Social + economic impact of the war

By 1783 how many loyalists had left their homes and gone into exile in Britain, Canada, Nova Scotia or the West Indies?

Some 80,000

Effects of emigrating loyalists

• Were from all social classes - their departure did not open up significant new opportunities for ordinary people

• And room at the top was quickly occupied by already well-off

• State governments confiscated lots of land from loyalists - essential to sell land quickly → this land sold as a unit and at prices which ordinary people could not afford → great landowning people (credit) could expand estates

More equality - Americans perspective on hereditary privilege after 1776?

• Most Americans opposed it - from monarchy down

• 2 states forbade creation of titles of nobility

• Many states prohibited hereditary office holding

More equality - New men

• Often of lower social status

• Now sat in state legislatures

• Challenged social/political supremacy of old elite

• Demanded their interests be considered even if conflicted with rich

• Realignment of relations them and elites

More equality - Continental army

officers based off merit, not status

More equality - outward marks of social deference

Less ceremony in law courts; judges no longer wigs and scarlet robes in English fashion

More equality - territory

Acquisition of territory west of Appalachians - landless Americans acquired farms

More equality - slavery + women

Some states abolished slavery, although it did continue in most

Arguably women gained more equality

More equality - indentured servants

Almost disappeared due to war - many gained freedom due to military service, immigration traffic in contract labour ceased during war

Examples of lack of equality

• Americans leaders accepted class distinctions → no attempts to redistribute wealth/promote social equality

• Social classes remained same → most of old aristocracy remained

• Land holding mostly same

• Indentured service declining before war

• Limited effect on slavery and women status

• Already and remained land of self-sufficient farmers

Revolution challenge to institution of slavery

• Belief in human liberty

• ‘All men are created equal’ (Declaration of Independence) - 1 in 6 Americans enslaved

Washington and Black men → Continental Army

Washington banned all Black people from service, was endorsed by Continental Congress in November 1775

British army and Black men

• November 1775 Lord Dumore promised freedom to any Virginian enslaved person who fled a rebel owner to serve the British

• Before Southern Campaign in 1779 → General Clinton proclamation → any enslaved people captured in service to rebels would be sold, but those who deserted rebels offered what was interpreted by them as freedom

How many of the south’s enslaved people fled to British lines (to serve mainly as labourers and servants, and rarely as soldiers)

1 in 6

At the end of the war, Britain transported how many Black loyalists out of America?

20,000

At the end of the war, where did Britain transport Black loyalists?

• West Indies

• Those who had taken up arms absorbed into the British army

• Some 3000 given land (+ freedom) Nova Scotia

Black people fighting for American independence

• New Englanders allowed enslaved people to serve in militia in times of crisis → despite Continental Army ban, few did serve in northern militias

• 1777 Washington and Congress accepted Black people into Continental Army → expected to receive freedom in exchange for service

• John Laurens - proposed enlisting enslaved African Americans into a ‘black battalion’ in exchange for their freedom. Although Congress approved the plan in 1779, it ultimately failed because the South Carolina and Georgia legislatures fiercely rejected the arming of enslaved people

Northern opposition to slavery before war

• 1771 Massachusetts assembly passed resolution to ban Slave Trade, but Hutchinson refuses

• 1774 Rhode Island and Connecticut early legislation to stop slave trade

Percentage of north + middle states → slaves

3% New England

6% Middle States

Activism against slavery during/after war in north

• 1777 Vermont constitution bans slavery

• 1780 Pennsylvania law → gradual emancipation of enslaved people

• 1784 Connecticut and Rhode Island similar measures

• 1781-83 Massachusetts courts ended slavery in the state - this was followed by New Hampshire

New York and New Jersey emancipation

Opposition sufficiently strong - gradual emancipation laws delayed until 1799 and 1804

Slavery not officially abolished until 1827 New York and 1846 New Jersey

Proportion of all enslaved people in America in southern states

Nearly 90%

Significant change to slave system in south after 1783

Liberalisation of the manumission laws (laws that allowed owners to free their enslaved people) → some planters freed enslaved workers, some simply freed children born to enslaved women

Number of free black people Virginia 1782-1810

Went from 2000 to 30,000

Southern states where lots of enslaved people freed vs not many

Lots → Maryland and Virginia

Not many → Georgia and Carolinas

States that banned participation in trans-Atlantic slave trade, and when

Virginia → 1778

Maryland → 1783

But reasons for this were less humane → wanted to maintain to value of their enslaved people

Why did demand for enslaved people increase 1790s?

When cotton became a profitable crop

1790-1807 slavery in North America statistic

More enslaved people imported into North America than during any other similar period in colonial times

1790 how many free Black people in USA?

60,000

Problems for free Black people in USA in 1790s

• Discrimination

• Most menial jobs

• Despite this, free Black community was challenge to slave system - constructing own cultural life, own churches + voluntary organisations

After 1783 slavery was not gone however - failures of the revolutionary generation

• Overwhelming majority of enslaved people remained enslaved

• Abolition in parts of the north very gradual - allowed slaveholders to sell enslaved people in the south

• Framers of the Constitution in 1787 were unwilling to take any meaningful action against slavery → fear of destroying Union

How many women served with military forces in an ancillary capacity (cooks, laundry workers, sex workers) despite difficulties during war?

20,000

Historian perspectives on women in Revolutionary War

• Mary Beth Norton 1980 - women moved from submission into a world where they had more control, reading newspapers, discussing politics, giving daughters better education

• Harry Ward 1999 → ordinary American families less patriarchal, no domineering head to family

However, not everything changed for women

Still in domestic sphere:

• Homemaking, childrearing, feeding and clothing families

• No voting

• No public office

• No significant improvement in their legal status

• Subordinate position in patriarchal social order

After Britain’s defeat, issues for Native Americans

• Transformation of power relations between white people and Native Americans in trans-Appalachian west

• 1784 USA treaties in New York and South Carolina in which won concessions of land from e.g. the Iroquois and Cherokees

• New republic little sympathy for Native Americans

• Largely excluded from rights and privileges of citizenship

• Some tribes in northwest e.g. the Delawares → resisted

Negative economic effects of war

• Places where large military operations → property destroyed or stolen by troops

• Many American ships seized by Royal Navy

• American trade devastated by British blockade + no longer part of British mercantilist system

• New England fishing industry temporarily destroyed

• Hyperinflation (due to shortage of goods + printing of lots of paper money)

• Military requisitioning of wagons → disrupted internal transport

• Flight of enslaved people British protection → plantation economies south effected

Tobacco production after war

Reduced to 1/3 pre-war levels

Positive economic effects of war

• Americans freed from Navigation Acts → export directly to European markets

• Privateering flourished → highly profitable even if risky

• Reduction in imports of manufactured goods from Britain → stimulated American industries (iron, textile, paper, pottery and shoe-making)

• Military demands → boosted domestic production of uniforms, munitions and guns

• Farmers outside war zones → sold food to various armies

• British held areas e.g. NYC boomed

• Traders e.g. Robert Morris who won contracts for military supplies → huge profits

American privateers captured British vessels worth how much?

£18 million