Page 318 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

revolution—united states 1619

example loomed large in the Haitian and Latin American tive aftermath as in many revolutions and the Latin
struggles for independence (1798 and post–1810, American independence movements. Good leadership
respectively) because it provided the first modern instance and considerable political experience in colonial legisla-
of decolonization. The South American liberator Simón tures may help explain this success.The quick resumption
Bolívar, particularly, cited U.S. precedent in his hopes for of close economic ties with Britain after the war encour-
a greater Colombia, free from Spanish control. aged the U.S. economy. “New nation” difficulties, so
The U.S. political philosopher Thomas Paine summed common during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,
up this aspect of U.S. influence, although with some exag- were limited in the United States, although rifts between
geration, claiming that the revolution “contributed more North and South, united during the revolution, would
to enlighten the world and diffuse a spirit of freedom and soon resurface.
liberty among mankind, than any human event that ever Finally, the revolution was, of course, a founding event
preceded it.” for the United States itself. American nationalism, only
tentatively developed before the revolution, was given a
Comparative Analysis considerable boost, and the new political institutions
The revolution also deserves comparative analysis. It was established by the Constitution worked through their
not a major social upheaval, although a new generation formative period during the 1790s and early nineteenth
of leaders did wrest power from their elders. Despite rev- century with impressive success. Opportunities for west-
olutionary principles, and some ensuing emancipations ward expansion, initially in the territories of the Midwest
in northern states, slavery was not systematically attacked. and deep South, followed from the revolutionary settle-
Radical urban leaders such as Sam Adams in Boston ment as well.The United States did not emerge from the
were mainly controlled in favor of greater unity against revolution as a major world power; indeed, it largely
the British, and the social structure and relations between stayed free of major foreign entanglements. However, the
men and women were not significantly altered. The rev- nation did begin to set its own course.
olution was far less sweeping than its later French coun-
Peter N. Stearns
terpart. It was also unusually politically successful,
compared with later independence struggles elsewhere,
without a long, Further Reading
disrup- Dull, J. R. (1985). A diplomatic history of the American Revolution.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Middlekauff, R. (1985). The glorious cause: The Amer-
ican Revolution, 1763–1789. New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press.

One of the outcomes of the
Revolution was the destruction
of Native American villages by
both the British and the Ameri-
cans. This drawing shows the
burning of an Iroquois village in
New York State. The villages and
fields of Iroquois who sided
with either the British or Ameri-
cans were often destroyed.