The American Revolution: A Historic Portal

Road to Revolution, 1765–1768

• Stamp Act of 1765 — the first direct tax Parliament levied on the colonies, requiring stamped paper for legal documents, newspapers, and playing cards.
• Declaration of Rights and Grievances — adopted by the Stamp Act Congress, October 1765, asserting "no taxation without representation."
• Virginia Resolutions Against the Stamp Act — Patrick Henry's resolutions before the House of Burgesses, May 29, 1765.
• Declaratory Act — passed alongside the Stamp Act's repeal in 1766, asserting Parliament's authority to legislate for the colonies "in all cases whatsoever."
• Townshend Acts — new duties on glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea, 1767–1768, that reignited colonial resistance after the Stamp Act's repeal.
• Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania — John Dickinson's widely reprinted essays arguing against the Townshend Acts.
• Massachusetts Circular Letter — the Massachusetts House's 1768 appeal to the other colonies to coordinate opposition to the Townshend duties.

Crisis in Boston

• A Journal of Occurrences — a running 1768–1770 chronicle of friction between Boston's residents and the British troops garrisoned among them.
• Boston Massacre accounts — competing narratives of the March 5, 1770 shooting, including those of James Bowdoin, Thomas Hutchinson, and John Adams (who defended the soldiers at trial).
• Tea Act of 1773 — granted the East India Company a tax-advantaged monopoly on tea sold in the colonies, provoking the Boston Tea Party.
• Philadelphia and Boston resolves — town resolutions of October–November 1773 rejecting the taxed tea shipments; part of the wider protest wave documented on Wikisource's American Revolution portal.
• Edenton Resolves — October 25, 1774; North Carolina women publicly pledged to boycott British tea and cloth, an early instance of organized political action by American women.

The Intolerable Acts and the First Continental Congress

• Boston Port Act, Massachusetts Government Act, Quartering Act of 1774, and the Quebec Act — the four "Intolerable Acts" of 1774, meant to punish Massachusetts and isolate it, which instead united the colonies against Parliament.
• Suffolk Resolves (Massachusetts, September 1774) and Fairfax Resolves (Virginia, July 1774) — county-level resolutions, endorsed by the Continental Congress, that rejected the Intolerable Acts and organized colonial resistance.
• Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress, October 1774 — the colonies' first joint statement of rights and grievances against Parliament.
• The Continental Association — the coordinated colony-wide boycott of British goods adopted by the First Continental Congress.
• Petition to the King — the First Continental Congress's appeal directly to George III, October 1774, still hoping for reconciliation.

War Begins

• "Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death!" — Patrick Henry's speech to the Second Virginia Convention, March 23, 1775.
• Battle of Bunker Hill accounts — June 17, 1775; a costly tactical British victory that showed colonial militia could stand against regular troops.
• Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, July 6, 1775 — drafted in part by Thomas Jefferson and John Dickinson, justifying armed resistance while still professing loyalty to the Crown.
• Olive Branch Petition, July 8, 1775 — Congress's last formal appeal to George III to prevent further war; the King refused to receive it.
• Proclamation for Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition, August 23, 1775 — George III's declaration that the colonies were in open rebellion.
• Dunmore's Proclamation, November 1775 — Virginia's royal governor offered freedom to enslaved people who fled their rebel masters to fight for the Crown.

Independence and the New Nation

• Lee Resolution, June 1, 1776 — Richard Henry Lee's motion in Congress "That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States," which set the Declaration in motion.
• The Declaration of Independence, adopted July 4, 1776 — read it on this site, alongside Jefferson's original rough draught and what the Continental Congress changed before adoption.
• Articles of Confederation — the first American constitution, drafted 1777, ratified 1781.
• The American Crisis, Thomas Paine, December 19, 1776 — "These are the times that try men's souls," read to Washington's troops before the crossing of the Delaware.
• National Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1777 — Congress's proclamation marking the victory at Saratoga, the first Continental Congress-wide day of thanksgiving.

