The Treaty of Paris

 The Treaty of Paris was a formal document that stated that the war between The United States of America and The Kingdom of Great Britain had ended. It was Signed at The Hotel D´York in 1783. The other waring kingdoms were France, Spain and The Dutch Republic they signed separate agreements. This treaty brought some bad things, as the priviledges that The United States had from Britain were withdrawn. But the good part was that the USA were no longer going to be taxed by the British. The following are the keypoints of the treaty:

1. Acknowledging the Thirteen colonies to be free, sovereign and independent States, and that the British Crown and all heirs and successors relinquish claims to the Government, propriety, and territorial rights of the same, and every part thereof.
2. Establishing the boundaries between the United States and British North America (for an account of two strange anomalies resulting from this part of the Treaty, based on inaccuracies in the MItchel.
3. Granting fishing rights to United States fishermen in the Grand Banks off the coast of Newfoundland and in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.
4. Recognizing the lawful contracted debts to be paid to creditors on either side;
5. The Congress of The Confederation will "earnestly recommend" to state legislatures to recognize the rightful owners of all confiscated lands "provide for the restitution of all estates, rights, and properties, which have been confiscated belonging to real British subjects .
6. United States will prevent future confiscations of the property of Loyalists.
7. Prisoners of War on both sides are to be released and all property left by the British Army in the United States unmolested (including slaves);
8. Great Britain and the United States were each to be given perpetual access to the Mississippi River 
9. Territories captured by Americans subsequent to treaty will be returned without compensation;
10. Ratification of the treaty was to occur within six months from the signing by the contracting parties.

Poor Richard´s Almanack

Benjamin Franklin had no boundaries, he was alos a great author. As you may know he did the Poor Richard´s Almanack that was in part written by him and the other part borrowedfrom other authors. Poor Richard was just the pseudonym that Franklin used to write the almanack. It was a bestseller in the colonies , the print runs got to 10,000 books per year which was a lot in that time. Benjamin was an inventor , statesman and publisher and he reached even more success with his almanack. Franklin´s almanack included weather forecasts , practical house hold hints, puzzles and many other amusement activities. The almanack also had Franklins famous quotes. In the almanack you can see how he had an extensive word play derived from the vernacular.

Political Career of Benjamin Franklin

    Benjamin Franklin had an outstanding political career, he held positions in the Continental Congress and he actually served as an ambassador in Fance where he had to get the help and support of the french for the war. Benjamin was sent as an embassador in 1776 he was a diapatcher for the United States he lived in paris in the parissian suburb donated by a whealthy french that supported the United States. He conducted all the affairs of his country that he was in charge for example towards the French nation with great success, which included assuring a critical military alliance in 1778 to be able to defeat the British nation and negotiating the Treaty of Paris. During his stay in France, Benjamin Franklin was active as a freemason. When he finally returned home in 1785 Benjamin Franklin got a very good position, he got the position of the  second to that of George Washington as the champion of American independence. This title is the why Franklin is so famous.

Benjamin Franklin´s Inventions

            Benjamin Franklin, we all have heard this name at least once in our lives. But who is he? Well, I can start by saying that he was one of the greatest minds involved in the American Revolution. He was a politician, inventor, statesman, postmaster, satirist and a diplomat. And in everyone of this fields he did a great job. He was a great figure in the enlightenment for his many inventions  from which we can say that the discovery of electricity is the best. He was also known as The First American because of his great campaign for colonial unity. For all this and more he is a great man who is worthy of remembering.

     Benjamin Franklin was a geat inventor. He invented the lightnig rod, the stove, the glass harmonica, bifocal glasses and the flexible urinary catheter. A lightning rod is amethalic rod or condunctor placed in the highest part of an edificatio to protect it from lightnigs during electrical storms. This rod is conected to another rod that is underground by a cable, in this way the electric shock is absorbed by the ground and it doesn´t hit the edification. Franklin´s stove consist of a metalic fireplace that was intended to rlease less smoke and more heat. Bifocals are a kind of glasses with two distinct optical powers. The glass armonica is an instrument that uses glass bowls or goblets that are graduated in size to produce distinct musical notes by friction. A urinary catheter is a plastic tube that is gently slid into the patient´s urethra and to the bladder to allow freely expulsion of urine or to inject medicine direct to the bladder. However in Franklin´s time they were not flexibble making the process of cathering very painful.

