Site Map

1. 1763: Britain Victorious
   • - COMPILATION: Colonists respond to British victory in the French and Indian War, 1759-1763
   • - Benjamin West, The Death of General Wolfe (1759), oil on canvas, 1770
2. 1764: Loyal Subjects?
   • - COMPILATION: Colonists respond to the Sugar & Currency Acts, 1764
   • - A Briton's warning to Britain: Thomas Pownall, The Administration of the Colonies, 1764, selection
3. 1765-66: Stamp Act Crisis
   • - Parliamentary debate on the Stamp Act, 1765, selections
   • - COMPILATION: Colonists respond to the Stamp Act, 1765-1766
   • - "A Poetical Dream concerning Stamped Papers," poem (anonymous), 1765
   • - COMPILATION: Colonists respond to the Stamp Act's repeal, 1766
4. 1766-69: The Crisis Deepens
   • - COMPILATION: Colonists respond to the Townshend Acts, 1767-1770
   • - COMPILATION: Colonists respond to the Quartering Act, 1766-1767
   • - John Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, Letters 1 & 2, 1767
   • - Artists' depictions of the arrival of British troops in Boston, 1768
5. 1770: Violence—and Pause
   • - COMPILATION: Colonists respond to the Boston Massacre and other violent confrontations of 1770
   • - Letters of Benjamin Franklin & Samuel Cooper on the easing of British-American tensions, 1770-1771, selections
6. 1772-73: Crisis Renewed
   • - Boston Committee of Correspondence, the "Boston Pamphlet," 1772, selections
   • - Rev. John Allen, An Oration upon the Beauties of Liberty, sermon after the Gaspée incident, 1772, selections
   • - COMPILATION: Colonists respond to the Tea Act & the Boston Tea Party, 1773-1774
   • - David Ramsay, A Sermon on Tea, essay, 1774
7. 1774: Colonies United
   • - COMPILATION: Colonists respond to the Coercive Acts and the First Continental Congress, 1774
   • - First Continental Congress, 1774: Petition to King George III, Bill of Rights, Letters to the American colonists & to the British people, excerpts
8. 1775: The Outbreak of War
   • - COMPILATION: Colonists respond to the outbreak of war, 1774-1775
   • - Sermons on the outbreak of war and the justifiability of revolution, 1775, selections
   • - Announcement of the Battle of Lexington & Concord, Virginia, 1775
   • - Diary of Matthew Patten, New Hampshire, selections, 1775-1776
   • - Second Continental Congress, 1775: Olive Branch Petition; Declaration . . . Setting Forth the Causes and Necessity of Their Taking Up Arms
9. How Did We Get Here?
   • - Benjamin Franklin, Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One, satirical essay, 1773
   • - Francis Hopkinson, A Pretty Story Written in the Year of Our Lord 2774, allegory, 1774
   • - John Adams, letter to Hezekiah Niles, 1818, excerpts on the American Revolution

II. REBELLION

1. Loyalists I: Civil War
   • - Loyalists at the outbreak of war: selections from letters and commentary, 1775-1776
   • - A Loyalist's poem: Rev. Myles Cooper, "The Patriots of North America," 1775, selections
2. Loyalists II: "Traitor!"
   • - Anti-Loyalist broadsides and blank forms of allegiance, 1775-1776
   • - Anti-Loyalist violence, 1774-1775: incidents compiled by Peter Oliver, Origin and Progress of the American Revolution, 1781
   • - "My Kinsman, Major Molineux," short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1830, depicting anti-Loyalist violence in pre-revolutionary Boston
3. Loyalists III: Join—or Else
   • - On the treatment of Loyalists in Virginia, travel journal of Nicholas Cresswell, 1774-1777, selections
   • - On the treatment of Loyalists in North Carolina, travel letters of Janet Schaw, 1775, selections
4. Loyalists IV: Backcountry
   • - Recruiting backcountry settlers to the Patriot cause, reports to the South Carolina Council of Safety, 1775, selections
5. The Pacifists
   • - Pacifists' appeals for tolerance in the first years of the Revolution, 1775-1778
6. The Enslaved
   • - Six appeals for abolition, 1773-1783, excerpts
   • - Petition to end slavery in Massachusetts, 1777
   • - The anti-slavery clause in Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence, 1776
7. Common Sense?
   • - Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776, selections
   • - Praise for Common Sense in American newspapers, 1776
   • - A Loyalist response to Common Sense: Rev. Charles Inglis, The Deceiver Unmasked, 1776, selections
   • - A poem on Common Sense: Hannah Griffitts, "Upon reading a Book entitled Common Sense," 1776
   • - John Adams looks back on Common Sense, Autobiography, early 1800s, selection
8. Declaring Independence
   • - The Declaration of Independence, 4 July 1776, annotated
   • - Delegates' letters on the Declaration, July 1776
   • - News accounts of celebrations of the Declaration, 1776
   • - A Loyalist's rebuttal of the Declaration: Thomas Hutchinson, Strictures Upon the Declaration . . . , 1776, selections

