MAKING THE REVOLUTION

All Texts in Chronological Order

All historical and literary texts, maps, works of art, and items of material culture, in chronological order by publication date or, in some cases, by the date of a depicted or narrated event.
Date	Title	Theme/ Source	Online Source
1759	Benjamin West, The Death of General Wolfe (Battle of Quebec, 1759), oil on canvas, created 1770	CRISIS 1	National Gallery of Canada
1759 -1763	COMPILATION: Colonists respond to British victory in the French and Indian War: selections including a news account, a poem, a painting, sermons, and letters of Benjamin Franklin	CRISIS 1	National Humanities Center
1764	COMPILATION: Colonists respond to the Sugar & Currency Acts: selections including pamphlets, merchants' appeals, legislative petitions, news accounts of public protests, and a Patriot's history	CRISIS 2	National Humanities Center
1764	Thomas Pownall, The Administration of the Colonies: selections on British imperial and commercial policy toward the colonies	CRISIS 2	National Humanities Center
1765	Parliamentary debate on the Stamp Act, selections	CRISIS 3	National Humanities Center
1765	"A Poetical Dream concerning Stamped Papers," poem (unidentified author)	CRISIS 3	National Humanities Center
1765 -1766	COMPILATION: Colonists respond to the Stamp Act: selections including broadsides, pamphlets, letters, news accounts of public protests, editorials, poetry, resolutions, a Loyalist memoir, a Patriot's history, and the Declaration of Rights and Grievances by the Stamp Act Congress	CRISIS 3	National Humanities Center
1766	COMPILATION: Colonists respond to the repeal of the Stamp Act: selections including news accounts, sermons, poetry, letters, a Patriot's history, and Paul Revere's engraving A View of the Obelisk	CRISIS 3	National Humanities Center
1766 -1767	COMPILATION: Colonists respond to the Quartering Act and the dissolution of the New York assembly: selections including newspaper essays, a legislative petition, and a letter of Benjamin Franklin	CRISIS 4	National Humanities Center
1767	John Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies, Letters 1 & 2	CRISIS 4	National Humanities Center
1767 -1770	COMPILATION: Colonists respond to the Townshend Acts and the arrival of British troops in Boston: selections including nonimportation agreements, newspaper accounts and essays, poetry, letters, an engraving, a Patriot's history, and the Massachusetts Circular Letter	CRISIS 4	National Humanities Center
1768	Depictions by Paul Revere & Christian Remick of the arrival of British troops in Boston (created 1768-1770)	CRISIS 4	National Humanities Center; Massachusetts Historical Society
1770	COMPILATION: Colonists respond to the violent confrontations with British troops and officials in early 1770: selections including newspaper accounts and essays, poetry, John Adams's diary and autobiography, a Patriot's history, and Paul Revere's engraving The Bloody Massacre	CRISIS 5	National Humanities Center
1770 -1771	Benjamin Franklin & Rev. Samuel Cooper, letters on the easing of British-American tensions, selections	CRISIS 5	National Humanities Center
1772	Boston Committee of Correspondence (Samuel Adams, et al.), the "Boston Pamphlet," selections	CRISIS 6	National Humanities Center
1772	Rev. John Allen, An Oration upon the Beauties of Liberty, sermon on the Gaspée incident, excerpts	CRISIS 6	National Humanities Center
1773	Benjamin Franklin, Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One, essay	CRISIS 9	National Humanities Center
1773 -1774	COMPILATION: Colonists respond to the Tea Act & the Boston Tea Party: selections including news accounts, letters, citizen resolutions, a newspaper debate, a sermon, a cartoon, poetry and song, and a Patriot's history	CRISIS 6	National Humanities Center
1773 -1783	Calls for the abolition of slavery as inconsistent with the ideals in the Declaration of Independence: selections including a slave petition, a sermon, and a judge's remarks to a jury	REBELLION 6	National Humanities Center
1774	David Ramsay, A Sermon on Tea, essay, excerpts	CRISIS 6	National Humanities Center
