American Revolutionary War

In 1763 AD England won the French and Indian War against France (which had been fought mainly in North America), and so the English-speaking settlers on the East Coast could stop worrying that they were about to be taken over by France. To pay for that war, the English government began to make the the English-speaking settlers pay more and more taxes. This brought the English a lot of money, but it made the settlers more and more angry. They were especially angry because they couldn't vote or speak for themselves in England about these taxes. The settlers said this was "taxation without representation" and it was wrong.

The settlers decided to boycott everything they had been buying from English traders - they would not buy their tea, clothes, glass, paper, and so on (This is when many Americans began to drink coffee). To show that they meant it, in 1773 they threw a lot of tea on an English ship overboard, into the ocean - this is called the "Boston Tea Party." Women proudly spun and wove their own cloth, though they had not done it for a long time.

In 1775, two years later, the first shots were fired in Massachusetts. England and the United States were now at war. The Iroquois, under their leader Joseph Brant, and the Cherokee decided to help England with the war because they thought the English would stop settlers from moving into their land. About a quarter of the settlers took the side of England too. Quakers tried to stay neutral.

George Washington was the commander in chief of the United States' army. At first he won, and on July 4th, 1776 the United States government published the Declaration of Independence. But then the English government sent lots more men to fight (women weren't allowed), and soon the United States was losing the war.

At this point, Benjamin Franklin went to Paris and succeeded in getting the French king to send help. In 1777 the French navy helped send in lots of weapons for the United States army to use. Then Spain and the Netherlands also came in on the side of France. Nobody was on the side of England. Even some English people were on the side of the United States.

By 1781, the United States (with the help of the French general Lafayette, other French soldiers, and lots of French money) had won several big battles. Even when the English won, they couldn't get people to support them, or get their navy through to help them. So in October the English army surrendered to George Washington. That was the end of the Revolutionary War.

To find out more about the American Revolution, check out these books from Amazon.com or from your local library: