“Fake news” is nothing new. Just like millions of Americans today, the revolutionaries of the eighteenth century worried that they were entering a “post-truth” era. Their fears, however, were not fixated on social media or clickbait, but rather on peoples’ increasing reliance on reading news gathered from foreign newspapers. News was the lifeblood of early […]
Women participated in the American Revolution in complex and varied ways, and the Revolution transformed their place in the new nation. This panel discussion convenes several contributors to a new anthology, Women Waging War in the American Revolution, and will be moderated by Dr. Holly Mayer, professor emerita of history at Duquesne University. Panelists Benjamin […]
American loyalist Colonel James DeLancey of Westchester County, New York, who led several loyalist cavalry and infantry units during the American Revolution is the subject of this portrait ca. 1778-1782 attributed to itinerant artist John Durand. Portraits of American loyalists depicted in the uniforms they wore when they fought against the patriot cause are rare. Emily […]
Andrew O’Shaughnessy argues that the drive to centralize control over its growing empire led Britain to adopt authoritarian policies to govern its American colonies and was one of the main causes of the American Revolution. Britain’s North American colonists resisted and ultimately rebelled to avoid the fate of Irish, a people denied the rights enjoyed […]
At the end of the American Revolution, sixty thousand Americans loyal to the British cause fled the United States and became refugees throughout the British Empire. Loyalists traveled to Canada, sailed for Britain, and journeyed to the Bahamas and the West Indies. Some ventured still farther afield, to Africa and India. Wherever they went, this voyage […]
Global migration of American Loyalists following the Revolutionary War is a topic easily overlooked by scholars and educators as they trace the path of the victorious Patriot forces. However, at the end of the American Revolution, sixty thousand Americans loyal to the British cause fled the United States and became refugees throughout the British Empire, […]
Mel Gibson’s film The Patriot, released in 2000, is a valuable teaching tool, as Professor Edgar argues in this look at its themes and accuracy. The film illustrates two important themes very well: the vicious, partisan nature of the war in the South, and the wide range of interests and ideals that motivated southerners, whether […]
The American Revolution did not begin and end in Boston. The backcountry in the South was an especially important region in the struggle for American independence. Professor Edgar examines the complicated factors that influenced the conflict in this region, including Southerners’ reactions to the Stamp Act and Townsend Duties and the political empowerment of backcountry […]
The American Revolution was many revolutions, argues Professor Berkin, transforming the lives of Native Americans while the colonists fought for independence. For many Native Americans, victory meant increased pressure from white settlers. Native American women shared their peoples’ struggles for independence and autonomy. Professor Berkin highlights the story of Molly Brant, a Mohawk woman who […]
Professor Berkin illuminates how women—both supporters of American liberty and loyalists to the Crown—participated in the Revolutionary War and the challenges they faced during the period. Patriot women maintained boycotts of imported goods, joined the army disguised as men, acted as spies, and followed the Continental Army. Loyalist women were often stripped of their property […]
The American Revolution was a home-front war that brought scarcity, bloodshed and danger into the life of every American, women included. While men left to fight, women shouldered greater responsibility as they maintained their farms alone and tried to prevent confiscation of property. Patriot women maintained boycotts of imported goods, joined the army disguised as […]