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According to historian Gordon Wood, American cities experienced increased rowdiness, labor strikes, and racial and ethnic conflicts after 1800. On the frontier, life was also harsh. One...
In conclusion, the aftermath of the American Revolution was a time of great challenges for the new United States. The difficulties in creating a stable government, defining citizenship, and establishing a national identity were just some of the obstacles faced by the country.
The increased movement generated by the Revolutionary War brought more natives into contact with more whites – and therefore with ‘white diseases’. With no immunity to European diseases many tribal populations were decimated by these diseases, particularly the smallpox which was ravaging the eastern side of the continent during the 1770s.
23 de sept. de 2021 · Aaron Edwards. Updated September 23, 2021283.6K views. What happened right after the Revolutionary War ended? It's easy to think the United States of America was born immediately after the British surrendered at Yorktown, but in truth it was a long, arduous process to transform the idealistic embryonic state to a fully formed nation.
- Overview
- Land campaigns to 1778
The American Revolution—also called the U.S. War of Independence—was the insurrection fought between 1775 and 1783 through which 13 of Great Britain’s North American colonies threw off British rule to establish the sovereign United States of America, founded with the Declaration of Independence in 1776. British attempts to assert greater control over colonial affairs after a long period of salutary neglect, including the imposition of unpopular taxes, had contributed to growing estrangement between the crown and a large and influential segment of colonists who ultimately saw armed rebellion as their only recourse.
salutary neglect
Learn more about salutary neglect, the British government policy that provided for loose imperial supervision of the North American colonies.
How did the American Revolution begin?
On the ground, fighting in the American Revolution began with the skirmishes between British regulars and American provincials on April 19, 1775, first at Lexington, where a British force of 700 faced 77 local minutemen, and then at Concord, where an American counterforce of 320 to 400 sent the British scurrying. The British had come to Concord to seize the military stores of the colonists, who had been forewarned of the raid through efficient lines of communication—including the ride of Paul Revere, which is celebrated with poetic license in Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride” (1861).
Battles of Lexington and Concord
Americans fought the war on land with essentially two types of organization: the Continental (national) Army and the state militias. The total number of the former provided by quotas from the states throughout the conflict was 231,771 men, and the militias totaled 164,087. At any given time, however, the American forces seldom numbered over 20,000; in 1781 there were only about 29,000 insurgents under arms throughout the country. The war was therefore one fought by small field armies. Militias, poorly disciplined and with elected officers, were summoned for periods usually not exceeding three months. The terms of Continental Army service were only gradually increased from one to three years, and not even bounties and the offer of land kept the army up to strength. Reasons for the difficulty in maintaining an adequate Continental force included the colonists’ traditional antipathy toward regular armies, the objections of farmers to being away from their fields, the competition of the states with the Continental Congress to keep men in the militia, and the wretched and uncertain pay in a period of inflation.
By contrast, the British army was a reliable steady force of professionals. Since it numbered only about 42,000, heavy recruiting programs were introduced. Many of the enlisted men were farm boys, as were most of the Americans. Others were unemployed persons from the urban slums. Still others joined the army to escape fines or imprisonment. The great majority became efficient soldiers as a result of sound training and ferocious discipline. The officers were drawn largely from the gentry and the aristocracy and obtained their commissions and promotions by purchase. Though they received no formal training, they were not so dependent on a book knowledge of military tactics as were many of the Americans. British generals, however, tended toward a lack of imagination and initiative, while those who demonstrated such qualities often were rash.
Because troops were few and conscription unknown, the British government, following a traditional policy, purchased about 30,000 troops from various German princes. The Lensgreve (landgrave) of Hesse furnished approximately three-fifths of that total. Few acts by the crown roused so much antagonism in America as that use of foreign mercenaries.
Britannica Quiz
A Spotlight on a Primary Source by Martha Washington. Martha Washington to Hannah Boudinot, January 15, 1784 (Gilder Lehrman Collection) The Revolutionary War disrupted the home life of Americans for eight years. Battles between the British and American armies, as well as tensions between loyalists and patriots, created difficulties that people ...
After the war, life did change, in big ways and in small ones, for many of the people mentioned above. For example, as the new states wrote their own constitutions — a necessary step now that they had renounced British authority — most reduced the barriers to voting for free, white men.
