american revolution overview

Digital History is a remarkable website with information on the American Revolution. It's set up in sections and is well organized. I came across it and wanted to share it with you.

The section I highlight here looks at the causes, fighting, and consequences of the American Revolution. There is information about the emerging patterns of resistance in the colonies, including petitions, pamphlets, intimidation, boycotts, and intercolonial meetings. 

The American Revolution was the first modern revolution. 

People fought for their independence in the name of certain universal principles such as rule of law, constitutional rights, and popular sovereignty. The website examines the causes, fighting, and consequences of the American Revolution. Learn why many colonists hesitated before declaring independence and how the Declaration of Independence summarized colonial grievances and provided a vision of a future.

Here's the link:

Digital History - Overview of the American Revolution

the prison ships: a grisly history

The Revolutionary War seems to not get attention with New York. It should. After all, New York City was the new nation's first capitol. It was also the home of the war's biggest battle.

The Battle of Brooklyn gets that distinction. The battle was a crushing blow to the Colonists in which a major retreat took place as the result. Dense fog covered the area as the colonial forces climbed aboard their boats to safety. The British captured about 1,300 prisoners. After the battle, New York remained in British hands, with several warships always anchored in the East River.

There was a very diabolical situation that gives New York a somber footnote in history. Those are the prison ships that were stationed to house colonial prisoners. About 11,000 prisoners died in these ships during the war. The conditions were terrible as one prisoner noted:

The heat was so intense that [the 300-plus prisoners] were all naked, which also served the well to get rid of vermin, but the sick were eaten up alive. Their sickly countenances, and ghastly looks were truly horrible; some swearing and blaspheming; others crying, praying, and wringing their hands; and stalking about like ghosts; others delirious, raving and storming, all panting for breath; some dead, and corrupting. The air was so foul that at times a lamp could not be kept burning, by reason of which the bodies were not missed until they had been dead ten days. One person alone was admitted on deck at a time, after sunset, which occasioned much filth to run into the hold, and mingle with the bilge water … [1]

Every day, corpses were tossed overboard from the hulks—five to ten bodies a day from one ship alone. The remains were moved to a crypt in Fort Greene Park, about a half-mile south of Wallabout Bay. 

 

Prison Ship Martyrs Monument

The 110-year-old Martyrs Monument is a reminder of a time when it was unclear if the United States would survive at all. This monument was dedicated in 1908 and there are plans to incorporate it into the Fort Greene National Park.

Sources: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/grisly-history-brooklyns-revolutionary-war-martyrs-180962508/

              The Battle of Brooklyn

 

the art of dan nance

Dan Nance paints local, concentrated history.

 His art engages the viewer. With this in mind, I can learn something about the players of the American Revolution. That's really what history is, the engagement of the past with us in the present.

Reading of the Meck Dec by Dan Nance

The above is a painting that tells us much. "Meck Dec" was the nickname for the fabled Mecklenburg Declaration. It was disclosed in May of 1775 at the courthouse in Charlotte, North Carolina. Of course, this predates the Declaration of Independence. The break from Great Britain was not a new notion when the Continental Congress met later in Philadelphia.

Bursting with energy, just like his paintings, Dan Nance uses his talent to relate the tales of colonial North Carolina.

Ambush and artist Dan Nance

Nance allows paint and light to portray another character. This helps us to relive the moment and use our imagination to finish the scene. Dan Nance connects the dots.

Source article: Dan Nance Paints the Road to Revolution

american revolution museum at yorktown

The grand opening celebration of the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown is March 23-April 4, 2017, officially launching the impressive new museum that replaces the Yorktown Victory Center.

The Grand Opening Celebration of the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown will commence with 13 days of festivities on March 23-April 4, 2017, with a patriotic salute to America’s 13 original states.

American Revolution Museum at Yorktown VA

States will be recognized in the museum lobby with informational displays about each state’s Revolutionary War history, as well as tourism and heritage organizations. Each day will begin with a midday ceremony honoring the featured state with welcoming remarks.

Among close to 500 artifacts on exhibit are a Declaration of Independence broadside dating to July 1776; a June 1776 Philadelphia printing of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, one of the inspirations for the U.S. Declaration of Independence; a coronation portrait of King George III from the studio of Allan Ramsay; one of the two earliest known portraits done from life of an African who had been enslaved in the 13 British colonies that became the United States.

 

Source article: MUST SEE!

 

the quebec act of 1774

British actions brought American colonists to revolution. We all know taxation without representation (The Stamp Act). But don't stop there. There was the Boston Massacre and then the colony of Massachusetts wasn't allowed to conduct its own courts. This threw John Adams over the edge. So it was more than one item that led to revolution.

Add this to that roster. The Quebec Act of 1774. What was that? Well, plenty.

It was perhaps the major demarcation point for the thirteen colonies’ ultimate divorce from Great Britain. the Act was as successful as any other previous to it in “enraging the Americans against the measures of government.”


Thomas Bradbury Chandler, “A Friendly Address,” 1774, in Wood, ed., The American Revolution: Writings from the Pamphlet Debate II, 1773-1776 (New York: Library of America, 2015), 285.

The Act’s establishment of the Catholic church in a neighboring colony, its territorial extension of that colony into western lands, and its institution of a civil government appointed by – and serving at the pleasure of – the Crown corroborated their darkest suspicions of British intentions.

The Quebec Act and the other “Intolerable Acts” punishing Massachusetts in the summer and autumn of 1774 helped to ignite a train of events that would lead to colonists and British redcoats killing each other at Lexington and Concord.

The Act tolerated the Roman Catholic faith but bolstered the Americans' belief that it established the church and the authority of Rome right next door to them. John Adams declared that the Act was “not only unjust to the People in that Province, but dangerous to the Interests of the Protestant Religion and of these Colonies.”

I. Heads of Grievances and Rights, 9 September 1774,” Founders Online, National Archives, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-02-02-0041-0002. Original source: The Adams Papers, Papers of John Adams, vol. 2, December 1773 – April 1775, ed. Robert J. Taylor (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977), 152–156. 

John Adams

The Act’s extension of the Canadian provinces into western lands as far south as the Ohio River also infuriated those who had an interest there (and there were many). It also gave American colonists further cause to wonder whether they would ever be able to seek their future prosperity in the abundant western frontier so long as they remained subject to the pleasure and direction of George III.

John Adams tried to get at the crux of the matter for Americans. Taken together, the bill suspending Massachusetts’ legislature and the Quebec Act revealed Whitehall’s oligarchical designs for America. Adams and those pushing for American independence took the initiative.  Though months of political and military legwork were still required, the Quebec Act, fused with all of Whitehall’s previous offenses, played an important role in convincing Americans that they had one choice and once choice only: independence.

Source for this post: Blame Canada: The Quebec Act and the American Revolution