The American Yawp
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Chapter 6 · Reading ledger

Notes on
The American Revolution

57 citations, collected away from the main text for uninterrupted reading.

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Section 06.01

I. Introduction

  1. Rush to Ebenezer Hazard, October 22, 1768, in L. H. Butterfield, ed., Letters of Benjamin Rush , vol. 1 (Princeton University Press, 1951), 68.[]

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Section 06.02

II. The Origins of the American Revolution

  1. Jack P. Greene, The Constitutional Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2010).[]

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  2. James Otis, The Rights of the Colonies Asserted and Proved (Boston, 1764), 52, 38.[]

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  3. Michael D. Hattem, Past and Prologue: Politics and Memory in the American Revolution (Yale University Press, 2020), 81–82; Greene, Constitutional Origins of the American Revolution , 118. On the development of colonial politics, see Jessica Choppin Roney, Governed by a Spirit of Opposition: The Origins of American Political Practice in Colonial Philadelphia (Johns Hopkins University, 2014).[]

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  4. Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Belknap, 1967).[]

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  5. Jack P. Greene, Pursuits of Happiness: The Social Development of Early Modern British Colonies and the Formation of American Culture (University of North Carolina Press, 1988), 170–71. Also see John Murrin, “Anglicizing an American Colony: The Transformation of Provincial Massachusetts,” PhD diss., Yale University, 1966.[]

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Section 06.03

III. The Causes of the American Revolution

  1. Daniel Dulany, Considerations on the Propriety of Imposing Taxes in the British Colonies, for the Purpose of Raising a Revenue, by Act of Parliament. The Second Edition (Annapolis, MD, 1765), 34. For a 1766 London reprint, see https://​archive​.org/​details/​cihm​_20394.[]

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  2. Newport Mercury , June 24, 1765. This version was also reprinted in newspapers in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Maryland.[]

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  3. Proceedings of the Congress at New-York (Annapolis, MD, 1766).[]

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  4. Dulany, Considerations on the Propriety of Imposing Taxes in the British Colonies , 8.[]

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  5. Benjamin Franklin, “The Colonist’s Advocate: III,” January 11, 1770, Founders Online, National Archives. http://​founders​.archives​.gov/​documents/​Franklin/​01​-17​-02​-0009.[]

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  6. George Canning, A Letter to the Right Honourable Wills Earl of Hillsborough, on the Connection Between Great Britain and Her American Colonies (London, 1768), 9.[]

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  7. “New York, October 31, 1765,” New-York Gazette, or Weekly Mercury , November 7, 1765.[]

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  8. “Resolution of Non-Importation Made by the Citizens of Philadelphia,” October 25, 1765, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, http://​digitalhistory​.hsp​.org/​pafrm/​doc/​resolution​-non​-importation​-made​-citizens​-philadelphia​-october​-25​-1765. For the published notice of the resolution, see “Philadelphia Merchants & Traders to Merchants in Great Britain, November 7, 1765,” broadside, Pennsylvania Stamp Act and Non-Importation Resolutions Collection, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.[]

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  9. “The Petition of the London Merchants to the House of Commons,” in Edmund S. Morgan, ed., Prologue to Revolution: Sources and Documents on the Stamp Act Crisis, 1764–1766 (University of North Carolina Press, 1959), 130–31.[]

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  10. Governor Francis Bernard to Lord Halifax, August 15, 1765, in Edmund S. Morgan, ed., Prologue to Revolution: Sources and Documents on the Stamp Act Crisis, 1764–1766 (University of North Carolina Press, 1959), 107.[]

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  11. For Hutchinson’s own account of the events, see Hutchinson to Richard Jackson, August 30, 1765, in John W. Tyler, ed., The Correspondence of Thomas Hutchinson, Volume 1: 1740–1766 (Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 2014), 291–94.[]

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  12. Edmund O’Callaghan, ed., Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New-York, Procured in Holland, England, and France, vol. 7(Albany, NY, 1856), 770, https://​pbs​.twimg​.com/​media/​Btm5M84IMAA4MCY​.png:​large.[]

