lecture 12 sees the end of the war and a closer look at how different constituencies experienced the war that just ended the themes and terms for this lecture focus on expanding our understanding of how people experienced the american revolution a southern strategy replaced the failed new york efforts the focus was on securing control of the rich agricultural southern colonies it was thought because several of them were the last to be settled among the 13 colonies that would be north carolina south carolina and georgia perhaps loyalist sentiment was stronger there and if the british were unable to secure the middle and northern colonies the wealth in tobacco and rice and indigo would not be a bad consolation prize britain simply valued the caribbean the sugar the rice more than she did the fractious colonies in north america or at least that's where her thinking was leading her british knew they were vulnerable there now that the french were in the fight the dutch sensing weakness also probed in the caribbean forcing britain to go on the offensive against the dutch as well as the french because she had to keep so much of her naval power in the caribbean that contributed to her failure to relieve the siege at yorktown instead the french would be able to block blockade the coastline preventing the english from helping for once in 1781 the plans that washington had hoped for came to fruition he had worked in both 1779 and 1780 to try and coordinate the presence of the american troops the french troops and the french navy together in such a way as to force a british surrender that happened in the summer of 1781 when the washington and the french boxed general cornwallis inn up against the york river on the virginia peninsula the york river empties into the chesapeake bay so the question was who would control the bay would it be the english or would it be the french in this case it was the french forcing cornwallis and his men to surrender after yorktown peace talks between the colonists in england heated up those talks had actually begun after saratoga the prime minister at the time had offered all kinds of goodies to the american negotiators no parliament taxing ever except for trade congress could continue to exist colonial charters would be in perpetuity all colonial offices would go to colonists not to british officials appointed to go overseas there was even talk of giving the colonies some seats in parliament after yorktown those negotiations and offers of compromise from england intensified but at this point the americans were committed to full independence nothing short of that would satisfy and that is what they got in september of 1783 the treaty of paris will end the war those negotiators sign the treaty of paris symbolically washington's entrance into new york city in november symbolizes the end of the fighting new york as you remember had been held by the british since 1776 and in 1784 congress formally ratifies the peace treaty the one thing i want to point your attention to regarding the treaty of paris is where the boundary line going west of the new independent united states is you can see the red line which was the proclamation of 1763 the british decision not to allow colonial settlement west of the appalachians into area one from the french in the french and indian war the end of the american revolution the access to that additional territory is part of the settlement here you've got a zoomed out view of the new united states of america as you can see north america still occupied by the major european powers france britain and spain however the organized states of the new independent country plus the conquered territory received in the treaty of paris give the americans a fairly hefty footprint on the continent as a group to be reckoned with the rest of the lecture looks at how the american revolution was experienced by the people on the ground in their daily lives we're going to look at how allegiances were formed and changed how different constituencies experienced the war now as far as allegiances go there were really three groups that we need to consider in terms of the fighting the important groups were the patriots and the loyalists but a very large con constituency were the neutralists people who just wanted to live their lives and not get involved on either side oftentimes the diversity of the colonies proved to generate a fairly large neutralist population but the patriots and the english demanded allegiances be taken the patriots needed the support of the people on the ground because of their need for supplies and manpower and other kinds of physical support sometimes the patriot demand for such support became more like coercion and many neutralists felt that they were being pushed pressed forced at the end of a bayonet to support the patriots sometimes that actually pushed a neutralist into the loyalist camp but the british were not good at keeping loyalist sentiment high the british were always disdainful of the loyalists even the loyalists who volunteered to to fight on the side of the british army and the treatment of the occupied areas in the colonies was harsh in many ways the behavior was like the patriot side in demanding resources be turned over to support the english and there were atrocities there were atrocities on both sides but they were heavier on the side of the british and their mercenary soldiers against the colonists oftentimes finally one's allegiance depended upon who was occupying your territory at that time and as territorial control switched you did see a switching of allegiances over time the loyalist experience in the colonies could be pretty tough you were subject to persecution by those who were patriots they were terribly cruel if they could be to loyalist sympathizers you could be assaulted physically have your possessions in your home and your land taken from you thrown into jail tried for treason and even executed on the flip side the british were not all that welcoming of loyalist supporters particularly disdainful of them as soldiers supporting the british military the irony of all that was that the loyalists were absolutely necessary