       

the Battle of Saratoga

The Battle of Saratoga toook place in the months of September and October of 1777. The Battle occurred because the British forces leaded by Burgoyne wanted to capture Albany but the American alredy knew these so they were waiting for them at Bemis Heights . Bemis Heights was an ideal spot  because in one of its  sides it had the Hudson River and in the other one there was a very dense forest perfect for hiding and awaiting in secert.. Burgoyne sent first an attack with 2,000 of his men leaded by the General Fraser. After that he sent a frontal attack on the western part of the Americans but they still were resisting. Burgoyne made two attempts to cross the defensive lines, but both failed the Americans were strong willed and wouldn´t loose that easy.
After a series of attempts he decided to retreat toward Saratoga to refuge his men but he left all his wounded and most of the supplies at Bemis Heights. After he retreated he when to Saratoga and  when he arrived at Saratoga he notice that General Gates was in pursuit after them and he saw that there was no way he could endure the attack by the Americans that surrounded him. In his last move he called for a Council of War with his officers, and they decided to surrender. At that moment one fourth of British forces were captured, and the victory convinced the European powers that an American victory was possible.

Friedrich Wilhem Von Steuben

Friedrich Wilhelm August Heinrich Ferdinand von Steuben was also known as the Baron Von Steuben, he was born in Prussia. He was inspector general of the Continental Army during the American Revolution. In september 22 1777 the continental congress was together in York in Pennsylvania after being kicked out of Philadelphia by the British advance. By February 5, 1778, Baron Von Steuben had offered to volunteer without pay to help the continental Army. By the february 27 Steuben went to report for duty to Washington at  Valley Forge. Steuben spoke little or no English and he often yelled to his translator because he felt frustated because he could´nt comunicate openly with the soldiers. The Baron helped by creating a training program for the Continental Army, this consisted of tough exercises and camp sanitation. These might seem useless but it did work , it taught soldiers discipline and it helped to rencourage them and give them a more powerful reason to fight.

                                                                                                         

The Hessians

   We all know that the English were terribly humiliated when they suffered a defeat by an army, if you can give that name to a bunch of untrained farmers.
 The army of England was one of the largest and yet so powerful and sought help from the Hessians. The Hessians were mercenaries who worked for the one that offered better pay. In the AmericanRevolution, Landgrave Frederick II, Hired about thirty Thousand soldiers conscripted to fight for England. The name of the Hessians comes from their dwelling they were of  HesseKassel. The great diference between modern mercenaries and Hessians is that the second were debtors or prisoners that were going to win their liberty from jail or other comitments.This German soldiers were loyal to King George III who fought for Britain in the Revolutionary War. Hessians helped England because King George was from Hanover, a place in Germany, and he called back home, asking for soldiers willing to fight in the new world. They are known because they were surprised at Trenton by Washington´s forcesd and defeated at Trenton by General George Washington whose army had just crossed the Delaware River in the night of  the 25 of December of 1776.

Overconfidence

 The British had the most powerful armada in Europe and even though they were defeated by the Colonists. But why did this hapen? The answer to this quiestion can be simplified to a single word, overconfidence. By 1775 the British had been defeated by the Colonists in Concord because they had inferior war tactics, like going into the battle dressed up in red. At plain sunlight they were an easy target even for the worst gunman. The Colonists in the other hand adopted the indian war tactics, they hid behind rocks and bushes and tried the most they could to be camouflaged. To retake the hills that the Colonists took in the outsides of Boston the British Commander Lord William Howe took control of the troops and he ordered a frontal attack. He attacked twicw and two times the colonists won, but in the third attack the colonists ran out of bullets and Howe took the hills. The colonists lost but they won two out of three times and that kept their encouragement rising. while the colonists encourage themeselves more and more every day the British were been humiliated in the fields.

The Second Continental Congress

 The Second Continental Congress succeeded the first cotinental congress. The congress met in philadelphia for the second time in May 10, 1775 with the purpose of organizing all the efforts of the colonies against England. They took important decisions as organizing all their war efforts wisely. Fiftysix delegates attended to the second congress and they agreed to have Peyton Randolph as president and Charles Thompson as the secretary. They had two new delegates John Hancock from Massachussetts and Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania. Randolph had to get back to The House of Burguesses so John Hancock replaced him. For second time only delegates of twelve of the thirteen colonies got together leaving out Georgia that didn´t send delegates, it was until May 13 that Lyman Hall a colonist of Georgia was accepted in the congress but not in representation of his colony. In July Georgia sent representation to the Continental Congress after holding a congress as a colony. The Continental Congress assumed the responsibility for going to war with England. They formed the Continental Army wich was under George Washington´s command. During this meeting some of the radical delegates wanted to declare independence from England but theu knew that it was too soon. The congress sent "Olive Branch Petition" to the king but he rejected it and sent more troops to America.