1774	COMPILATION: Colonists respond to the Coercive Acts & the First Continental Congress: selections including newspaper accounts, letters, sermons, a satire, a Patriot-Loyalist pamphlet war, a Loyalist-exLoyalist pamphlet war, a Loyalist's memoir, and a Patriot's history	CRISIS 6	National Humanities Center
1774	First Continental Congress –Petition to King George III –Bill of Rights; letters to the Americans & to the people of Great Britain	CRISIS 7	National Humanities Center
1774	Francis Hopkinson, A Pretty Story Written in the Year of Our Lord 2774, allegory, excerpts	CRISIS 9	National Humanities Center
1774 -1775	Anti-Loyalist violence: incidents compiled by Peter Oliver in Origin and Progress of the American Revolution, 1781	REBELLION 2	National Humanities Center
1774 -1777	Nicholas Cresswell (English traveller in America), travel journal, selections on the treatment of Loyalists in Virginia	REBELLION 3	National Humanities Center
1775	Janet Schaw (Scottish traveller in America), travel letters, selections on the treatment of Loyalists in North Carolina	REBELLION 3	National Humanities Center
1775	Edmund Burke, speech to Parliament on reconciliation with America, excerpts	WAR 1	National Humanities Center
1775	Virginia Committee of Correspondence, announcement of the Battle of Lexington & Concord (19 April 1775), pamphlet	CRISIS 8	National Humanities Center
1775	Second Continental Congress –Olive Branch Petition –Declaration . . . Setting Forth the Causes and Necessity of Their Taking Up Arms	CRISIS 8	National Humanities Center
1775	COMPILATION: Colonists respond to the outbreak of war: selections including newspaper accounts, a newspaper debate, letters, sermons, Loyalist appeals, poetry and song, and a Patriot's history	CRISIS 8	National Humanities Center
1775	Sermons on the outbreak of war and the justifiability of rebellion: selections from six sermons, May-July 1775	CRISIS 8	National Humanities Center
1775	Rev. Myles Cooper (Loyalist), The Patriots of North America: A Sketch, poem, excerpts	REBELLION 1	National Humanities Center
1775	Reports to the South Carolina Council of Safety from William Henry Drayton & Rev. William Tennent, selections on the recruitment of backcountry settlers to the Patriot cause	REBELLION 4	National Humanities Center
1775 -1776	Benjamin Franklin, letters to friends in America & England on the prospects of reconciliation and the beginning of war, selections	WAR 1	National Humanities Center
1775 -1776	Loyalists at the outbreak of war: selections from Loyalist, Patriot, and British letters and commentary	REBELLION 1	National Humanities Center
1775 -1776	Anti-Loyalist broadsides & blank forms for affirming allegiance to the United States	REBELLION 2	National Humanities Center
1775 -1776	Diary of Matthew Patten, New Hampshire, selections focusing on the Battle of Lexington and Concord (19 April 1775) and aftermath	CRISIS 8	National Humanities Center
1775 -1778	George Washington, correspondence & general orders as Commander in Chief, selections	WAR 3	National Humanities Center
1775 -1778	Military broadsides of the Revolution (9)	WAR 3	National Humanities Center
1775 -1779	Appeals of religious pacifists for tolerance of their beliefs and understanding of their refusal to join the war effort: selections from documents of Quakers, Moravians, Mennonites, Schwenkfelders, German Baptists (Dunkers), and Sandemanians	REBELLION 5	National Humanities Center
1776	Thomas Paine, Common Sense, Pt. III-IV, excerpts	REBELLION 7	National Humanities Center
1776	Commentary from American newspapers in praise of Thomas Paine's Common Sense	REBELLION 7	National Humanities Center
1776	Rev. Charles Inglis, The Deceiver Unmasked; Or, Loyalty and Interest United: In Answer to a Pamphlet Entitled Common Sense, excerpts	REBELLION 7	National Humanities Center
1776	Hannah Griffitts, "Upon Reading a Book Entitled Common Sense," poem	REBELLION 7	National Humanities Center
1776	The slave-trade clause in Thomas Jefferson's draft for the Declaration of Independence (omitted from final draft)	REBELLION 6	National Humanities Center
