Category: American Revolution

Liberty and Transformation: The American Revolution Enduring Impact

American Revolution: Struggle for Independence

As Aristotle once said, “ Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and equals that they may be superior. Such is the state of mind which creates revolutions.” A revolution can be defined as an instance of revolving or an overthrow of social order in search of a new one. The American and French Revolutions are two events in history that are often compared and can be categorized with many similarities and differences.

Both of the events had similar sparks that stirred them up to the revolutions that they did. Two of the main reasons for the revolutions were the search for liberty and freedom. America was in search of freedom from Great Britain for all of the taxes and regulations being put on American citizens. The French went a little more extreme and had the goal of exterminating their government system and implanting a completely new one that would give their citizens more of a say in what goes on in their society. Although both countries had similar reasons for their actions, the outcomes were as similar as the sun and the moon.

The American Revolution mainly focused its energy on gaining independence. After the Seven Year War, America’s economy was restricted from British rules, for they had to pay off the war and the extreme taxes they were assigned by the British parliament. Taxes include some, such as the Stamp Act, which placed taxes on items such as newspapers and diplomas. What angered Americans was their lack of representation in the Government that was assigning these taxes. To voice their thoughts, Americans decided to rebel against the British Parliament. Literature was also published that sparked the rebellion, such as Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense.” After years of conflict, the Revolution was able to come to a conclusion, and by 1783, the thirteen colonies gained independence from Britain.

French Revolution: Struggle for Equality

The French Revolution had the main goal of getting rid of the French Monarchy. The Third Estate wanted to obtain equality instead of having the higher estates rule over them and pay no consequences or fees. They were tired of being walked over and wanted a change. After time and time of looting, striking, and rioting against higher powers in events such as the storming at Bastille and the Reign of Terror, and the signing of documents such as the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, the Revolution began to come to a closing period, and a new leader began to rise.

On August 22, 1795, the National Convention approved a new constitution that put France’s first bicameral legislature in place. Executive power laid in the hands of the Directory, which was run by Napoleon Bonaparte. On November 9, 1799, Napoleon staged a coup d’état, which abolished the Directory and appointed him France’s first consul. This event marked the end of the French Revolution.

The main differences between the two events were the circumstances and factors that were a part of each. The American Revolution was caused by the majority of the American population requesting equality and was run mainly by the highest class, while the French were started by the lowest class. Another difference is who got tied into the Revolutions after they started. For the most part, the American Revolution stayed between the Americans and the British, but the French Revolution mainly started between the Third Estate and the French Government but expanded to the French Government fighting other monarchies in Europe, such as Austria and Prussia.

Revolutionary Impacts: Liberty and Society

The French and American Revolutions are two events in history that play a large role in influencing the nations to come. They can be similarly compared in the reasons that they started, such as for liberty and freedom, but contrasted for what was being fought for. The Americans sought a change in Government, but their social system remained intact, and the French sought to completely change their society.

References:

1. Aristotle. Quote: “Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and equals that they may be superior. Such is the state of mind which creates revolutions.”
2. Middlekauff, R. (2005). The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789. Oxford University Press.
3. Paine, T. (1776). Common Sense. Published anonymously.
4. Doyle, W. (1989). The Oxford History of the French Revolution. Oxford University Press.
5. Hampson, N. (1989). A Social History of the French Revolution. Routledge.
6. McPhee, P. (2002). Liberty or Death: The French Revolution. Yale University Press.
7. Palmer, R. R. (1959). The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760-1800. Princeton University Press.
8. Popkin, J. D. (2010). A Short History of the French Revolution. Pearson.
9. Schama, S. (1989). Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution. Penguin.
10. Wood, G. S. (1992). The Radicalism of the American Revolution. Vintage.

The Changing Roles of Women in the American Revolution

Women’s Rights and Dependence in the American Revolution

N. Gundersen, Joan R. “Independence, Citizenship, and the American Revolution.” Signs, vol. 13, no. 1, 1987, pp. 59–77. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3174027. “Independence, Citizenship, and the American Revolution” “Single women had the independence of mind and property to qualify as voters, but except in New Jersey, the American revolutionary leadership failed to recognize this. New Jersey provides a single example during the Revolutionary era of a state where women were included in the body politic. Women had a constitutionally protected right to vote in New Jersey from 1776 to 1807” (Gundersen 65). “In 1796, the legislature excluded black men and women from voting but reaffirmed white women’s right to vote, using the phrase ‘he or she.’