to the british cause the british simply didn't have enough soldiers in the colonies to hold all the terrain that made it important to enroll loyalists like the picture of a young man known as sir john johnson of upstate new york who led the loyalist troops for the british in the upstate new york skirmishes but they were never respected or considered equals of the british officers or the british soldiers just a personal note my husband's family traces its lineage back to the carolinas during the american revolutionary period the unfortunate part of that ancestry is that they were almost to a man loyalists so my husband's history his ancestors move at the end of the american revolution up to canada where they remain to this day arnold's story illustrates the tenuous nature of loyalties during the revolution he was born in connecticut his family was fairly well to do genteel prosperous but not elite he had great ambitions for himself during the american revolution he combined those ambitions with really good leadership and cool-headedness under battle but he got caught up in the politics of leadership and there was politics there were rivals for washington's position various state militia leaders competed with each other for glory on the battlefield there were a lot of politics and arnold let himself get sucked into those this slide illustrates his early career up until he switches allegiances he became an early supporter of the revolution you can see he's involved in the fall campaigns in upstate new york and into southern canada and he was there during the retreat in the spring of 1776. he was involved actually had a pivotal role in the victory at saratoga both by relieving the siege of fort stanwix and urging men on in the heat of battle in one of the saratoga battles when it looked as though the patriot lines could falter he was also someone whom george washington liked he trusted him probably too much and so he allowed him to have positions like military governor of philadelphia once the patriots took the city back after the british abandoned it and he also left let him take command of one of the forts on the lower hudson river west point in 1780. now there's a transition for arnold after the campaigns of 1775 early 1776. he begins to become frustrated he doesn't believe he is being promoted as quickly as others whom he thinks are less brave or less better leaders at one point in the summer of 77 1777 he resigns he does not re-up with the continental army with with the war he is enticed back to come in and so that he will be there by the fall campaign for saratoga but his rank he kind of sacrificed a promotion by going out of the military and coming back into it he was annoyed at this feeling as though he should have been promoted he clashed also with the leader of the main forces at saratoga general gates arnold had supported other military officers over gates he believed gates was not giving him full credit for his bravery on the battlefield so by the time he got to philadelphia in 1778 he was already annoyed frustrated unhappy with his political position within the military and he meets there and marries a young woman of the philadelphia elite who had spent time being very friendly with the british when they had occupied the city she encouraged him to think about reaching out to the british to see what their offer to him might be should he change sides and there are negotiations underway in that regard even before he takes command of west point arnold betrays the american cause for money and a commission in the british military he promises to turn west point over to the british but just before that happens the go-between major andre is captured the plot is revealed because he's carrying information in his boot that talks about it arnold escapes barely before the american forces try to arrest him at west point his wife she's detained but because she's a woman and a non-combatant eventually she is let go and she can reunite with uh with arnold behind the british lines andre however is tried as a spy and convicted there's some etiquette in play here had andre been in his military uniform as a british officer he would have been in rested and held captive but not tried for treason the plain clothes aspect indicated he was spying and in that regard no mercy for andre now arnold is given a commission in the british military not as high as he thought he deserved and he was only given 6 000 pounds instead of the 20 000 he had been initially promised for handing over west point but that's because he didn't hand over west point and he does give the british service in the remainder of the revolutionary war after the war he has a kind of checkered career with land speculation in canada and privateering in the west indies but he never gets what of course he thought he deserved but the story of benedict arnold shows you how fragile the alliances could be in this period and how hard it was to be sure you could trust somebody in this atmosphere there was no one single native american response to the war the easternmost tribes those surrounded by colonial settlements for generations have few options they were heavily pressured to support the patriot cause on the frontier colonial settlers actually hoped that the native americans would be neutral they the settlers on the frontier were vulnerable they knew that there would be little defense available for them should the native tribes either rise up or ally with the british the british were of course aware of this actively courting native american support against the colonists fanning the fears of the native tribes that should the colonists win they would continue to settle ever further and further westward displacing and destroying native american lands so neutrality was really unsustainable even though that was the desire of many of the native tribes there were native tribes who told the colonists early on that they thought this was a family fight between two different groups of english and they didn't want to have anything to do with it in the end the natives were buffeted by the way in which the war was playing out and there were atrocities that