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  13. Parliament of Great Britain, “The Declaratory Act,” Avalon Project, Yale Law School, http://​avalon​.law​.yale​.edu/​18th​_century/​declaratory​_act​_1766​.asp.[]

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  14. “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies. Letter II,” Pennsylvania Gazette , December 10, 1767.[]

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  15. “Address to the Ladies,” Boston Post-Boy , November 16, 1767; Boston Evening-Post , February 12, 1770. Many female contributions to political commentary took the form of poems and drama, as in the poetry of Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson and Hannah Griffitts and satirical plays by Mercy Otis Warren. Caroline Wigginton, “Letters from a Woman in Pennsylvania, or Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson Dreams of John Dickinson,” in Community without Consent: New Perspectives on the Stamp Act , ed. Zachary McLeod Hutchins (Dartmouth College Press, 2016), 89–114.[]

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  16. Carol Berkin, Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence (Knopf, 2005), 17–18; Mary Beth Norton, Liberty’s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750–1800 (Little, Brown & Co., 1980), 157–63. On the many roles women played in colonial and revolutionary society, see Jacqueline Beatty, In Dependence: Women and the Patriarchal State in Revolutionary America (New York University Press, 2023); Ellen Hartigan-O’Connor, The Ties that Buy: Women and Commerce in Revolutionary America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011).[]

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  17. See Serena Zabin, The Boston Massacre: A Family History (Harper Collins, 2020).[]

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Section 06.04

IV. Independence

  1. New York Gazette, or Weekly Post-Boy , June 18, July 9, July 16, 1770.[]

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  2. Pennsylvania Chronicle , September 27, 1773. For an example of how fast news and propaganda was spreading throughout the colonies, this piece was reprinted in Massachusetts Gazette , October 4, 1773; New-Hampshire Gazette , and Historical Chronicle , October 15, 1773; and Virginia Gazette , October 21, 1773.[]

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  3. Massachusetts Gazette, and Boston Post-Boy , November 29, 1773.[]

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  4. Boston Gazette , December 20, 1773.[]

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  5. Virginia Gazette , November 3, 1774; Cynthia A. Kierner, “The Edenton Ladies: Women, Tea, and Politics in Revolutionary North Carolina,” in North Carolina Women: Their Lives and Times , ed. Michele Gillespie and Sally G. McMillen (University of Georgia Press, 2014), 12–33.[]

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  6. Hartigan-O’Connor, The Ties That Buy , 178–84.[]

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  7. Ray Raphael, The First American Revolution: Before Lexington and Concord (New Press, 2002), 59–168.[]

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  8. Peter Force, ed., American Archives: Fourth Series Containing a Documentary History of the English Colonies in North America, vol. 1 ( Washington, DC, 1837), 913–16, https://​archive​.org/​stream/​AmericanArchives​-Fourth SeriesVolume1​-ContainingADocumentaryHistory/​AaSeries4VolumeI​#page/​n455/​mode/​2up.[]

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  9. Franklin to Jonathan Shipley, July 7, 1775, Founders Online, National Archives, http://​founders​.archives​.gov/​documents/​Franklin/​01​-22​-02​-0057.[]

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  10. “His Majesty’s Most Gracious Speech to Both Houses of Parliament, on Friday, October 27, 1775,” https://​www​.loc​.gov/​item/​rbpe​.10803800/.[]

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  11. Thomas Paine, Common Sense (Philadelphia, 1776), https://​www​.gutenberg​.org/​files/​147/​147​-h/​147​-h​.htm.[]

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  12. Pennsylvania Evening Post , September 21, 1776.[]

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  13. Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789, vol. 4(US Government Printing Office, 1904–1937), 342, https://​archive​.org/​details/​journalsofcontin04unit/​page/​342/​mode/​2up.[]

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  14. “Report & the Resolution for Independancy Agreed to July 2d. 1776,” Papers of the Continental Congress , No. 23, folio 17, National Archives, Washington, DC, http://​www​.archives​.gov/​exhibits/​american​_originals/​declarat​.html.[]

