Development of an American national identify was a long and complex process. But keep in mind that many people who emigrated to America from Britain had good reasons for doing so and were glad to leave. Their identity as Britons began to diminish the minute they stepped off the boat. They clung very fiercely to the political identify as Britons abroad and insisted that they had the “rights of Englishmen.” But struggling to make a living in North America didn’t make them feel more English, only less.
People in the Thirteen Colonies very commonly identified as inhabitants of British North America and particularly as “loyal subjects of his Majesty on this continent.” But there was a growing divide between the Britain and the colonies, particularly as the mother country treated her children as sources of tax revenue rather than as loved ones. Once the French and Indian/Seven Years War was over, that process greatly accelerated. Some people described themselves as “British Americans.” Once independence was declared, most colonists put aside any vestiges of loyalty to the Crown and mother country and embraced their identity as Americans.
Culturally, America maintained strong links with the UK. But there was never any interest in returning to the Empire. When war flared again in 1812, even the British didn’t really think they could take America back.
Relations between the two countries today are as strong as they have ever been. So let’s just drink to that.
Baron von Steuben Drilling American Recruits at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, in 1778.
You’ve confused Baron von Steuben with General Patton, who insisted that World War II combat soldiers wear neckties. What von Steuben taught the Continental Army was how to drill and maneuver— critical skills in warfare at the time — and he did that amazingly well despite all sorts of deficiencies of equipment and organization. The proof was in a grand review in the spring of 1778, when units up to brigade size did their evolutions very well for the benefit of General Washington and guests. Even better, the Continental Army held its own that summer in the Battle of Monmouth Courthouse, in part because of the training led by von Steuben. The British never seriously engaged the Continental Army in the middle or northern colonies again.
Von Steuben learned something from the experience himself. In Europe, he said, it was sufficient to tell the soldier what to do. In America, he said, you had to explain to the soldier why he should do something, and then he would do it.
Were minorities (Blacks, native Indians) forced to fight in the continental army or was it a personal choice and if so, why did they want to fight for their enslavers?
A French officer at the siege of Yorktown, Jean Baptiste Antoine de Verger, drew this watercolor of different soldiers in the Continental Army, including a black soldier of the First Rhode Island Regiment, a New England militiaman, a frontier rifleman, and an artilleryman. (Courtesy Brown University.)
The Continental Army was falling apart in 1777, after the militiamen who answered the call in 1775 and 1776 decided they had had enough of army life, thank you very much. George Washington implored the Continental Congress to take action to find more soldiers, by conscription if necessary. In February 1778, the Congress passed a resolution asking the states to fill up their quotas “by drafts from their militias, or in any other way that shall be effectual.”
And you know what, it worked, more or less. The orders were passed down from the Congress to the state governors and legislatures to the counties, where the militia units were based. If the county didn’t get enough volunteers, it could draft men from the militia pool, who were generally yeoman farmers and other men of some substance. They, in turn, could hire a substitute if they didn’t want to go. It’s estimated that a whopping 40 percent of the men who served during the draft regime were substitutes.
Some men volunteered as a way to avoid being drafted, and others signed up for whatever pay the Congress promised, plus bounties (in money or land) offered by their states in the interest of filling their quotas. (These exact same patterns reappeared eighty years later in the Civil War.)
The army that resulted was of, shall we say, lower socioeconomic status than the “embattled farmers” of 1775–76. As historian Charles Royster put it, the army of 1778–1779 consisted of “mainly unmarried sons of farmers, farm laborers, servants, apprentices, slaves, and mechanics.” Since the militia in the slavery states certainly did not include slaves among its members, it seems that slaves were put forth as substitutes for their owners. Free blacks were also eligible to join of their own accord, and some did.
The presence of African Americans in Patriot units was apparently quite evident. An anonymous Hessian officer was quoted as early as 1777 in a German publication:
“The Negro can take the field instead of his master; and, therefore, no regiment is to be seen in which there are not negroes in abundance, and among them there are able-bodied, strong and brave fellows.”
(“Briefwechsel,” IV, 365, published by August Ludwig Schlözer.)
Most served alongside whites in integrated regiments. The First Rhode Island Regiment, however, consisted of 197 black enlisted men (one of whom is pictured above) with white officers. The black men were slaves given their freedom upon enlisting, with compensation paid to their owners.
African-Americans were generally not subject to the draft. Towards the end of the war in 1781, however, Maryland subjected free blacks and mulattoes (but not slaves) to the draft. It isn’t known how many were actually taken into the service as a result.
