to render local institutions irrelevant) denying His Majesty's subjects their constitutional right to have a say in how they were governed.

Compounding this were administrative issues. Westminster had assumed a largely hands-off policy in regards to the colonies prior to the Seven Years War. Since the beginnings of British colonization the Crown had subsidized the colonies and protected them, but had little to do with their day-to-day affairs and had been largely content to let them manage themselves. The Government was far more interested in the sugar-rich islands of the Caribbean: they were not only three times wealthier than the entire North American colonies, but easier to tax as well, due not just to their smaller size but to a stronger military presence stemming from the proximity of French and Spanish interlopers. As a result, the American-born British aristocracy had gotten used to running the colonies by themselves, and thus did not take it well when Westminster started interfering in their affairs.

Finally, there were competing commercial interests. Like all empires, the British had an interest in routing as much trade as possible through English ports under a policy known as mercantilism. The mercantilists sought to prohibit local manufacture: Colonies were supposed to supply raw material, not competition. Similarly, trade directly between colonies was actively discouraged. This ensured that taxes, tariffs and duties were assessed and the maximum commercial benefit accrued while also insuring that the colonies remained dependent upon the mother country. And, truth be told, it also allowed for a certain amount of graft, corruption, skimming off the top, and restraint of trade in the form of monopolies, patents, and licenses, all of which required influence at court or bribery to obtain. Unfortunately, this policy, while attractive on paper, ignored the simple reality that prevailing winds made sailing along the North American coast a lot easier than voyaging across the North Atlantic. Faced with the prospect of forking much of their profit over to British middlemen (assuming they even had the time, influence, or bribe money to get the required licences) most American merchants became smugglers by default. And--in for a penny, in for a pound--smuggling within the western hemisphere inevitably led to smuggling on a worldwide scale. It's not like they'd hang you any less if you stuck to the coast of Massachusetts.

Tensions waxed and waned in the years after the Seven Years War as Westminster tried pushing the boundaries of collecting and enforcing new taxes in the colonies, asserting its supreme right to tax and legislate for the colonies in 1766. Reactions in each colony were different, but the New England colonies resented these attempts particularly fiercely. Much of this came from resentment at Westminster's refusal to officially acknowledge the Colonies' self-appointed legislatures, but a good deal of it came from good old-fashioned self interest, as smuggled goods were cheaper and career smugglers had no wish to be put out of business. As it was, many people resisted payment and the tax collectors were subject to enormous community pressure and occasionally even violence. Eventually a majority of (generally conservative and aristocratic) Lords and Members of Parliament came to see the issue less in terms of money and more in terms of their own authority. To them, it was no longer about the amount of money collected but rather their perceived right to collect the money at all. None of the controversial taxes were ever collected. As things stood, the colonies could theoretically have been appeased, or at least points of negotiation opened up, if Parliament had simply drawn up a few new electorates in North America, as they had done with Scotland and would in the not-too-distant-future do with Ireland: they'd have Westminster representation, but they would always be soundly out-voted by the majority of English Members of Parliament on issues concerning them. Of course, the logistics of representation of the colonies at Westminster in an era when it could take anywhere from 30 days to ''six months'' to get across the Atlantic--and there was no such thing as telecommunications--leave one to wonder if this was ever really a possible solution. As it happened, there were talks in England about Parliamentary representation for the colonists, at which point the colonies stopped entertaining the idea in favor of the notion that the colonies could never be properly represented in Parliament.

Blood was finally shed in April 1775 at the battle of Lexington and Concord, when a reinforced brigade of regular troops on their way to Concord to confiscate the Massachusetts colony's military stores encountered a company of local militiamen on Lexington Green. No-one knows who fired the first shot[[note]]Historian David Hackett Fischer has proposed the intriguing notion that it may have been an accidental discharge by an officer observed to be having trouble controlling a fractious horse.[[/note]] (later described as "The shot heard 'round the world" because of the world-wide war that eventually resulted) but the outnumbered and unprepared militiamen were immediately routed and dispersed by the lead company of redcoats. Proceeding with their mission, the regulars soon found the entire countryside had been roused against them by "Paul Revere's ride" (which was actually a ''network'' of riders, though Revere himself did play a prominent role[[note]]Notably, he got the network moving. He contacted three other riders, and then was arrested by the British before he could do much more. However, this was planned from the beginning: the reason for multiple riders was because they expected to be detained by the British, and reasoned that multiple riders would have a better chance of getting through, though admittedly Revere didn't himself expect to be captured.[[/note]]). Reaching Concord, they found themselves surrounded and then attacked by a much larger militia formation, and were forced to beat a fighting retreat up the "Battle Road" back to Boston. Their overriding reaction was one of shock and dismay that their own people were trying to kill them[[note]] And were good at it. "Those people knew very much what they are about." Royal Marine Major John Pitcairn conceded ruefully in his report.[[/note]], and that the situation might not just 'get better' after all but instead lead to the [[UsefulNotes/EnglishCivilWar second Civil War]] in a hundred years. Any remaining hopes that further bloodshed could be averted were dispelled by the pitched battle fought between Army and Rebel forces at "Bunker Hill"[[note]] While the battle is called the Battle of Bunker Hill, the hill in question was actually the nearby Breed's Hill.[[/note]] some two months later. Even then the negotiations continued until Westminster's rejection of the Continental Congress' [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_Branch_Petition Olive Branch Petition]], which meant Civil War.

