Surrender of Lord Cornwallis by John Trumbull (Architect of the Capitol)
The American War of Independence freed the 13 British colonies in North America from British rule and set the stage for the United States’ bold experiment in self-government. Fighting raged across the continent for eight years, leaving tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians dead and permanently reshaping the political and social fabric of the Western Hemisphere.
From the start, victory seemed anything but inevitable. A small, loosely organized confederation of independent colonies, with a population of less than two and a half million and no standing army or strong central government, faced one of the wealthiest and most powerful nations on earth—an empire with an experienced professional army, the world’s most formidable navy, and a government able to mobilize vast resources to suppress the rebellion.
Historian Christopher Hamner traces the war from its roots in the crises of the 1770s to the first shots fired at Lexington and Concord, through the surrender of British troops under Gen. Charles Cornwallis at Yorktown, and the Treaty of Paris that followed. Drawing on primary sources, Hamner highlights critical moments of strategy, courage, and contingency, providing rich historical context for the colonists’ improbable victory.
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Dunmore’s Proclamation: Freedom and Unfreedom in the War of Independence
In November 1775, in response to the heightening tensions between colonists and the Crown, the royal governor of Virginia issued Dunmore’s Proclamation. The decree promised freedom to “all indented servants, negroes, or others” who joined the British Army, and ultimately led hundreds of enslaved Black persons to run away to British lines.
Lord Dunmore was no abolitionist, and his proclamation was as much a practical measure designed to strengthen the crown’s position in Virginia as it was a moral condemnation of the institution of chattel slavery. But the announcement enraged Virgina planters and stoked fears of a violent uprising of the enslaved among white colonists. Hamner focuses on the paradox of freedom during the American Revolution, and on the way that the half-million Black people held in chains when the war erupted in 1775 shaped both the war and the political philosophy underpinning it.
Additional Sessions of the American Revolution: Part 1 Series
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