It is believed that ultimately around 5,000 enslaved men and free blacks served under arms in the Continental Army and navy, including a surprising number in battalions from the slave states. Probably very few of them were drafted. Some slaves probably served as substitutes under the impression that this would earn them their freedom. In some cases, the owners did not share that view and attempted to reassert their ownership when the slaves were demobilized. This was considered so manifestly unfair that the Virginia legislature passed an Act of Emancipation declaring that any former slave who had served would be free.
As for Native Americans or Indians, they were also not in the militia population, since the colonial militias (particularly in New England) were originally formed largely to fight the Indians. By the 1770s, few Indians were living in the counties that were sufficiently organized to have militia formations. They had been pushed back to the frontier. There were exceptions. Indians in western Massachusetts formed the Stockbridge Militia to fight alongside the whites. On the frontier, tribes such as the Oneida formed an alliance with the rebels and helped fight the British. But they served in their own formations, not in the Continental Army.
The Continental Army was still well below the intended strength, ill-equipped, not properly fed, and intermittently paid, but with training, money, and muskets provided by foreign sources (Thank you, Von Steuben! Thank you, France and Spain!) it marched and fought well enough to bring the war to a successful resolution.
Why did General Gage allow his soldiers to be arrested and tried in a colonial, civilian court after the Boston Massacre?
General Thomas Gage, by John Singleton Copley, 1788
Gage didn’t have any great choice in the matter. British soldiers have always been subject to civil as well as military law. A court in Boston was just as legitimate as one in London. After the shootings, the sheriff went out and arrested Captain Preston and the members of the guard, and that was that. The soldiers stayed in jail until the trial.
Gage was actually based in New York and learned of the Massacre by correspondence from his subordinates and Thomas Hutchinson, the royal governor of Massachusetts. Hutchinson told him that Boston was a cauldron of resentment and anger over the massacre, so much that British troops had to withdraw from the town to an island fort in the harbor. Gage was in no position to resist the course of justice. He was rather cynical about the colonies and was convinced that Preston and the soldiers would be convicted and sentenced to death.
He really had no option but to go along and hope for the best. In fact, the trials turned out well for Captain Preston and the soldiers, thanks to the excellent defense mounted by John Adams and others.
Under what authority were the British soldiers accused in the Boston massacre tried by a court of law? I thought British soldiers were not held accountable because they represented the Crown.
Boston Massacre Trial
I don’t believe British law had any such loophole for soldiers. British troops were expected to obey civil law as well as military regulations. In fact, the mob that was harassing the soldiers was emboldened by the fact that no one had read them the Riot Act, and without that, the soldiers were not permitted to fire their weapons.
Unfortunately the shooting occurred anyway, and the situation could have turned into a full-scale riot. Thomas Hutchinson, a loyalist who was lieutenant governor and acting governor of the province, rushed to the State House to try to calm things down. He promised the local council that justice would be done, and then went out onto the balcony to make the same promise to the angry crowd, which soon dispersed.
In the time immediately after the Revolutionary War in the US, what was the attitude towards those who had supported Britain?
British troops and allies evacuate New York in November 1783.
The narrative for this topic usually begins and ends with the fact that more than 60,000 Loyalists fled the country when British troops left after the Treaty of Paris. Many went to Canada, where they formed a segment of the population uniquely loyal to the British Empire. But that isn’t the whole story. A more comprehensive answer is much more complex, and ends up with the fact that most Loyalists were able to rejoin American society after the war. As one historian puts it:
“After the American Revolution a number of Loyalists, those colonial Americans who remained loyal to England during the War for Independence, did not relocate to the other dominions of the British Empire. Instead, they sought to return to their homes and restart their lives. Despite fierce opposition to their return from all across the Confederation, their attempts to become part of a newly independent America were generally successful. Thus, after several years of struggle most former Loyalists who wanted to return were able to do so.” (Aaron Coleman, PhD, currently professor of history at the University of the Cumberlands in Kentucky.)
The War of Independence was long and hard. Loyalist militias and volunteer units had fought with the British, burning homes of Patriots and fighting battles against Continental forces. Obviously many people in the new country had serious grievances against Loyalists.
Why did the United States achieve independence in 1776 and not in 1676?
King Philip’s War between Native American tribes and the English settlers and their native allies convulsed New England in 1676–77. This engraving is believed to show an attack on Sudbury, Massachusetts, on April 21, 1676 — almost exactly 100 years before the outbreak of the American War of Independence.
Richard Lobb 