In order to qualify to vote, a woman had to be a property holder and thus independent” (Gundersen 66). Women were considered dependent on British loyalty oaths, but a widow or spinster’s choice of allegiance was independent. Each state had to decide if women in this scenario were dependent. Before the Revolution, a woman was a legal dependent. However, there were other aspects of a woman’s status, including duties, rights, and privileges. The land was an important part of a woman’s dowry; when her husband died, the land would be passed down to her male heirs. She also had partial ownership of personal property if the family declared bankruptcy or when her husband died. Equity provisions were another part of a women’s dependent status prior to the Revolution.

Equity provisions helped married women be independent in a legal sense. Women were citizens of the new U.S. government, and they had independent choices while staying in the same dependent status (67 & 72). It was common for a husband and wife to stand on opposite sides of the Revolution. This caused multiple property and dependency issues. Each state government had to decide which situations determined the ownership of property and how a woman who stayed home fit into a society ruled by men. Most women married between eighteen and twenty-one years old. In many cases, a woman would engage in premarital for her significant other to determine if she could produce his heirs. This made her closer to becoming a wife.

As a wife, her status is dependent on her husband. Prenuptials were common women who could have “separate independent estates during marriage” (Gundersen 72). However, they did not receive economic independence from this. Legally a wife is dependent on her husband. While a widow was independent legally. Women became leaders while their husbands fought in the war; some petitioned the state for economic support to survive. The dependent poor increased during the Revolution; families struggled to make ends meet without fathers and brothers home to work. Men were independent; they had the right to vote, own property and gain the benefits of liberty. Women were dependent, couldn’t vote because men brought them to the polls, and couldn’t own property.

Women’s Contributions and Changing Perspectives in the Revolution

Society compared women to slaves during the Revolution. Women were deputy husbands. They stayed home, managed the farm or business, and raised the children. This started to change the views society had on the women’s sphere. Cometti, Elizabeth. “Women in the American Revolution.” The New England Quarterly, vol. 20, no. 3, 1947, pp. 329–346. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/361443. “Women in the American Revolution” Women had new roles during the war; they became the head of the household, acquired their husbands’ duties (while he was fighting in the war), and were employed in the husband’s business or farm. The charity was needed for most families’ survival because there was no common currency, soldiers’ pay was not distributed on time or regularly, and did not cover necessities.

Many women petitioned the government for economic assistance. Most families did not receive enough economic help from the state legislatures and revolutionary committees due to local officials being ineffective and not caring. State legislatures and revolutionary committees “sought remedies in a variety of resolutions and acts providing for the distribution of money and food to soldiers’ families, for limiting prices, for rationing essential commodities, and for state purchasing and marketing of goods” (Cometti 330-331). The textile industry hired a lot of women. This was similar traditionally to the work women would do at home. The other main jobs for women were as farmers in New England and the Middle States.

Women also volunteered by making clothes and food and collecting materials that could be used toward the war effort. Old clothes and lead-based objects (to be made into bullets) were passed along to the soldiers. Tea and other luxury items from England were in high demand but were relatively unattainable during this time. In some cases, hordes of females would attack a store and steal its luxury goods. Women generally enjoyed using British luxury items and rarely negatively commented about others using them. Patriotic women ostracized Tories, and it took little evidence for someone to be labeled a Tory. “At a quilting frolic, a group of young ladies stripped their lone male guest to the waist and covered him with molasses and the “downy tops of flags” because he had cast aspersions on Congress” (Cometti 338).

When women asked other women for charity, a song, a bribe of tea, or begging, kids allowed the beggars to receive charity. Wealthy women handed out food and drink to marching soldiers. Women took the roles of nurses, cooks, laundresses, and camp followers in the war. George Washington was dismayed by the camp followers; he was upset they were “riding on military wagons and eating at public expense instead of working in the country” (Cometti 344). Young women would only take patriot lovers and “met to sew regimental colors for their beaux” (Cometti 340). Women made and distributed packages of food, clothes, etc., to the soldiers too. When the French arrived to assist the patriots, dancing became a popular pastime for young ladies and soldiers.

