April, 1775 - Lexington & Concord
May 10,1775 - Second Continental Congress
June, 1775 - Battle of Bunker Hill (Breeds Hill) > King George formally proclaimed the colonies in rebellion
October, 1775 - Unsuccessful invasion of Canada by the colonists (map - p. 111)
Early 1776 - Thomas Paine's common sense attacked the "war of inconsistency"
June 7, 1776 - Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introduced a resolution of independence
- Adopted on July 2, 1776
July 4, 1776 - Jefferson's Declaration of Independence "The shout heard round the world"
Loyalists (Tories) vs. patriots (Whigs)
October 17, 1777 - Battle of Saratoga - British defeated
- Prevented the British from isolating N.E.
- Foreign aid from France
1778 - Treaty of Alliance between the colonies and France
- 6000 French troops under the command of Rochambeau
- Marquis de Lafayette became a major general in the colonial army at the age of 19!
1779 - Spain and Holland enter the war against Britain
1780 - Surrender of Charleston to the British > capture of 5000 men and 400 cannon
Role of the privateers: privately owned armed ships that captured 600 British ships
October, 1781 - Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown
March 1782 - A Whig ministry replaced the Tories in Britain that was more favorable to the colonies
1782-1783 - Peace negotiations in Paris
American peace negotiators: Ben Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay
- Instructed to make no separate peace and consult with the French
1783 - Treaty of Paris:
1. British formally recognized the independence of U.S.
2. British granted generous boundaries
3. British granted a share of the fisheries off Newfoundland
4. Americans agreed not to persecute the loyalists
5. Congress was to recommend that confiscated loyalist property be restored
6. Britain would be allowed to collect debts owed to British creditors