Even so it came as something of a surprise to most people when a full year after Lexington and Concord, a year in which most people still thought they were fighting to secure their rights as Englishman, that representatives of the colonies gathered together to declare Independence from Great Britain. That is to say, they wrote and signed a document "to put forth the reasons" as Jefferson later put it, for declaring their colonies were now "free and independent states". The importance of declaring such a permanent break with the government that would, if they were caught, get the conspirators hanged for treason is that they were trying to rally support for their cause, primarily among their Whig supporters in England. They were also trying to get France on their side by showing that they really, really meant this rebellion business. As it was, it was a few years before Louis XVI felt confident enough in their resolve and ability to fight before he intervened. That they were also inspired by the radical political philosophers of the day--[[UsefulNotes/TheEnlightenment Hobbes, Rousseau, and especially Locke]], who argued that authority depended upon the consent of the governed--becomes obvious upon reading the document itself.

What underpinned much of the popular support for the declaration was in large part due to Creator/ThomasPaine, a very smart young English radical whom Benjamin Franklin had brought over to Philadelphia in November 1774, wrote a best-selling pamphlet called ''Common Sense''. ''Common Sense'' attacked the whole concept of monarchy in clear, unambiguous terms, using the Bible to decisively prove that God did not in fact like Kings, whatever people might say about 'giving unto Caesar what is Caesar's'. Combined with the usual railing against the corruption of parliament and the cabinet and the potential tyranny of all Kings in general, this provided a focus for a growing wave of anti-monarchist sentiment, decades of local tradition (along with their penchant for Locke and Hobbes) naturally led said anti-monarchists to favor a republican government. On July 2, 1776, the representatives of the Continental Congress voted in principle to divorce the Thirteen Colonies from Great Britain. (However, the new nation wound up celebrating its Independence Day on July 4 because that was the day that the Declaration of Independence was approved and announced to the public, which makes a certain kind of sense in an "if-a-tree-falls-in-the-woods-and-nobody-hears-it" way: if a deliberative body votes that something will happen but doesn't tell anybody, did it really happen?[[note]]Also, let's not forget that in the usual course of the law, statutes are generally considered to be effective on the date they are ''published'', rather than the date final approval is given, absent language in the statute to the contrary.[[/note]])

The Declaration was followed by a series of devastating military defeats. A large expeditionary force led by William Howe landed in Jamaica Bay, Long Island, and very nearly trapped and destroyed George Washington's army in Brooklyn. After what was left of the Patriot army escaped across the East River, Howe made another landing in [[UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity Manhattan]], and easily defeated the colonials again. The regulars threw the colonials out of Manhattan Island completely and sent them fleeing in panic all the way across New Jersey and across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania. New York City and all of New Jersey had fallen into the hands of the British Army. Most of Washington's army had run away or been captured, and what was left was in dire straits.

General Howe, who had defeated the Americans but missed chances to surround and destroy them in Brooklyn and Manhattan, now decided that the weather in December 1776 was too cold for further campaigning and the Army went into winter quarters. Unfortunately for him, the difficulties in feeding and housing his troops conspired with the need to hold a great deal of captured territory to force Howe into disbursing his troops into smaller garrisons that were vulnerable to being cut off and defeated in detail.[[note]]This was not an idle concern. 18th century armies tended to denude the local countryside of everything edible by man or beast so armies had to keep moving to avoid starvation. Settling down for the winter required dispersing the troops widely enough to prevent starvation.[[/note]] Washington seized this opportunity and crossed back into New Jersey on Christmas night to capture the Hessian garrison at Trenton on Dec. 26. This victory, and another victory at Princeton a week later, greatly boosted American morale and eventually led the British to abandon New Jersey.

Once the weather got warm in 1777, Howe wasted much of the spring and summer before putting his army into boats, sailing up Chesapeake Bay, and capturing the by-now-''American'' capital of UsefulNotes/{{Philadelphia}}. However, he again failed to win a decisive victory against Washington's army, and the ostensible coup in capturing the capital proved to be meaningless--in the decentralized Revolutionary United States, most authority lay in the hands of the states, and Congress had such a small associated bureaucracy it could just pack up and leave, which it did (decamping first to Lancaster, Pennsylvania and then further inland to York, PA). Meanwhile, an expeditionary force from Canada was decisively defeated at Saratoga in [[UsefulNotes/NewYorkState northern New York]] and shortly thereafter surrendered to the Americans. The intensity of the fighting and the result persuaded France that the rebels meant business and that this war would be a good opportunity to get revenge on Britain--even if it meant siding with people who they had once fought against and were opposed to everything they stood for (a strong monarchy, a large nobility, and powerful, vibrant Catholic Church). Seeing which way the tide seemed to be turning, the king of Spain also declared war on Britain, and the Dutch--the second-biggest commercial power after Britain--started to bankroll the French and the American rebels. The colonies were now the least of Britain's problems; they were now at war with three of the five major powers in Europe.

The transformation of a reluctant civil war into a world war with the foremost foreign powers of the day threatened Britain's holdings in the Caribbean and India. Britain itself was threatened, with the (Catholic) Irish making rumbles about siding with Britain's (Catholic) enemies again. All this led to a change in strategy. Having failed to achieve decisive victory in the northern colonies, in 1778 the Army shifted its efforts to the South, where there were more Loyalists (colonists still loyal to the Crown) and revolutionary fervor was weaker. The Southern strategy led to a series of successes. Savannah was captured and royal government was restored in Georgia. A Patriot army was captured at Charleston, South Carolina, another Patriot army was annihilated at Camden, and most of South Carolina returned to the Crown. Meanwhile, bitter over General Gates, his senior, stealing his credit, and politicians frustrating his military plans, General Benedict Arnold, hero of the failed Canadian expeditionary force and the great victory at Saratoga, defected back to the Crown in 1780. He conspired with the Army to hand over the Patriot fort at West Point, New York; the plot was discovered before he could act, however. Arnold defected without being caught and American morale suffered another body blow.