1776	Second Continental Congress, The Declaration of Independence (annotated)	REBELLION 8	National Humanities Center
1776	Delegates to the Second Continental Congress, letters on the Declaration of Independence, July 1776	REBELLION 8	National Humanities Center
1776	Newspaper accounts of official celebrations of the Declaration of Independence	REBELLION 8	National Humanities Center
1776	Thomas Hutchinson, Strictures upon the Declaration of the Congress at Philadelphia, excerpts	REBELLION 8	National Humanities Center
1776	Peter Oliver, "An Address to the Soldiers of Massachusetts Bay Who Are Now in Arms Against the Laws of Their Country," The Massachusetts Gazette & Boston Weekly News-Letter, 11 January 1776, excerpts	WAR 2	National Humanities Center
1776	Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, No. 1, 19 December 1776	WAR 2	National Humanities Center
1776 -1777	Margaret Hill Morris, Quaker widow in New Jersey, journal selections on the presence of British and Continental forces in Burlington [journal published 1920]	WAR 7	National Humanities Center
1776 -1778	Continental Congress, three documents on pacifying hostile Indians on the frontier, selections	WAR 4	Library of Congress
1776 -1781	Continental Congress, Gen. Washington, and others, three documents on recruiting enslaved blacks into the Continental Army, selections	WAR 4	Library of Congress
1776 -1783	News broadsides (7) of the Revolutionary War	WAR 5	National Humanities Center
1777	Petition of enslaved black men to the Massachusetts legislature to end slavery	REBELLION 6	History Matters (George Mason Univ. & CUNY)
1778	Benjamin Franklin and the American commissioners (negotiators) in France, three letters on the successful conclusion of an alliance with France, selections	WAR 4	National Humanities Center
1778	British satirical rebuses (2) on the U.S. alliance with France	WAR 8	National Humanities Center
1779	Molly Gutridge, Marblehead, Massachusetts, "A New Touch of the Times," poem on the hardships of civilian life during the war	WAR 7	National Humanities Center
1779 -1785	Portraits of George Washington as Commander in Chief, by Charles Willson Peale (1779), John Trumbull (1780), and Robert Edge Pine (1785)	WAR 3	National Humanities Center
1780	Gen. George Washington, letter to Gov. Joseph Reed of Pennsylvania seeking aid for the Continental Army, 28 May 1780	WAR 4	Library of Congress
1780	Gen. George Washington, official statement to the Continental Army on the treason of Benedict Arnold, 26 Sept. 1780	WAR 4	Library of Congress
1780	Broadside depicting a parade condemning the treason of Benedict Arnold, with explanatory text and a poem, titled A Representation of the Figures exhibited and paraded through the Streets of Philadelphia, on Saturday, the 30th of September, 1780, Philadelphia	WAR 5	National Humanities Center
1780	Esther De Berdt Reed, wife of Gov. Joseph Reed of Pennsylvania, The Sentiments of an American Woman, broadside on the Philadelphia women's fundraising campaign to benefit the Continental Army	WAR 7	National Humanities Center
1780	Eliza Yonge Wilkinson, planter's daughter in South Carolina during the 1780 siege & occupation of Charleston; letters written 1782, selections	WAR 7	National Humanities Center
1780 & 1781	Governors' appeals to urge citizen rededication to the war effort: proclamations by Gov. Joseph Reed (Pennsylvania, 1780) and Gov. John Trumbull (Connecticut, 1781), selections	WAR 9	Library of Congress
1780 -1787	Founders on the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation: correspondence selections	CONSTITUTION 1	National Humanities Center
1780 -1791	Founding documents of societies to promote national identity and progress in the new nation, selections	INDEPENDENCE 3	National Humanities Center
1780 -early 1790s	Portraits of the Founders (11); portraits of George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin; by portraitists Charles Willson Peale, John Trumbull, Edward Savage, Robert Edge Pine, and Joseph-Siffrid Duplessis	CONSTITUTION 7	National Humanities Center
1781	Anna Rawle, Loyalist's daughter in Philadelphia, journal selections on mob attacks on Loyalists after Cornwallis's surrender [published 1892]	WAR 7	National Humanities Center
