The American Revolution

From loyal subjects to a new nation. Teens usually learn the Revolution as dates and slogans and rarely read what the men who made it actually wrote. This one-semester course follows 1763 to 1783 through the Founders, the Continental Army and its leaders, France, King George III’s government, the British Army and the Loyalists, in their own letters, orders, debates and pamphlets. It works if each student can explain from the record why loyal British subjects chose independence, and how an improvised army and its leaders beat the world’s strongest military.

Every side in its own words. The Founders and Congress, the Continental Army and its leaders, France, King George III’s government, the British Army and the Loyalists are each asked the same questions: what did they want, what did they do, and what did they win or lose? Each is judged by the arguments and standards of the 1760s–1780s, for example the colonists’ appeals to the rights of Englishmen and Parliament’s appeals to its sovereignty.

Sources first. Every lesson opens with a period document: Parliament’s acts, the Stamp Act Congress and the Continental Congress, Dickinson, Seabury, Johnson and Hamilton, Paine and Inglis, the Declaration, Washington’s letters and orders, Knox’s and Greene’s reports, Burgoyne’s defense, the French treaty, John Paul Jones’s report, Morgan’s report of Cowpens, the Treaty of Paris and Washington’s resignation. Jack Kelly’s Band of Giants introduces the army’s leaders from Week 8.