III. WAR

1. Anticipating War
   • - Edmund Burke, speech to Parliament on reconciliation with America, 1775, selections
   • - Benjamin Franklin, letters on the prospects of reconciliation and the beginning of war, 1775-1776, selections
2. Committing to War
   • - A Loyalist's address to the American soldiers: Peter Oliver, letter to the Massachusetts Gazette, January 1776, selections
   • - A Patriot's address to the American soldiers: Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, #1, December 1776
3. Leading the War
   • - Correspondence of George Washington as Commander in Chief, 1775-1778, selections
   • - Portraits (3) of George Washington as Commander in Chief, 1779, 1780, 1785
   • - Military broadsides of the Revolution (9), 1775-1778
4. Sustaining the War
   • - Pacifying Indians on the frontier: three documents, 1776-1778, excerpts
   • - Recruiting enslaved blacks into the army: six documents, 1776-1781, excerpts
   • - Predicting Britain's response to the U.S. alliance with France: letters of Benjamin Franklin and the American negotiators, 1778
   • - Requesting state aid for the army: Washington's appeal to the governor of Pennsylvania, 1780
   • - Announcing the treason of Benedict Arnold: Washington's statement to the Continental Army, 1780
5. Reporting the War
   • - Broadsides (7) reporting news of the war, 1776-1783
   • - Broadside on a parade condemning the treason of Benedict Arnold, 1780
6. Fighting the War
   • - Pension narratives of Revolutionary War veterans, 1830s, selections
   • - Philip Freneau, The British Prison Ship, poem, 1781, selection
   • - Boyrereau Brinch, enslaved black soldier in the American army, narrative selections
   • - Boston King, fugitive slave in the British army, narrative selections
7. Living the War
   • - Margaret Hill Morris, Quaker widow in New Jersey, journal selections, 1776-1777
   • - Molly Gutridge, Massachusetts, "A New Touch of the Times," poem, 1779
   • - Mary Jemison (Dehgewanus), white Seneca adoptee in New York, narrative selections, 1779-1780
   • - Eliza Yonge Wilkinson, planter's daughter in South Carolina, letter selections, 1780
   • - Esther De Berdt Reed, Sentiments of an American Woman, broadside, 1780
   • - Anna Rawle, Loyalist's daughter in Philadelphia, journal selections, 1781
8. Losing the War
   • - British satirical rebuses (2) on the U.S. alliance with France, 1778
   • - British cartoons (4) on Britain's defeat in the war, 1782
   • - Loyalists and the defeat of Britain: selections from letters, narratives, petitions, and poetry, 1782-1786
9. Winning the War
   • - Governors' appeals for citizen unity in the war effort, 1780-1781, selections
   • - Satirical epitaph for King George III after the defeat of Britain, broadside, 1782
   • - Benjamin Franklin, letters from Paris on the peace process, 1781-1784
   • - Maps
     - 1783: The United States of America (Sayer)
     - 1784: Bowles's New Pocket Map of the United States of America

IV. INDEPENDENCE

1. Victory & Union
   • - Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, #13, 1783
   • - Gen. George Washington, Farewell Letter to the States, 1783, excerpts
   • - Newsboys' new year's greetings after independence, five poems, 1784-1790
   • - Chart: "Advantages" and "Disadvantages" of the American Revolution
2. Promise & Peril
   • - David Ramsay, The History of the American Revolution, 1789, selections
   • - Mercy Otis Warren, History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution, 1805, selections
   • - Richard Price, Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution, 1784, selections
   • - Chart: "Advantages" and "Disadvantages" of the American Revolution
3. Progress & Identity
   • - Founding documents of societies to promote progress and national identity, 1780-1791, selections
   • - Noah Webster, essays on fostering American identity, 1783 & 1787, selections
   • - Chart: "Advantages" and "Disadvantages" of the American Revolution
4. Patriots & Loyalists
   • - Alexander Hamilton & Isaac Ledyard, pamphlet war on the postwar treatment of Loyalists, 1784, selections
   • - Chart: "Advantages" and "Disadvantages" of the American Revolution
5. A Golden Age
   • - The Golden Age: Or, Future Glory of North America, allegory by unknown author, 1785, excerpts
   • - The Vision of Columbus, allegorical poem by Joel Barlow, 1787, excerpts
   • - Chart: "Advantages" and "Disadvantages" of the American Revolution
6. A New Man: The American
   • - 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
   • - Royall Tyler, The Contrast, comedy of manners, 1787
   • - Chart: "Advantages" and "Disadvantages" of the American Revolution
7. A Model for Europe
   • - Abbé Claude Robin, New Travels through North America (1781), publ. 1782, selections
   • - Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville, New Travels in the United States of America (1788), publ. 1791, selections
   • - Chart: "Advantages" and "Disadvantages" of the American Revolution
8. A Heads-Up for Europeans
   • - Benjamin Franklin, Information to Those Who Would Remove to America, 1782, selections
   • - Benjamin Rush, Information to Europeans Who Are Disposed to Migrate to the United States of America, 1790, selections
   • - Chart: "Advantages" and "Disadvantages" of the American Revolution