Just when things seemed darkest for the Patriot cause, the Americans again rallied. A Patriot victory at Kings Mountain, North Carolina in October 1780 was followed by an even bigger victory at Cowpens, South Carolina in January 1781, where some of the best units of the Army in South Carolina were captured. The Commander in South Carolina, Lord Cornwallis, abandoned that state and marched into North Carolina in pursuit of the main American army led by Nathaniel Greene. Cornwallis defeated Greene at Guilford Court House, but took too many losses in the process. He led his much-reduced force into Virginia and conducted a series of raids in the lightly defended Virginia countryside. Finally Cornwallis was ordered by Henry Clinton, the Commander at New York--who feared an attack from Washington there--to march to the coast and establish a fortified position. Cornwallis chose the settlement of Yorktown, Virginia.

On the north side of the Virginia Peninsula, facing Chesapeake Bay, Yorktown was easy to defend, and assuming the Royal Navy could maintain control of the bay, easy to supply by sea. (Why do you think George [=McClellan=] and other Union generals [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar fourscore and some years later]] would keep trying to base themselves in the same general area?) Unfortunately for Cornwallis, a French fleet seized control of Chesapeake Bay and beat back all attempts to displace them. This cut Yorktown off from relief by sea. Meanwhile the Franco-American army had left New York and was marching south. It arrived at the end of September and surrounded Cornwallis' army at Yorktown. Now completely cut off by sea and land, Cornwallis surrendered on Oct. 17, 1781, after enemy bombardment rendered Yorktown untenable.

This decisive defeat marked the collapse of Parliament's will to prosecute the war, and the end of major combat operations in North America. After further fighting between the French, Spanish, and British at sea, at Gibraltar, and elsewhere around the world, the Treaty of Paris (1783) ended the war and established the United States of America as an independent nation. A twentieth of the population of the former colonies, some hundred thousand people, emigrated to remain under the patronage of George III. Most loyalists emigrated to Canada, a milestone in the history of that nation which effectively secured it for the Empire by reducing the potentially rebellious French majority to a minority.

We should at this point note that the war was not just a squabble between white men ([[PoliticallyCorrectHistory but good luck finding a textbook that discusses it]]). The Native Americans mostly allied with the British, as the crown had previously granted the Indians autonomy and prevented the colonists from encroaching on the Indian territories west of the Mississippi River and in the Ohio River Valley. The most powerful, and troublesome to the Americans, were the remains of the Iroquois Confederacy of New York (two of the original six confederate nations split off and allied themselves to the Americans) and the Chickamunga Cherokees of Tennessee and Kentucky. Armed and supplied by the British, they conducted night raids and ambushes on most frontier communities and fortifications. In retaliation, Washington dispatched John Sullivan and his army in 1779 to upstate New York, where they systematically razed 40 Iroquois villages in a scorched earth campaign. The ensuing famine killed so many of them that they would never again be able to field enough men to defend themselves from European raiders and settlers.

At the same time, the British also had great support amongst the African slaves in America (the delicious irony of slave drivers agitating for freedom was not lost on ''anyone''; Ralph Henry, the slave of Patrick "give me liberty or give me death" Henry, ran away to the British the week that quote was uttered, while Creator/SamuelJohnson mockingly asked "How is it we hear the loudest yelps for liberty from the drivers of Negroes?"). Most of the support was due to the Earl of Dunmore, the last governor of Virginia, who, critically outnumbered by the rebels, in 1779 offered freedom to any slave who joined the British. Not to be outdone by the Americans on the hypocrisy front, the slaves of loyalists were ''not'' freed. Over the course of the war, about 100,000 slaves escaped to the British (or tried to) and about 20,000 of them fought against the Americans as part of the all-black "Ethiopian Regiment" (which was mostly relegated to performing backbreaking logistic and support functions), which first saw action at the Battle of Kemp's Landing, where a black soldier managed to capture his former master. In fact, this was what galvanized the Southern states to seriously support the rebellion: the fear of a British-sponsored total slave uprising. At the end of the war, the remaining black loyalists were resettled in the Canadas or Nova Scotia (many of those later moved to Sierra Leone to found the first freedmen colony). It should be noted that there were also plenty of blacks (both slaves and freedmen) who also supported the Patriots,[[note]]Take a close look at the crewmen in that painting of Washington crossing the Delaware[[/note]] and that several colonial militias had black members, most notably the 1st Rhode Island Regiment, which similarly to the Dunmore proclamation was formed at least partially by slaves who had been promised their freedom. It has been estimated that about 1/5 of the Continental Army was of African descent. It should also be noted that a significant portion of slaves who had been promised their freedom on both sides of the war were not granted it, or were re-enslaved later[[note]]Also worth noting is that, during the drafting of the Constitution of the United States, John Adams (among others) pointed out that slave-holding was contrary to the freedom espoused by the fledgling nation, with Adams rather famously pointing out that if the Continental Congress did not resolve the issue (by emancipating the slaves), then it would become a terrible issue for future generations to deal with 100 years later. [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar He was right on everything but the year]][[/note]]. Furthermore, the ideals of the Revolution played a huge part in the abolition of slavery in the North; Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, as well as the still-independent Vermont Republic, all abolished the practice during or just after the war, though it was a gradual process rather than the full immediate emancipation that would happen the following century.

