A History of the American Revolutionary War

Revolutions are the natural result of political discontent within the masses toward a government that is tyrannical and does not attend to the needs of the people whom the government should represent. Oftentimes, the government that is put in place in the aftermath of a revolution is drastically different than that which came before, such as that of the French Revolution in 1789 in which the French people, through violence and bloodshed, replaced a monarchical system that benefitted the aristocracy with a democracy that endeavored represent the voices of all strata of society.

The American Revolution, on the other hand, overthrew the British rule over the colonies and, in its stead, kept a political system that was, by and large, identical to the system of governance that existed before 1776. The primary difference between the pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary governments is that the governments that existed after the American Revolutionary War were autonomously led through independence from England without major political and social change.

The American colonists adopted after the Revolutionary War the same Enlightenment ideas of democracy and self-governance that existed in England, which possessed a constitutional monarchy that represented its constituents in the House of Parliament. For this reason, the American Revolution is a conservative revolution and perhaps more of a war of independence than a genuine revolution, unlike those of France in 1789 and Russia in 1917 in which major political change was a result.

The system of government that existed within the Thirteen Colonies before the Revolutionary War remained fundamentally unchanged except for the fact that the centralization of political power was no longer in London, but instead located within the newly established American nation itself.

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Those who were wealthy and powerful within the original Thirteen Colonies were still wealthy and powerful in the United States of America while maintaining the same institutions that existed before the Revolutionary War broke out in 1776. The socioeconomic inequalities that existed before the war as well as the contentious issues of institutionalized slavery and the sanctioned slaughter of Native Americans remained in the war’s wake. Howard Zinn writes on the subject:

[The colonial] upper classes, to rule, needed to make concessions to the middle class, without damage to their own wealth or power, at the expense of slaves, Indians, and poor whites. This bought loyalty. And to bind that loyalty with something more powerful even than material advantage, the ruling group found, in the 1760s and 1770s, a wonderfully useful device. That device was the language of liberty and equality, which could unite just enough whites to fight a Revolution against England, without ending either slavery or inequality (Zinn, p. 54-55).

This quote depicts the realities of the American Revolution; the revolution, if it may be called that, was not a political upheaval for the benefit of the average person, but rather a war of independence so that the wealthy and powerful could exert their own political clout without interference from the British Crown. The American status quo before and after the Revolutionary War remained fundamentally unchanged. It was only through the adoption of the political rhetoric that inspired ideas of legitimate revolution were the Founding Fathers, who were representatives of the American wealthy, able to convince the American middle and lower classes, at least those who possessed weapons, to join in their cause in the hopes that a revolution against British rule would improve the socioeconomic conditions for those in the lower rungs of American society. In this light, the American Revolution failed to accomplish the aims of social change that are inherent to more liberal revolution and was, instead, a revolution for the benefit of the wealthy, prominent men who were the movers and shakers for this era of American history.

The American Revolutionary War was a conservative revolution that failed to change the socioeconomic status quo for the majority of the population in that which would become the United States of America. Severe wealth inequality and inhumane institutions, like those of slavery and government-sanctioned massacres of Native American tribes, remained after the wealthy and powerful who instigated the American Revolution deemed their political project a success. The American War for Independence maintained nearly identical political institutions to those which existed before 1776, in stark contrast to the French Revolution of 1789, which completely restructured the form of government that existed in France. The American Revolution was a revolution for wealthy who were able to benefit from no longer having to answer to London in their affairs. The remainder of the American population never received its own revolution, which is reflected in the rampant wealth inequality, institutionalized racism, and police violence that we see today. Perhaps the upcoming years will entail a legitimate political and socioeconomic justice for all levels of American society, but this can only happen if the American population would be willing to sever the chains of our own bondage in order to claim the future that is rightfully ours.