The American Revolutionary War

The American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), also known as the American War of Independence, was a war between the Great Britain and thirteen British colonies on the North American continent. The war was the culmination of the political American Revolution, whereby the colonists overthrew British rule. In 1775, Revolutionaries seized control of each of the thirteen colonial governments, set up the Second Continental Congress, and formed a Continental Army. The following year, they formally declared their independence as a new nation, the United States of America. From 1778 onward, other European powers would fight on the American side in the war. Meanwhile, Native Americans and African Americans served on both sides.

Throughout the war, the British were able to use their naval superiority to capture and occupy coastal cities, but control of the countryside largely eluded them due to their relatively small land army. In early 1778, shortly after an American victory at Saratoga, France entered the war against Britain, Spain and the Netherlands joined as allies of France over the next two years. French involvement proved decisive, with a French naval victory in the Chesapeake leading to the surrender of a British army at Yorktown in 1780. The Treaty of Paris in 1783 ended the war and recognized the sovereignty of the United States over the territory bounded by what is now Canada to the north, Florida to the south, and the Mississippi River to the west.

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