It would be a mistake, however, to think that the fledgling nation was now an incontrovertible fact. The United States of America were - 'were' and not 'was' because the constitution as known today had yet to be drafted and the federal government was very weak - under-populated, poor, debt-ridden and exhausted from a civil war which had practically torn them in half. They had no real army to speak of and no naval forces whatsoever. It remained to be seen if the secessionist colonies could form a strong and coherent state of their own or whether they would return to the Crown, by mutual agreement or by force. If there was one lesson history taught about republics[[note]]Like the English Civil-War-Commonwealth which became a dictatorship under Cromwell, and the Dutch 'Republic' which became a ''de facto'' monarchy under the House of Oranje/Orange. The Italian Republics (Tuscany, Venice, etc) kind of counted, but they were run by powerful guilds and merchant clans and were autocracies for all intents and purposes.[[/note]] it was that they inevitably failed, and the state of the republic in the following years would seem to confirm this assertion. Ironically, the Republic's survival was ultimately due to the actions of some hundred powerful oligarchs acting against the wishes of the majority of the people. Together they conspired to write and have ratified by the states a constitution, one that bound the states under a central government, to keep the fledgling nation afloat. Out of this clandestine agreement came the Constitution and, later on, the Bill of Rights as Americans know it today - the point of the bill being to undercut popular opposition to their attempt to subvert the power of the states to which most people who remained owed their allegiance. It would be another half-century, and a [[UsefulNotes/WarOf1812 war that nobody really wanted]], before people could say with confidence that the new nation would be around to stay, in one form or another--and it would take another war, [[UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar the world's first industrial war]], to make the United States truly one nation, in a position to become what it became.

Perhaps ironically, the French ended up suffering the most for their involvement despite "winning" the war for the rebels, with almost no direct gain for themselves (long term the idea was to deprive England of a valuable domain, and hopefully find a strategic partner in the newly independent United States). Extensive borrowing and heavy taxation drove the French monarchy ''even further'' into debt, and actually inflicted an artificial depression upon the French economy. Louis XVI eventually had to call a meeting of the Estates General to reform the taxation system (albeit raising the overall level of taxation) and restructure his debts so he could actually service them (pay the interest and maybe a bit more) properly. However, the Second Estate (nobility) was completely uncooperative and didn't want to be taxed. And the First and Third Estates (representing the clergy and commoners, respectively) [[UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution wanted them lowered so the economy could grow again]]...

Also often forgotten, fellow-victor Spain regained its colony of Florida, which it had to give to the British after the Seven Years' War. It remained in Spanish hands until 1819, when [[UsefulNotes/AndrewJackson some renegade American general]] went beyond orders in an attempt to capture Floridian Native Americans who raided American towns on the border.

The American Revolution is oddly underrepresented in American films, given its importance. It's possibly because the type of wide-open frontier landscapes necessary to tell such stories have mostly vanished.
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!!Works set in this time period include:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* ''Webcomic/HetaliaAxisPowers'' features [[BattleInTheRain this]] in one [[TearJerker fan-favourite]] strip. The anime drew said strip out over several episodes, just to milk the suspense for all it was worth.
** It's also notable for subverting and averting the usual portrayal of the Revolution as a glorious patriotic war, instead showing it as the painful breaking of England and America's once loving relationship
* What happens when one combines mystic powers, a traitorous Ben Franklin and a failed revolution? ''Anime/CodeGeass''.
* While not appearing directly, the war has a huge impact in ''Manga/TheRoseOfVersailles'': Hans Haxel von Fersen, one of the main characters, takes part in it specifically to get away from his growing relationship with Marie Antoinette before it ruined her reputation, and as this manga tells the run-up to UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution the impact on French economy is shown in great detail.

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* DC character Thomas Haukins, aka ComicBook/{{Tomahawk}}, fought on the Rebel side.
* DC character Gerald Shilling, aka Lord Shilling, was ComicBook/{{Tomahawk}}'s Tory arch-enemy.
* Miss Liberty, a DC masked hero, fought on the Rebel side.
* Captain Steven Rogers, a namesake ancestor of ComicBook/CaptainAmerica's, fought on the Rebel side.
* Sir William Taurey, a Tory (natch) was killed by Captain Steven Rogers during the Revolution. His descendant, also named William Taurey, attempted to undo the American Revolution; he was stopped by Captain Rogers' descendant, ComicBook/CaptainAmerica.
* Immortal MARVEL character UlyssesBloodstone was a major in the Continental Army and fought alongside Captain Steve Rogers.
* There was an {{Elseworlds}} story about Franchise/{{Superman}} arriving on Earth earlier than expected and he was raised by British parents and he ended up fighting against the revolutionaries.
* General Wallace Worthington, an ancestor of Warren Worthington's (aka TheAngel from ''The X-Men'') fought on the Rebel side.
* Lady Jean Grey (an ancestor of ComicBook/JeanGrey's ) and Patrick Clemons (both members of the Philadelphia branch of TheHellFireClub) fought on the Tory side.
* The Italian ComicBook/DisneyMouseAndDuckComics saga "Once Upon a Time... In America" has a story set in late 1775/early 1776, with one of Mickey's ancestor foiling an attempt on George Washington's life.
* In ''ComicBook/{{Lilith}}'' a quick mention of "North American Dominions" made in 1933 indicates that [[ButterflyOfDoom the alterations to the timeline made by the protagonist somehow caused it to fail]]. The exact event is seen at the start of "The Two Frontiers", where it's seen that [[spoiler:the remnants of the Joseon Dinasty, that had escaped to China after the shogun Toyotomi Hideyori led Japan to conquer Korea, had sent turtle ships to try and gain Britain's help in retaking Korea, and those turtle ships intercepted the Crossing of the Delaware, killing almost all troops and causing George Washington a head wound that drove him to dementia. Between his loss and the morale blow, the British managed to suppress the "Rebellion of the Thirteen Colonies". Then, as Lilith has reached this point in time, what she does during the course of that issue and the rest of the GrandFinale gets the last survivors of the rebel leadership to start causing a war between the British and the Japanese (who have their own colonies in North America), hinting that, in the final timeline, the rebellion may yet succeed]].
* Two graphic novels in the ComicBook/NathanHalesHazardousTales series (''One Dead Spy'' and ''Lafayette!'') discuss the revolution, and the narrator is Revolutionary spy Nathan Hale.