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  15. “The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America, July 1776,” in Journals of the Continental Congress , 1774–1789, vol. 5, 1776, June 5–October 8, ed. Worthington Chauncy Ford (Government Printing Office, 1906), 510, https://​archive​.org/​details/​journalscontinen05unit/​page/​n5/​mode/​2up. On this rhetorical turn toward “natural law,” see Hattem, Past and Prologue, 127–39.[]

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  16. For more on the process of writing the Declaration of Independence, see Pauline Maier, American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence (Knopf, 1997). On its spread, see Emily Jane Sneff, “When the Declaration of Independence Was News,” PhD diss., College of William and Mary, 2024.[]

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Section 06.05

V. The War for Independence

  1. Barnet Schecter, The Battle for New York: The City at the Heart of the American Revolution (Walker, 2002).[]

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  2. David Hackett Fischer, Washington’s Crossing (Oxford University Press, 2004).[]

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  3. Richard M. Ketchum, Saratoga: Turning Point of America’s Revolutionary War (Holt, 1997).[]

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  4. For more on Franklin’s diplomacy in France, see Stacy Schiff, A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America (Thorndike, 2005).[]

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  5. David K. Wilson, The Southern Strategy: Britain’s Conquest of South Carolina and Georgia, 1775–1780 (University of South Carolina Press, 2005).[]

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  6. Richard M. Ketchum, Victory at Yorktown: The Campaign That Won the Revolution (Holt, 2004). On the experiences of the war, see Donald F. Johnson, Occupied America: British Military Rule and the Experience of Revolution (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020).[]

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  7. Woody Holton, Abigail Adams (Free Press, 2009), 208–17.[]

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  8. Joy Day Buel and Richard Buel, The Way of Duty: A Woman and Her Family in Revolutionary America (Norton, 1995), 145–70; Lauren Duval, The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupation, and the Making of American Independence (University of North Carolina Press, 2025); Holly A. Mayer, ed., Women Waging War in the American Revolution (University of Virginia Press, 2022).[]

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  9. Judith L. Van Buskirk, Standing in Their Own Light: African American Patriots in the American Revolution (University of Oklahoma Press, 2017); Douglas R. Egerton, Death or Liberty: African Americans and Revolutionary America (Oxford University Press, 2009). For discussion of these numerical estimates, see Gary Nash’s introduction to Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution (University of North Carolina, Press, 1996), xxiii.[]

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Section 06.06

VI. The Consequences of the American Revolution

  1. Willi Paul Adams, The First American Constitutions: Republican Ideology and the Making of the State Constitutions in the Revolutionary Era (Rowman and Littlefield, 2001), 126–46.[]

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  2. Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (University of North Carolina Press, 1969).[]

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  3. On “republican motherhood,” see Norton, Liberty’s Daughters ; Linda K. Kerber, Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America (University of North Carolina Press, 1980). On women after the war, see Rosemarie Zagarri, Revolutionary Backlash: Women and Politics in the Early American Republic (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008); Catherine Allgor, Parlor Politics: In Which the Ladies of Washington Help Build a City and a Government (University of Virginia Press, 2000).[]

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  4. Maya Jasanoff, Liberty’s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World (Knopf, 2011).[]

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  5. Alan Gilbert, Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for Emancipation in the War of Independence (University of Chicago Press, 2012).[]

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  6. Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America (Harvard University Press, 1998), 217–89.[]

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  7. Kathleen DuVal, Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution (Random House, 2015); Claudio Saunt, West of the Revolution: An Uncommon History of 1776 (Norton, 2015); Colin G. Calloway, The American Revolution in Indian Country: Crisis and Diversity in Native American Communities (Cambridge, 1995).[]

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Section 06.07

VII. Conclusion

  1. For a summary of the global aspects of the Revolution, see Ted Brackemyre, “The American Revolution: A Very European Ordeal,” U.S. History Scene , http://​ushistoryscene​.com/​article/​am​-rev​-european​-ordeal.[]

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  2. Michael D. Hattem, The Memory of ’76: The Revolution in American History (Yale University Press, 2024).[]

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