included attacks on vulnerable indian encampments women and children that were conducted by both sides women who supported the revolution were not shy about it we're going to look at three different ways that women expressed that support you've already had the experience of the abigail adams document where she requests her husband remember the ladies when he and others are going to form a new government so women talked about the ideas of the revolution they talked with their men about the ideas of the revolution the limitation for them at this time was that the interchanges had to be in the private sphere women didn't participate by writing public documents they didn't give public speeches they did not could not take on a public role now they could be direct providers in areas related to their domestic function as the revolution began they provide essential support services finally the third area is maybe the most interesting they bend gender conventions by temporarily suspending them or assuming a male identity in order to directly support the revolution the colonial army had no support services attached to it they had trouble enough getting men to join in money to pay for them they didn't have any thought about how do we supply our army who washes their clothes who tends them when they're sick here's where women as camp followers come in the military encampments had with them contingents of women sometimes children as well often family members of the very soldiers themselves who provided these services washington grudgingly agreed to the camp follower system though he was not happy about it sometimes the women were paid never paid as much as a man would be for his services so that they were both male and female nurses female nurses always being paid less the more seemly side of the camp follower was the social service side there were women who were wives of soldiers and they provided them warmth and emotional and social comfort but there were unmarried men who also sought those things and there were female camp camp followers who agreed to provide it most women were not camp followers rather they stayed behind and operated the farms and businesses that their husbands had left to go into the army it's a ticklish situation for these women because married women don't have a legal identity they cannot officially do the kinds of things that men do buy and sell enter contracts etc over time a temporary arrangement emerges to allow them to do that during the war sometimes is codified under the legal title deputy husband giving women formal power of attorney to be their husbands other places it's more by custom people accepted women acting in their husband's place marimot of south carolina is an example of the deputy husband she was given control of the plantation when her husband went off to war and continued it after he was killed she chose to burn down her home rather than let the british occupy it during the war at the same time she burned her home she sent all of her male slaves to serve in the continental army she seated them over legally to the continental army and yes there were women who actually got into the fighting there were not very many two of the most famous names are mary hayes mccauley and deborah sampson now mary hayes mccauley is often referred to as molly pitcher molly pitcher is a fake name that represents uh stories about similarly situated women one of whom was mary hayes macaulay mccauley had been a camp follower bringing water and food to the men manning the cannon in a battle in new jersey her husband was killed while working with the cannon she put her water down she took up his place and continued the fight that's a one-off kind of story about women rising to the occasion deborah sampson is different she was someone who wanted to fight long term as a soldier in the revolutionary war so she hid her her gender she she pretended to be a male enlisted and served in the military for multiple years participating in several battles it was only when deborah was wounded and was being examined by a doctor that it came to light she was a woman the she was honorably discharged from the military after that for women were not allowed as soldiers but here's the funny part after the war there were payments by the american government two revolutionary war soldiers they were actually called revolutionary pensions deborah sampson received a pension for her service in the war blacks experienced the revolution in contradictory ways some nine thousand of them fought on the patriot side yet at the beginning of the war the continental army had banned black participation it was only need that forced the army to change its mind in 1779 all of this back and forth about whether black should be allowed to fight for freedom in the american revolution was part of a larger look at slavery we're going to talk about slavery in separate lectures going forward but i do want to mention now that even before the revolution ended three states banned slavery pennsylvania new hampshire and massachusetts two additional states banned it the year after the revolution ended that would be connecticut and rhode island in part patriots were reacting to british offers of freedom to slaves not only were they looking for support of the military from these slaves but they hope to disrupt the economy in america by incentivizing slaves to run away behind to behind the british lines you can tell that this was a wartime tactic more than a heartfelt hatred of slavery since the offers of freedom did not extend to those who signed pledges of loyalty to england still the british tried to make good on their pledges to support slaves and give them freedom for their efforts after the war a number of runaways were relocated to canada with other loyalists and the british authorities stood up to demands by general washington as he retook new york city that the property including slaves that had been confiscated from the colonists were to be returned as part of the treaty of paris british officers in new york city refused to return some 1 000 runaway slaves former slaves who had gone to occupied new york hoping to find it a safe haven