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* ''Theatre/SeventeenSeventySix'' (1972) A musical! The stage version was from 1969.
* ''{{Film/America}}'' (1924), a silent historical epic that flopped badly enough to end Creator/DWGriffith[='s=] reign as Hollywood's preeminent director.
* ''Film/DrumsAlongTheMohawk'' (1939)
* ''Film/TheHowardsOfVirginia'' (1940), starring Cary Grant.
* ''Literature/JohnnyTremain'' (1957)
* ''La Fayette'' (1961), a French film about the UsefulNotes/MarquisDeLaFayette
* ''Film/ThePatriot'' (2000), aka ''Film/{{Braveheart}} in America''
* ''Film/TheScarletCoat'' (1955), SpyFiction about an American counterintelligence agent seeking to find out who's plotting with the British to turn over West Point.
* ''Where Do We Go From Here?'' (1945)
* The 1959 film version of Creator/GeorgeBernardShaw's ''Theatre/TheDevilsDisciple'' (starring Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, and Laurence Olivier).
* ''Film/{{Revolution|1985}}'' (1985). So bad that it killed Creator/AlPacino's movie career for a while.
* ''Film/JohnPaulJones'' (1959), starring Robert Stack.
* ''Film/SonsOfLiberty'' (1939), a ShortFilm biopic of Patriot financier Haym Salomon.

Once upon a time, in 1765, The British Empire dominated North America, having won Canada from {{UsefulNotes/France}} in the UsefulNotes/SevenYearsWar. However, a series of shifting and thus unresolved issues of authority and administration[[note]] foremost among them the maturation and sidelining of the colonies' sort-of unofficial and more-or-less unrecognized legislatures [[/note]] met with misunderstandings, misjudgments and tragedies which led to most of the colonies of British North America forming a [[TheAlliance loose association]], seceding from TheEmpire, and later declaring themselves the United States of America. In the beginning, maybe a third of the colonists felt this was justified; roughly a fifth never did, and a twentieth left the new country to remain the Crown's loyal subjects in the [[UsefulNotes/{{Canada}} Great White North]], a land which has ever since prided itself upon being even more loyal to [[UsefulNotes/TheBritishRoyalFamily His/Her Majesty]] than Britain herself. This was the American Revolution, the era of King George III of The United Kingdom, General Charles Cornwallis, King UsefulNotes/LouisXVI of France, General Jean-Baptiste de Vimeur, the UsefulNotes/MarquisDeLaFayette, The Franco-Spanish Armada (which failed, obviously), UsefulNotes/GeorgeWashington, Creator/BenjaminFranklin, UsefulNotes/ThomasJefferson, UsefulNotes/JohnAdams, UsefulNotes/AlexanderHamilton, Benedict Arnold, the Boston Massacre[[note]]With a death toll of 5, it might be a stretch to call it a "massacre", and it was directly attributable to unruly civilians thinking it'd be fun to keep pegging snowballs and chunks of ice at armed soldiers after being asked to stop because that's actually quite dangerous, dontchaknow. While opinions ran hot at the time it's worth noting that all but two soldiers were acquitted at trial (they got off with branding through pleading "[[OffOnATechnicality benefit of clergy]]") and their (defense) lawyer was none other than the prominent local figure of UsefulNotes/JohnAdams.[[/note]] the crossing of the Delaware, the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere (which was actually a group effort). As it would later be portrayed, this was a time when idealistic demagogues overthrew a tyrant and gave voting rights to the people--[[ValuesDissonance if you were English or Scots (don't even mention the Irish and other foreigners), rich, land-owning, and male.]] The time of Modern Mythology in America, in short. In reality, it was a lot more complex, and in many ways far more divisive and terrible, and human--and British--than that.

Despite the strong sense of patriotism and loyalty to the Crown that most colonists possessed, many colonists were unhappy with the government. King George III was in many senses the glue that held Britain and Ireland together. It was to him that every subject pledged their tacit allegiance as one nation under God, regardless of who might actually govern them in day-to-day affairs. But King George was not his government; they were a separate entity, capable of being judged on their own merits. The American British had a somewhat distorted perception of the country's longer-term political issues due to their geographical remoteness and the GossipEvolution that came with it. In this way, the American British came to perceive the national parliament at Westminster as being hopelessly corrupt and inefficient. And since the colonists had no parliamentary representation of their own (for a whole host of reasons, not the least being royal prerogatives, though primarily because they would have posed a threat to the status quo) there were no American parliamentarians to gainsay this impression.