International Alliances

• Franco-American Treaty of Alliance and Treaty of Amity and Commerce, February 6, 1778 — France's formal military alliance with the United States, decisive to the war's outcome.
• Treaty of Aranjuez, April 12, 1779 — brought Spain into the war against Britain, though not as a formal ally of the United States.
• Declaration of Armed Neutrality, Catherine II of Russia, March 1780 — organized neutral maritime powers against British naval blockades, further isolating Britain.
• Treaty of Paris, September 3, 1783 — negotiated by Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay, formally ended the war and recognized American independence.

Voices of the Revolution: Letters, Memoirs & Literature

• The Adventures of a Revolutionary Soldier — Joseph Plumb Martin's memoir of the war in the ranks, among the fullest surviving accounts by an ordinary Continental soldier.
• Familiar Letters of John and Abigail Adams During the Revolution — including Abigail's 1776 charge to "remember the ladies" in any new code of laws.
• The Sentiments of an American Woman, Esther De Berdt Reed, 1780 — a broadside launching a women-organized fundraising campaign for Continental soldiers.
• Concord Hymn, Ralph Waldo Emerson — source of the phrase "the shot heard round the world."
• Paul Revere's Ride, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1861 — the poem that made Revere's midnight ride a national legend, written on the eve of the Civil War.
• The Partisan, William Gilmore Simms, 1835 — a novel of the Revolutionary War in South Carolina.

Historical Analysis

• History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution, Mercy Otis Warren, 1805 — one of the first histories of the Revolution, written by a participant and correspondent of its leading figures.
• "The American Revolution", Lord Acton, 1906 — a lecture on the Revolution's place in the history of political liberty.
• "Sovereignty in the American Revolution", Claude H. Van Tyne, 1907 — an essay on how the colonists' legal theory of sovereignty shifted over the course of the conflict.
• Timeline of the American Revolution, National Park Service, 2006 — a year-by-year reference chronology.

Key Figures

American Leaders

• George Washington — commander of the Continental Army, later first President.
• Samuel Adams — Boston organizer of the Sons of Liberty and the committees of correspondence.
• John Adams — delegate to both Continental Congresses, diplomat, later second President.
• Benjamin Franklin — secured the French alliance and helped negotiate the Treaty of Paris.
• Thomas Jefferson — principal author of the Declaration of Independence; see his rough draught on this site.
• Alexander Hamilton — Washington's aide-de-camp, later architect of the federal financial system.
• Patrick Henry — Virginia orator and first post-independence governor of Virginia.
• Ethan Allen — led the Green Mountain Boys in the capture of Fort Ticonderoga.
• Nathanael Greene — commanded the Continental Army's Southern campaign.
• Richard Henry Lee — moved the resolution for independence in Congress.

British and Loyalist Figures

• King George III — monarch against whom the Declaration's grievances are addressed.
• Lord North — Prime Minister who oversaw Britain's conduct of the war.
• Charles Cornwallis — British general whose surrender at Yorktown ended major fighting.
• Henry Clinton and William Howe — successive British commanders-in-chief in North America.
• Thomas Hutchinson — the last civilian royal governor of Massachusetts, a prominent Loyalist.

French Allies

• Marquis de Lafayette — French volunteer who became one of Washington's most trusted generals.
• Comte de Rochambeau — commanded the French expeditionary force at Yorktown.
• Comte de Grasse — French admiral whose fleet cut off Cornwallis's escape by sea at Yorktown.
• Comte de Vergennes — French foreign minister who engineered the alliance with the United States.

Other Notable Figures

• Abigail Adams — John Adams's wife and correspondent, an early advocate for women's legal rights.
• Mercy Otis Warren — playwright, propagandist, and the Revolution's first major historian.
• Esther De Berdt Reed — organized the Ladies Association of Philadelphia to fund the Continental Army.
• Benedict Arnold — a capable Continental general before his 1780 defection to the British.
• Robert Morris — "Financier of the Revolution," who helped fund the Continental war effort.

Related Portals on Wikisource

• Portal: Intolerable Acts
• Portal: United States
• Portal: American History
• Portal: Parliament of the United Kingdom