1781	Philip Freneau, The British Prison Ship, poem, Cantos II-IV	WAR 6	National Humanities Center
1781	Peter Oliver (Loyalist), Origin & Progress of the American Rebellion, selections on: –the Stamp Act, 1765 –the Townshend Acts, 1767 –the Coercive Acts & the First Continental Congress, 1774 –mob attacks on Loyalists in New England, 1774-1775	CRISIS 3 CRISIS 4 CRISIS 7 REBELLION 2	National Humanities Center
1781 -1784	Benjamin Franklin, letters on the peace treaty negotiations with Britain, selections	WAR 9	National Humanities Center
1782	Michel-Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoeur (writing as J. Hector St. John), "What Is an American?" Letter III of Letters from an American Farmer, written late 1760s-early 1770s, publ. 1782, selections	INDEPENDENCE 6	National Humanities Center
1782	British political cartoons (4) on Britain's defeat in the Revolutionary War	WAR 8	National Humanities Center
1782	Epitaph, satirical "epitaph" for King George III, published by Francis Bailey, printer, Philadelphia	WAR 9	National Humanities Center
1782	Benjamin Franklin, Information to Those Who Would Emigrate to America, essay, excerpts	INDEPENDENCE 8	National Humanities Center
1782	Abbé Claude Robin, New Travels through North America (1781), excerpts	INDEPENDENCE 7	National Humanities Center
1782 -1786	Loyalist writings on the aftermath of the Revolution: selections from letters, narratives, petitions, and poetry	WAR 8	National Humanities Center
1783	Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, #13, essay, 19 April 1783	INDEPENDENCE 1	National Humanities Center
1783	Gen. George Washington, Circular Letter of Farewell Addressed to the Governors of All the States on Disbanding the Army, 8 June 1783, excerpts	INDEPENDENCE 1	National Humanities Center
1783 & 1787	Noah Webster, essays (3) on fostering an American identity, selections	INDEPENDENCE 3	National Humanities Center
1783	Map (zoomable): The United States of America with the British Possessions of Canada . . . divided with the French . . . , according to the preliminary articles of peace signed at Versailles [France] the 20^th of January, 1783, London, printed for Robert Sayer and John Bennett (firm)	WAR 9	Library of Congress
1784	Map (zoomable): Bowles's New Pocket Map of the United States of America . . . with the French and Spanish territories . . . as settled by the preliminary articles of peace signed at Versailles [France] the 20^th of January, 1783, London, by Carington Bowles	WAR 9	Library of Congress
1784	Richard Price, Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution, excerpts	INDEPENDENCE 2	National Humanities Center
1784	Alexander Hamilton and Isaac Ledyard (writing as "Phocion" and "Mentor"), pamphlet war on the postwar treatment of Loyalists, selections	INDEPENDENCE 4	National Humanities Center
1784 -1790	Newsboys' new year's greetings to their customers [broadsides distributed annually by newspapers], five poems	INDEPENDENCE 1	National Humanities Center
1785	Map (zoomable): The United States of North America, with the British & Spanish Territories according to the Treaty of 1784, London, engraving by William Faden	WAR 9	Library of Congress
1785	The Golden Age: Or, Future Glory of North America, allegory, excerpts (author unknown)	INDEPENDENCE 5	National Humanities Center
1787	Royall Tyler, The Contrast: A Comedy . . . Written by a Citizen of the United States, play	INDEPENDENCE 6	National Humanities Center
1787	James Madison, "Vices of the Political System of the United States," memorandum for George Washington, May 1787	CONSTITUTION 1	National Humanities Center
1787	On the Constitutional Convention: selections from letters, notes, and statements of delegates and non-delegates, May-November 1787	CONSTITUTION 2	National Humanities Center
1787	The United States Constitution, adopted by the Constitutional Convention 17 Sept. 1787	CONSTITUTION 2	National Archives
1787 & 1788	Francis Hopkinson, "The New Roof," allegory and poem (Federalist)	CONSTITUTION 3	National Humanities Center
