27 Jan 2023

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United States War of Independence (1775–1783)

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The conflict was an insurgency by American Patriots in the thirteen colonies to British rule, leading to American Independence. The war emerged from growing tensions between occupants of British thirteen North American colonies and the colonial regime that epitomized the British power. On April 1775, conflicts between imperial military men in Concord and Lexington and British militiamen instigated the armed battle, and in the next summer, the insurgents were fighting complete warfare for their Independence ( Conway, 2011) . France joined the war in 1778, on the colonists' side, making what was fundamentally a civil conflict into a global warfare. In 1781, after French backing aided the Continental Army in forcing the British capitulate in Yorktown, Virginia, the Americans had fruitfully gained their Independence, although the conflict officially culminated in 1783.

Great Britain, in the 1770s, governed a massive territory, as its American colonies produced valuable raw resources and profitability consumed British commodities. The Britain did not imagine the colonies could start an effective independence fight – in 1776, they seemed frail and disordered, and could not hold the empire anymore. However, while the American War of Independence continued for eight years, in 1783, the thirteen colonies eventually triumphed over the British ( Shaffer, 2017) . The war was successful since colonists from different social and economic upbringings came together in their resistance against Great Britain. Even though many colonists stayed dedicated to the British and most others favored remaining neutral, a feeling of unity against a single rival won amongst patriots. The passing of the Declaration of Independence exemplified the essence of that shared purpose.

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For over a decade before the American war of Independence started in 1775, there had been tensions escalating between the British powers and the colonists. The British administration's efforts to increase income tax through the taxation of colonies, remarkably the 1765 Stamp Act, the 1767 Townshend Tariffs and the 1773 Tea Act faced strong protest amongst most colonies, which hated their absence of parliament representation and called for the equal rights British subjects. In 1770, the colonial protest resulted in violence after British troops shot on a group of colonists and killed five males, which was named the Boston Massacre ( Conway, 2011) . After a band of people from Boston in December 1773 clad as Mohawk Indians entered British vessels, heaved 342 tea boxes into Boston Harbor, an irritated Parliament enacted a sequence of procedures called Coercive Acts aimed at reaffirming colonial power in Massachusetts.

In retort, a team of colonial representatives held a meeting on September 1774, in Philadelphia to express their complaints to the British Empire. While this First Continental Congress failed to get far regarding the demand for independence from British, it criticized the tax policy in which they were not presented and the keeping of the British armed forces within the colonies without their permission. Consequently, they delivered an affirmation of the liberties for all citizens, comprising right to liberty, assembly, property, life, and trial by judges. The Continental Congress decided to hold a meeting for a second time in May 1775 for consideration of further action, although by that period violence had already started ( Shaffer, 2017) . Local troops clashed with British militiamen on April 19, in Concord and Lexington, and this market the initial gunshots fired in the American War of Independence.

Following the Second Congress in Philadelphia, representatives agreed to create a Continental Army, which was to be under George Washington. In the war's first main clash on June 7, colonial armies imposed substantial causalities on the British forces. The battle culminated in British triumph but encouraged the independence cause ( Shaffer, 2017) . During that fall and winter, the soldiers of Washington fought to enclose the Britain’s army in Boston. The British, on March 1776, left the city and moved away to Canada to arrange for a key attack of New York.

As of June 1776, with the battle at its peak, many colonists wanted independence from Britain. According to Brüggert (2008), the Continental Congress on July 4 agreed to approve the Declaration of Independence, drafted by a five-bench committee comprising John Adams and Benjamin Franklin but mainly written by Thomas Jefferson. While the American forces had suffered many defeats from the British army, the American conquest Saratoga was the war’s turning point as it compelled France – that since 1776 secretly supported the insurgents – to join the fight openly siding with America, although it only declared war officially on Britain on June 1778 ( Brüggert, 2008) . The war, which had instigated as a civil battle between the colonies and the British powers had turned out to be international conflict. By 1781, the American militaries forced the British soldiers to withdrawal from Virginia's Yorktown Peninsula. Through the backing of the French militia, the American troops moved against Yorktown, and a convoy of French warships offshore barred reinforcement. Overpowered and trapped, the British army was made surrender on October 19.

While the drive for independence effectively prevailed in Yorktown, modern historians dismissed it as the decisive conquest yet. British army remained positioned at Charleston, and the powerful major military continued to live in New York. However, after the British withdrew their soldiers from Charleston and Savannah towards the end of 1782, it ultimately ended the war. American and British delegates in Paris engaged in initial peace agreements in November, and Great Britain on 3 rd September, 1783, acknowledged the Independence of America in the Treaty of Paris ( Shaffer, 2017) . Simultaneously, Britain entered into separate peace agreements with Spain and France, bringing the American War of Independence to an end following eight years of conflict.

References

Conway, S. (2011). American War of Independence (1775–1783).  The Encyclopedia of War

Brüggert, M. (2008).  The American Revolution or War of Independence (1775-1783) and its influence on the British Empire . GRIN Verlag. 

Shaffer, A. H. (2017).  The Politics of History: Writing the History of the American Revolution, 1783-1815 . Routledge. 

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StudyBounty. (2023, September 15). United States War of Independence (1775–1783).
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