Tea, Loyalty, and Women’s Changing Roles in the Revolution

Although balls were an extravagance, they were enjoyed by many wealthy women throughout the war. Some ladies courted British soldiers, which caused shock. (Whigs were not allowed to court the enemy, and Quakers had no rules about this.) When items from England were banned, wealthy women stockpiled these items, while poor women formed mobs, broke into stores, and stole them. Tea symbolized British sympathy. Women loved tea and made sure others did not get to enjoy it during the ban. “When the designated moment of sacrifice came, groups of ladies would sometimes assemble over a last ceremonial cup of tea to pledge farewell to the “pernicious weed.”

And they were vigilant in seeing that others should not have what they had given up, going so far as to denounce those who dared to relapse from their resolutions; for it was possible to obtain tea by such stratagems as whispering across the merchant’s counter and obtaining falsely labeled packages of tea.” (Cometti 337). Later, privateers sold tea illegally, and only the wealthy could obtain this luxury item. However, with other British goods, women did not engage in judgment. Tea was the only British good that women used as a sign of loyalty during the war, which was also appropriately used to determine one’s social status. Marsh, Ben. “Women and the American Revolution in Georgia.”

The Georgia Historical Quarterly, vol. 88, no. 2, 2004, pp. 157–178. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40584736. “Women and the American Revolution in Georgia” Raids and plunders were common, the economy was decimated, rice was high in demand and low in quantity, and many families emigrated to South Carolina, abandoning and neglecting their plantations and homesteads to flee to safety. Many Tories lived in Georgia (the youngest colony). A lot of fighting occurred because the British wanted to take over Georgia. The population had a small number of planters. They were the elite, the highest social class, and well-to-do planters owned slaves. Most planters moved their families to South Carolina, usually to the Lowcountry. Their families continued to move throughout the war.

British soldiers and Loyalists plundered throughout Georgia destroying families’ livelihoods, and some wealthy families took refuge in South Carolina. Tory women mostly stayed with their husbands and children during the war. Women continued to be matriarchs after the war while their husbands determined “new locations for the refugees and tied up colonial business affairs” (Marsh 163). Planters moved their families to safety in the north, and women who remained in Georgia became the head of their household (deputy-husband) and economically responsible for their family during the war; this “re-emphasized the significance of women’s roles within the family” (Marsh 160). She became in charge of the remaining slaves and her children.

Women’s Resourcefulness, Loyalties, and Changing Dynamics Amidst War

Families that stayed behind had to have mobility for short periods of time and distances when they were finding ways to protect their homestead from the atrocities of war. Weapons and adult males were absent on the home front; women had to rely on their wits and resourcefulness to protect their property. Women were not involved in politics; their main role was to their family and household. however, because of this, they could safely be on the opposite side of their significant other. Their husband and son’s oath of abjuration (declaration of loyalty) determined which side women were part of in the war; if she sided with her husband, their land could be seized. Many women chose to remain neutral or did not side with their husbands and protect their property.

Emigration, attacks, and capture separated African-American slave families when their owners moved north; many slaves escaped during the confusion. The matriarch determined the destination and planned for her family to escape. Usually, babies and infants were not brought along on these trips; mothers would stay at their plantation with their children because it was safer than trying to escape. Courtship was difficult during the war; some young people switched sides in the war to be with their lovers! Quakers decided that instead of parents determining if their child could engage their significant other, Quaker meetinghouses would decide. During the British occupation of Georgia, Tories met to form social networks. All marriages were unlicensed; there were fewer potential partners because of the war.

“Lacking the social connections, economic power, and political weight of their elite neighbors, many had no choice but to remain in Georgia and face the consequences of revolution.” (Marsh 166). Some Tory women were spies during the war, which changed the role of non-elite white women from passive victims to helpful informants. Women were protected by their status. During the beginning of the war, they were extremely effective. Patriots focused on uprooting the Tory women to prevent the spread of Patriot military plans. Patriot women were also spying during the war. In the backcountry, elite landowning women wrote petitions to male authorities to leave in safety which tended to be granted based on their connections and how they determined members of their family (they left out the male members of their family for their own safety.)