1787 -1788	Anti-Federalist letters (7) to newspapers on the proposed Constitution, selections	CONSTITUTION 4	National Humanities Center
1787 -1788	Philadelphiensis [Benjamin Workman], Anti-Federalist essays in opposition to the proposed Constitution, published in the Independent Gazetteer and the Freeman's Journal, Philadelphia, selections	CONSTITUTION 4	National Humanities Center
1787 -1789	On adding a bill of rights to the Constitution: selections from correspondence, addresses, and newspaper pieces	CONSTITUTION 5	National Humanities Center
1788	Federal Committee of Albany, New York, The 35 Anti-Federal Objections Refuted, pamphlet, excerpts; with excerpts from broadsides of the Albany Anti-Federal Committee, April 1788	CONSTITUTION 3	National Humanities Center
1788 -1795	On establishing the federal government under the new Constitution: selections from correspondence and newspaper pieces	CONSTITUTION 6	National Humanities Center
1789	Déclaration des Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen (Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen), adopted by the National Assembly of France, 26 August 1789	CONSTITUTION 5	Avalon Project, Yale Law School
1789	The Bill of Rights, submitted by Congress to the states for ratification, 25 Sept. 1789	CONSTITUTION 5	National Archives
1789	On the first inauguration of George Washington, 30 April 1789, in David Ramsay, The History of the American Revolution, 1789	CONSTITUTION 6	National Humanities Center
1789	David Ramsay (Patriot), The History of the American Revolution, selections on the colonists' response to: –British victory in the French and Indian War, 1763 –the Sugar Act, 1764 –the Stamp Act, 1765, and the repeal of the Stamp Act, 1766 –the Townshend Acts, 1767 –the Boston Massacre, 1770 –the Tea Act and the Boston Tea Party, 1773 –the Coercive Acts and the First Continental Congress, 1774 –the outbreak of war, 1775 –selections on the "advantages and disadvantages" of the Revolution, and "its influence on the minds and morals of the citizens" –conclusion: on the first inauguration of George Washington, 1789	CRISIS 1 CRISIS 2 CRISIS 3 CRISIS 4 CRISIS 5 CRISIS 6 CRISIS 7 CRISIS 8 INDEPENDENCE 2 CONSTITUTION 6	National Humanities Center
1790	Benjamin Rush, Information to Europeans Who Are Disposed to Migrate to the United States of America, essay, excerpts	INDEPENDENCE 8	National Humanities Center
1790	On the death of Benjamin Franklin: selections from reports and tributes	CONSTITUTION 7	National Humanities Center
1791	Mercy Otis Warren, "A Survey of the Situation of America on the Conclusion of the War with Britain," Ch. 30 of History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution, chapter completed by 1791, history published 1805, excerpts	INDEPENDENCE 2	National Humanities Center
1791	Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville, New Travels in the United States of America (1788), excerpts	INDEPENDENCE 7	National Humanities Center
1798	"Memoirs of the Life of Boston King, A Black Preacher," The Methodist Magazine 21 (March & April 1798), selections on King's experience as a fugitive slave in the British army	WAR 6	History Matters
ca. 1802 -1807	John Adams, autobiography (manuscript), selections on Thomas Paine & Common Sense (1776)	REBELLION 7	National Humanities Center
1810	Boyrereau Brinch & Benjamin F. Prentiss, The Blind African Slave, Or Memoirs of Boyrereau Brinch, Nicknamed Jeffrey Brace, excerpts on Brinch's service in the Connecticut militia	WAR 6	National Humanities Center
1818	John Adams, letter to Hezekiah Niles, excerpts on the American Revolution	CRISIS 9	National Humanities Center
1824	A Narrative of the Life of Mary Jemison, compiled by James E. Seaver, excerpts on her experiences as a white Seneca adoptee during Sullivan's campaign against the Indians in New York, 1779-1780	WAR 7	National Humanities Center
1830	Nathaniel Hawthorne, "My Kinsman, Major Molineux," short story depicting anti-British mob violence in Boston in 1730	REBELLION 2	National Humanities Center
1830s	Narratives of Revolutionary War veterans in pension applications, selections from sixteen narratives	WAR 6	National Humanities Center