Despite the strong sense of patriotism and loyalty to the Crown that most colonists possessed, many colonists were unhappy with the government. King George III was in many senses the glue that held the United Kingdom of England, Scotland and Ireland together. It was to him that every subject pledged their tacit allegiance as one nation under God, regardless of who might actually govern them in day-to-day affairs. But King George was not his government; they were a separate entity, capable of being judged on their own merits. The American British had a somewhat distorted perception of the country's longer-term political issues due to their geographical remoteness and the GossipEvolution that came with it. In this way, the American British came to perceive the national parliament at Westminster as being hopelessly corrupt and inefficient. And since the colonists had no parliamentary representation of their own (for a whole host of reasons, not the least being royal prerogatives, though primarily because they would have posed a threat to the status quo) there were no American parliamentarians to gainsay this impression.

Tensions waxed and waned in the years after the Seven Years War as Westminster tried pushing the boundaries of collecting and enforcing new taxes in the colonies, asserting its supreme right to tax and legislate for the colonies in 1766. Reactions in each colony were different, but the New England colonies resented these attempts particularly fiercely. Much of this came from resentment at Westminster's refusal to officially acknowledge the Colonies' self-appointed legislatures, but a good deal of it came from good old-fashioned self interest, as smuggled goods were cheaper and career smugglers had no wish to be put out of business. As it was, many people resisted payment and the tax collectors were subject to enormous community pressure and occasionally even violence. Eventually a majority of (generally conservative and aristocratic) Ministers of Parliament came to see the issue less in terms of money and more in terms of their own authority. To them, it was no longer about the amount of money collected but rather their perceived right to collect the money at all. None of the controversial taxes were ever collected. As things stood, the colonies could theoretically have been appeased, or at least points of negotiation opened up, if Parliament had simply drawn up a few new electorates in North America, as they had done with Scotland and would in the not-too-distant-future do with Ireland: they'd have Westminster representation, but they would always be soundly out-voted by the majority of English Ministers of Parliament on issues concerning them. Of course, the logistics of representation of the colonies at Westminster in an era when it could take anywhere from 30 days to ''six months'' to get across the Atlantic--and there was no such thing as telecommunications--leave one to wonder if this was ever really a possible solution. As it happened, there were talks in England about Parliamentary representation for the colonists, at which point the colonies stopped entertaining the idea in favor of the notion that the colonies could never be properly represented in Parliament.

* Once the storyline of ''WesternAnimation/WhereOnEarthIsCarmenSandiego'' hitched on Carmen stealing [[TimeTravel The Chronoskimmer]], the main characters were forced to travel back in time and recover the Liberty Bell. Notably, the main difference in the present was that the British flag was flying and that DaChief now [[SherlockHolmes wore a deerskinner cap and smoked a pipe.]]

Despite the strong sense of patriotism and loyalty to the Crown that most colonists possessed, many colonists were unhappy with the government. King George III was in many senses the glue that held the United Kingdom of England, Scotland and Ireland together. It was to him that every subject pledged their tacit allegiance as one nation under God, regardless of who might actually govern them in day-to-day affairs. But King George was not his government; they were a separate entity, capable of being judged on their own merits. The American British had a somewhat distorted perception of the country's longer-term political issues due to their geographical remoteness and the GossipEvolution that came with it. In this way, the American British came to perceive the national parliament at Westminster as being hopelessly corrupt and inefficient. (Which, to be fair, it was; Cavendish Bentinck's government--toppled after one scandal too many in 1773--was quite easily the worst administration Britain has ever seen.) And since the colonists had no parliamentary representation of their own (for a whole host of reasons, not the least being royal prerogatives, though primarily because they would have posed a threat to the status quo) there were no American parliamentarians to gainsay this impression.

Once upon a time, in 1765, The British Empire dominated North America, having won Canada from {{UsefulNotes/France}} in the UsefulNotes/SevenYearsWar. However, a series of shifting and thus unresolved issues of authority and administration[[note]] foremost among them the maturation and sidelining of the colonies' sort-of unofficial and more-or-less unrecognized legislatures [[/note]] met with misunderstandings, misjudgments and tragedies which led to most of the colonies of British North America forming a [[TheAlliance loose association]], seceding from TheEmpire, and later declaring themselves the United States of America. In the beginning, maybe a third of the colonists felt this was justified; roughly a fifth never did, and a twentieth left the new country to remain the Crown's loyal subjects in the [[UsefulNotes/{{Canada}} Great White North]], a land which has ever since prided itself upon being even more loyal to [[UsefulNotes/TheBritishRoyalFamily His/Her Majesty]] than Britain herself. This was the American Revolution, the era of King George III of The United Kingdom, General Charles Cornwallis, King UsefulNotes/LouisXVI of France, General Jean-Baptiste de Vimeur, the UsefulNotes/MarquieDeLaFayette, The Franco-Spanish Armada (which failed, obviously), UsefulNotes/GeorgeWashington, Creator/BenjaminFranklin, UsefulNotes/ThomasJefferson, UsefulNotes/JohnAdams, UsefulNotes/AlexanderHamilton, Benedict Arnold, the Boston Massacre[[note]]With a death toll of 5, it might be a stretch to call it a "massacre", and it was directly attributable to unruly civilians thinking it'd be fun to keep pegging snowballs and chunks of ice at armed soldiers after being asked to stop because that's actually quite dangerous, dontchaknow. While opinions ran hot at the time it's worth noting that all but two soldiers were acquitted at trial (they got off with branding through pleading "[[OffOnATechnicality benefit of clergy]]") and their (defense) lawyer was none other than the prominent local figure of UsefulNotes/JohnAdams.[[/note]] the crossing of the Delaware, the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere (which was actually a group effort). As it would later be portrayed, this was a time when idealistic demagogues overthrew a tyrant and gave voting rights to the people--[[ValuesDissonance if you were English or Scots (don't even mention the Irish and other foreigners), rich, land-owning, and male.]] The time of Modern Mythology in America, in short. In reality, it was a lot more complex, and in many ways far more divisive and terrible, and human--and British--than that.