References:

1. Gundersen, Joan R. “Independence, Citizenship, and the American Revolution.” Signs, vol. 13, no. 1, 1987, pp. 59–77. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3174027
2. Cometti, Elizabeth. “Women in the American Revolution.” The New England Quarterly, vol. 20, no. 3, 1947, pp. 329–346. https://www.jstor.org/stable/361443
3. Marsh, Ben. “Women and the American Revolution in Georgia.” The Georgia Historical Quarterly, vol. 88, no. 2, 2004, pp. 157–178. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40584736

Women’s Role and Struggle for Equality during the American Revolution

Women’s Struggles and Educational Progress in the Revolutionary Era

During the Revolution, women were often not treated fairly. Women during this time were thought to be inferior to men, which was evident in the lack of legal rights for married women. Women were also denied independence in economic, political, or civic matters in Anglo-American society during the eighteenth century. For example, A large number of white women in the eighteenth century spent their days carrying out many challenging tasks in or around their rural homes. The riskiest work they performed was childbirth. Most women during this time gave birth to five or more children. However, this was in addition to the other pregnancies that ended in miscarriages. Sadly some of these women also died during childbirth, or in some cases, they watched their infants die.

During the eighteenth century, women weren’t allowed to have a say in politics, and some of them became annoyed because of the many restrictions placed on them. As time went on, some things slowly began to change. For example, a movement began to help improve the education of women in order to give them more ways to support themselves. During the Revolutionary Era, male and female authors began to demand improvements to female education. They argued that there were many major differences that existed amongst the sees that were based solely on access to learning. This was the point that Essayist and early American Feminist Judith Sargent Murray was trying to make in her essay “On The Equality of the Sexes.”

Women’s Vital Roles: Contributions and Resistance in the Revolutionary Era

Murray’s writings became very popular, and she continued to publish additional Feminist essays that focused on women’s education and the equal value men and women should have. Murray believed that while society must be based on strict compliance to order, A woman’s place within. That order must be changed. Murray believed that “Whatever differences that existed between the intelligence of men and women were the result of prejudice and discrimination that prevented women from sharing the full range of male privilege and experience.” Murray supported the view that the Order of Nature demanded full equality between the sexes, but that male domination corrupted this principle.

The Revolutionary Generation included numerous women that contributed to the struggle for independence. Although women weren’t allowed to serve in the military, they assisted in many other ways. There were wives, girlfriends, daughters, and sisters that joined their camps to perform other important tasks. For example, Martha Washington accompanied her husband, General George Washington, during much of the war. These women became known as camp followers. They cooked, cleaned, sewed, mended uniforms, and provided medical assistance to the sick and injured. They also tended to the farm animals, milking cows, and searched for food. Some of these women showed their dedication in other ways, such as risking their lives by acting as spies. They would enter British camps or places of recreation to seek out information they could pass on to the rebels.

The Daughters of Liberty was a group that came about after the British Parliament passed the Stamp Act. It was an Organization made up of only women that wanted to demonstrate their loyalty to the Revolutionary cause by boycotting British goods and making their own. The women continued to be on the frontline of efforts to impose boycotts on British goods, but they also controlled domestic production efforts. “Because most textiles in the colonies were imported from Britain, weaving homespun cloth became an act of political rebellion.”

References:

1. Murray, Judith Sargent. “On The Equality of the Sexes.”
2. Norton, Mary Beth. Liberty’s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800. Cornell University Press, 1996.
3. Kerber, Linda K. Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America. University of North Carolina Press, 1980.
4. Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll. “The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations between Women in Nineteenth-Century America.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 1.1 (1975): 1-29.
5. Wood, Gordon S. The Radicalism of the American Revolution. Vintage, 1993.
6. Zagarri, Rosemarie. Revolutionary Backlash: Women and Politics in the Early American Republic. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007.

Exploring Perspectives on War and Society in the American Revolution

Revolutionary War: Mobilization, Experiences, and Scholarship

War and Society in the American Revolution: Mobilization and Home Fronts, Edited by John Resch and Walter Sargent, Editors. Northern Illinois University Press, 2007.

John Resch and Walter Sargent’s assortment of essays unites probably the best input on the American Revolutionary War. It is isolated into two areas, one concerning the inspiration and preparation of fighters and the other the wartime encounters of an assortment of partners, networks, and ladies. The editors, who themselves contribute fine expositions to the initial segment of the assortment, incorporate a mindful early-on review of the works they have picked and finish up with a historiographic essay on the changing grant of the Revolutionary period over the mediating hundreds of years.

Diverse Perspectives on Revolutionary Experiences

The caption of the book makes it strategic that understanding the assembly of all Americans is critical to understanding the Revolution itself. Undoubtedly, a comprehension of assembly finds a good pace of longstanding inquiries concerning the potential inspirations of members in the war. The authors on military motivation astutely inspect Continental and local army powers. This has permitted them to see continued cooperation by every single social status, “[…] most Americans looked to government to organize, sustain, and lead the society’s collective military effort.” (p.10). Other territorial and topical essays on enlistment demoralize speculations from that experience. By parsing an assortment of networks, they found that enrollment encounters were natural and reflected neighborhood associations and stress lines.

The expositions of the primary portion of the volume are firmly strong. Those of the second are less so, and that is both a quality and a shortcoming. It takes into consideration a wide scope of independently convincing themes to be investigated that outline this was a war with no reasonable depiction between the home front and battlefront.

Holly Mayer’s essay on the ladies who went with the armed force, Joan Gunderson’s record of the preliminaries of evacuee ladies, and expositions on the southern boondocks concerning supporters, slaves, and Native groups help book lovers to remember the vacancy of any such discrete conceptualizations. These points are basic to a comprehension of the American Revolution, and the nature of the grant and writing in every one of them is excellent. Be that as it may, there is to some degree less concentration, and they could have profited from a more tightly editorial hand to associate them with the bigger topics of the book.

Violence, Alliances, and Unanswered Questions in the Revolutionary War

In the same way as other works about war and society, the effect of brutality will, in general, get quick work. This is to some degree settled by Wayne Lee’s insightful essay about how ‘Violence is always judged’ (p. 165), even in the Carolina backwoods, an energizing and provocative subject. It additionally opens up an entire field of grants that asks for extension in its very own segment. In any case, this is a minor issue and just gives different researchers in the field, and maybe Resch and Sargent themselves, another volume to consider.
Jim Piecuch’s essay, Incompatible Allies, discusses one of the many reasons Britain lost the war they didn’t utilize allies they had access to in the colonies.

The reason why is discussed in the essay, “If the British sought slave and Indian support, they alienated white loyalists; if they rejected it, they might find the Indians allied to the Whigs, who frequently courted them and also lose services of thousands of fugitive slaves who filled important non-combat positions in the army” (p. 210). This essay could most definitely expand because it gives light on topics that I haven’t heard discussed before. An author could probably do a whole volume on these subjects showing how the British caused their demise during the war.

There are so many viewpoints that can be discussed in three distinct groups of people. They all had different viewpoints on the war and each other. These issues put the British in a hard place whom they could use to be their allies without losing the other two. Another volume could be written on the ‘what ifs’ of this situation. What if Britain was able to bring these groups together? What would our nation look like? That is the reasoning behind why I think this essay can be expanded to so many different avenues of new research and unanswered questions.

Booklovers, understudies particularly, will discover a lot to energize them in these pages. The essays are written in an unmistakable, open style. Those new to the field will discover a significant number of the expositions provocatively, and pros will be outfitted with an assortment from the absolute best researchers in the field. So with this being said, this book is a must-read regardless of your background.

References:

1. Resch, John, and Walter Sargent. War and Society in the American Revolution: Mobilization and Home Fronts. Northern Illinois University Press, 2007.
2. Mayer, Holly. “Ladies Who Accompanied the Army: Holly Mayer Explores the World of the Women Who Followed Washington’s Army.” In War and Society in the American Revolution: Mobilization and Home Fronts, edited by John Resch and Walter Sargent, 200-215. Northern Illinois University Press, 2007.
3. Gunderson, Joan. “Trials of Refugee Women: Gunderson Examines the Difficulties and Dilemmas Faced by Refugee Women.” In War and Society in the American Revolution: Mobilization and Home Fronts, edited by John Resch and Walter Sargent, 216-228. Northern Illinois University Press, 2007.
4. Piecuch, Jim. “Incompatible Allies: Piecuch Discusses the Reasons for Britain’s Loss in the American Revolutionary War.” In War and Society in the American Revolution: Mobilization and Home Fronts, edited by John Resch and Walter Sargent, 210-215. Northern Illinois University Press, 2007.
5. Lee, Wayne. “Violence is Always Judged: Wayne Lee Examines the Complexities of Violence in the Carolina Backwoods.” In War and Society in the American Revolution: Mobilization and Home Fronts, edited by John Resch and Walter Sargent, 165-175. Northern Illinois University Press, 2007.