Once upon a time, in 1765, The British Empire dominated North America, having won Canada from {{UsefulNotes/France}} in the UsefulNotes/SevenYearsWar. However, a series of shifting and thus unresolved issues of authority and administration[[note]] foremost among them the maturation and sidelining of the colonies' sort-of unofficial and more-or-less unrecognized legislatures [[/note]] met with misunderstandings, misjudgments and tragedies which led to most of the colonies of British North America forming a [[TheAlliance loose association]], seceding from TheEmpire, and later declaring themselves the United States of America. In the beginning, maybe a third of the colonists felt this was justified; roughly a fifth never did, and a twentieth left the new country to remain the Crown's loyal subjects in the [[UsefulNotes/{{Canada}} Great White North]], a land which has ever since prided itself upon being even more loyal to [[UsefulNotes/TheBritishRoyalFamily His/Her Majesty]] than Britain herself. This was the American Revolution, the era of King George III of The United Kingdom, General Charles Cornwallis, King UsefulNotes/LouisXVI of France, General Jean-Baptiste de Vimeur, The Franco-Spanish Armada (which failed, obviously), UsefulNotes/GeorgeWashington, Creator/BenjaminFranklin, UsefulNotes/ThomasJefferson, UsefulNotes/JohnAdams, UsefulNotes/AlexanderHamilton, Benedict Arnold, the Boston Massacre[[note]]With a death toll of 5, it might be a stretch to call it a "massacre", and it was directly attributable to unruly civilians thinking it'd be fun to keep pegging snowballs and chunks of ice at armed soldiers after being asked to stop because that's actually quite dangerous, dontchaknow. While opinions ran hot at the time it's worth noting that all but two soldiers were acquitted at trial (they got off with branding through pleading "[[OffOnATechnicality benefit of clergy]]") and their (defense) lawyer was none other than the prominent local figure of UsefulNotes/JohnAdams.[[/note]] the crossing of the Delaware, the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere (which was actually a group effort). As it would later be portrayed, this was a time when idealistic demagogues overthrew a tyrant and gave voting rights to the people--[[ValuesDissonance if you were English or Scots (don't even mention the Irish and other foreigners), rich, land-owning, and male.]] The time of Modern Mythology in America, in short. In reality, it was a lot more complex, and in many ways far more divisive and terrible, and human--and British--than that.

At the same time, the British also had great support amongst the African slaves in America (the delicious irony of slave drivers agitating for freedom was not lost on ''anyone''; Ralph Henry, the slave of Patrick "give me liberty or give me death" Henry, ran away to the British the week that quote was uttered, while Creator/SamuelJohnson mockingly asked "How is it we hear the loudest yelps for liberty from the drivers of Negroes?"). Most of the support was due to the Earl of Dunmore, the last governor of Virginia, who, critically outnumbered by the rebels, in 1779 offered freedom to any slave who joined the British. Not to be outdone by the Americans on the hypocrisy front, the slaves of loyalists were ''not'' freed. Over the course of the war, about 100,000 slaves escaped to the British (or tried to) and about 20,000 of them fought against the Americans as part of the all-black "Ethiopian Regiment" (which was mostly relegated to performing backbreaking logistic and support functions), which first saw action at the Battle of Kemp's Landing, where a black soldier managed to capture his former master. In fact, this was what galvanized the Southern states to seriously support the rebellion: the fear of a British-sponsored total slave uprising. At the end of the war, the remaining black loyalists were resettled in the Canadas or Nova Scotia (many of those later moved to Sierra Leone to found the first freedmen colony). It should be noted that there were also plenty of blacks (both slaves and freedmen) who also supported the Patriots,[[note]]Take a close look at the crewmen in that painting of Washington crossing the Delaware[[/note]] and that several colonial militias had black members, most notably the 1st Rhode Island Regiment, which similarly to the Dunmore proclamation was formed at least partially by slaves who had been promised their freedom. It has been estimated that about 1/5 of the Continental Army was of African descent. It should also be noted that a significant portion of slaves who had been promised their freedom on both sides of the war were not granted it, or were re-enslaved later[[note]]Also worth noting is that, during the drafting of the Constitution of the United States, John Adams (among others) pointed out that slave-holding was contrary to the freedom espoused by the fledgling nation, with Adams rather famously pointing out that if the Continental Congress did not resolve the issue (by emancipating the slaves), then it would become a terrible issue for future generations to deal with 100 years later. [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar He was right on everything but the year]][[/note]]. Furthermore, the ideals of the Revolution played a huge part in the abolition of slavery in the North; Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New Hampshire all abolished the practice during or just after the war, though it was a gradual process rather than the full immediate emancipation that would happen the following century.

At the same time, the British also had great support amongst the African slaves in America (the delicious irony of slave drivers agitating for freedom was not lost on ''anyone''; Ralph Henry, the slave of Patrick "give me liberty or give me death" Henry, ran away to the British the week that quote was uttered, while Creator/SamuelJohnson mockingly asked "How is it we hear the loudest yelps for liberty from the drivers of Negroes?"). Most of the support was due to the Earl of Dunmore, the last governor of Virginia, who, critically outnumbered by the rebels, in 1779 offered freedom to any slave who joined the British. Not to be outdone by the Americans on the hypocrisy front, the slaves of loyalists were ''not'' freed. Over the course of the war, about 100,000 slaves escaped to the British (or tried to) and about 20,000 of them fought against the Americans as part of the all-black "Ethiopian Regiment" (which was mostly relegated to performing backbreaking logistic and support functions), which first saw action at the Battle of Kemp's Landing, where a black soldier managed to capture his former master. In fact, this was what galvanized the Southern states to seriously support the rebellion: the fear of a British-sponsored total slave uprising. At the end of the war, the remaining black loyalists were resettled in the Canadas or Nova Scotia (many of those later moved to Sierra Leone to found the first freedmen colony). It should be noted that there were also plenty of blacks (both slaves and freedmen) who also supported the Patriots,[[note]]Take a close look at the crewmen in that painting of Washington crossing the Delaware[[/note]] and that several colonial militias had black members, most notably the 1st Rhode Island Regiment, which similarly to the Dunmore proclamation was formed at least partially by slaves who had been promised their freedom. It has been estimated that about 1/5 of the Continental Army was of African descent. It should also be noted that a significant portion of slaves who had been promised their freedom on both sides of the war were not granted it, or were re-enslaved later[[note]]Also worth noting is that, during the drafting of the Constitution of the United States, John Adams (among others) pointed out that slave-holding was contrary to the freedom espoused by the fledgling nation, with Adams rather famously pointing out that if the Continental Congress did not resolve the issue (by emancipating the slaves), then it would become a terrible issue for future generations to deal with 100 years later. [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar He was right on everything but the year]][[/note]].

* ''Webcomic/AxisPowersHetalia'' features [[BattleInTheRain this]] in one [[TearJerker fan-favourite]] strip. The anime drew said strip out over several episodes, just to milk the suspense for all it was worth.

[[quoteright:295:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/streets-trenton_-_Copy_6469.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:295: [[OccupiersOutOfOurCountry Johnny-foreigner gets his taste of cold steel, wot]] [[note]]Patriots accepting the surrender of [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfHanover the German Count of Hesse's]] German troops at the Battle of Trenton, 1776. [[/note]]]]

Once upon a time, in 1765, The British Empire dominated North America, having won Canada from {{UsefulNotes/France}} in the UsefulNotes/SevenYearsWar. However, a series of shifting and thus unresolved issues of authority and administration[[note]] foremost among them the maturation and sidelining of the colonies' sort-of unofficial and more-or-less unrecognized legislatures [[/note]] met with misunderstandings, misjudgments and tragedies which led to most of the colonies of British North America forming a [[TheAlliance loose association]], seceding from TheEmpire, and later declaring themselves the United States of America. In the beginning, maybe a third of the colonists felt this was justified; roughly a fifth never did, and a twentieth left the new country to remain the Crown's loyal subjects in the [[UsefulNotes/{{Canada}} Great White North]], a land which has ever since prided itself upon being even more loyal to [[UsefulNotes/TheBritishRoyalFamily His/Her Majesty]] than Britain herself. This was the American Revolution, the era of King George III of The United Kingdom, General Charles Cornwallis, King UsefulNotes/LouisXVI of France, General Jean-Baptiste de Vimeur, The Franco-Spanish Armada (which failed, obviously), UsefulNotes/GeorgeWashington, Creator/BenjaminFranklin, UsefulNotes/ThomasJefferson, UsefulNotes/JohnAdams, UsefulNotes/AlexanderHamilton, Benedict Arnold, the Boston Massacre[[note]]With a death toll of 5, it might be a stretch to call it a "massacre", and it was directly attributable to unruly civilians thinking it'd be fun to keep pegging snowballs and chunks of ice at armed soldiers after being asked to stop because that's actually quite dangerous, dontchaknow. While opinions ran hot at the time it's worth noting that all but two soldiers were acquitted at trial (they got off with branding through pleading "[[OffOnATechnicality benefit of clergy]]") and their (defense) lawyer was none other than the prominent local figure of UsefulNotes/JohnAdams.[[/note]] the crossing of the Delaware, the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere (which was actually a group effort). As it would later be portrayed, this was [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTcVNuNX8yY&feature=relmfu a time when idealistic demagogues overthrew a tyrant and gave voting rights to the people]]--[[ValuesDissonance Well, if you were English or Scots (don't even mention the Irish and other foreigners), rich, land-owning, and male.]] The time of Modern Mythology in America, in short. In reality, it was a lot more complex, and in many ways far more divisive and terrible, and human--and British--than that.

* ''This Is America, [[Franchise/{{Peanuts}} Charlie Brown]]'' ("The Birth of the Constitution")

** In Washington Irving's other famous work, ''Literature/TheLegendOfSleepyHollow'', the HeadlessHorseman is the ghost of one of the Hessian mercenaries from the war.