The Minutemen

The minutemen were selected men from the colonial Militia. This were called minutemen because when they were summoned to fight they got ready in a rush.The minutemen were among the first people to fight in the American Revolution. They were  about one fourth of the Militia. Minutemen and the sons of liberty  spread the news that the British readcoats were heading to Lexington and Concord. The minutemen were ready for every situation even though they had no trainment as the English troops had.The requiremnets for being part of the Minutemen was to have twenty five years or younger you had to be enthusiastic, you had to be reliable person and you had to have physical strenght and resistence. The Minutemen are connected to the revolution because theuy played an important role in it but the origins of the minutemen date from Massachusetts during the midseventeenth century. In 1645 they started to select men to arm them with what they had on hand and they had to get ready to fight in at most one hour.The only disadvantage that the Minutemen had was that they had no central organization.

The Coercive Acts

Known by the colonies as The Intolerable Acts were a series of laws passed by the Parliament in 1774 as response for the Boston Tea Party. This motion was supported by the  Brititsh Prime Minister Lord North and encouraged by King George III with the purpose of restoring the order in colonial Massachussetts.
There were five intolerable ancts and are yhe following:

1. Quebec Act  : British expanded the frontiers of  Quebec, so that the southern border of Canada  cut off the western colonies of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Virginia. People that lived in that area lost heir land and were very angry against the Parliament, The King and The english Prime Minister.
2. Boston Port Act :The English closed Boston´s port for every boat that wasn´t English until the colonists paid for the tea they had thrown to the sea.
3. Quartering Act : To reinforce Britain´s authority the King sent troops to the colonies to control the situation and the colonists were forced to give them housing.
4. Administration of Justice Act : English that commited crimes in the colonies  went to trial in England.
5. Massachussetts Government act   this act took  away  the right of self-government. Government positions were appointed by the governor or directly by the king.

                                    

Concord and Lexington

 When the colonists started to take matters on their hands the Parliament stopped ignoring their actions because this time they were directly affected. In 1775 the Lt.General Thomas Gage received orders from the english secretary of state of going to Lexington and to Concord to capture the congressmen of the colonies and to confiscate the stockpiled weapons and ammunitions. By that time the members of the congress were scattered throughout the countryside but Samuel and John could only get to the house of Reverend Clark in Lexington. The English wanted to keep secret their plans but they couldn't Paul Revere,  William Daws and Samuel Presscott warned all the colonists about the arrival of the English troops. When the troops got top Lexington the colonial militia was waiting for them. They told the militia to disperse but when they were doing someone shot a gun and the troops killed 8 colonists and wounded ten. When that finished the troops headed to Concord but militia intercepted the troops and they defeated them and drove them back to Boston.

Boston Tea Party

  Even when the colonists had repeled most of the taxes the Parliament wouldn´t give up they kept insisting in taxing the colonists. The colonists kept refusing to pay taxes if they had no representation. After all the protests of the colonists against the taxation without representation thye Parliament had regressed most of the taxes except one, tea tax. The colonists decided to boycott the East Indie Company that was in charge of shipping English tea to America, instead of buying the tea from England they would buy smuggled Dutch tea. The English Parliament realized that the East Indie Company was falling in bankrupcy so it passed a law that gave permission to the company to sell directly to the Colonists. The colonists kept without buying the tea.On December 16, 1773, after officials of Boston refused to send back three ships fullof  tea to Britain, a group of colonists dressed as Indians to remain in the anonimatum boarded the ships and destroyed the tea by throwing it into the harbor of boston. 

The Boston Massacre

 In the early 1700 s The colonies were ruled by the British laws, the governor of the colony was imposed by the King. in 1765 the English Parliament passed a law that stated that the colonists had to give housing to the English troops. In some cases the troops built rough encampments as houses but almost all the time they moved into the houses of the colonists. This angered the colonies because they saw it as another abuse of the Parliament. The troopers weren't happy because they were far away from their families they didn't pay them well.

In a cold evening of March, in 1770 when a soldier was looking for work the colonists angered and they followed the soldier as an angry mob. The colonists throwed rocks and snowballs to the soldier. The soldier got to his encampment and a captain and eight of his men went to help the trooper.

The colonists got more angry at every moment until a soldier felt so threatened that he opened fire, this shot  encouraged the other soldiers to open fire and they killed Five colonists that had no chance to defend themselves from the armed soldiers.

The soldiers were put under arrest and charged by murder.

Colonial Heritage

The colonists adopted several of the English politics because back then they thought that the British had the best government. The British government included the law administration of justice according to establish rules and principles which is known as the common law. Colonists would enjoy trials by jury, freedom of press from prior censorship and they cherished the right of not paying taxes unless they were levied by their representatives. Until 1760 the Colonial government followed the British government but protests arrived at this time and proved that they were not happy.

The French and Indian War

The French and Indian War also knownn as the Seven Year War ,was one of the battles between the French and the British. The war started in europe and it spread to America. The British wanted the land and the profitable fur trade held by the French. The French refused to give up their territory and their trade so they begun to fight. Meanwhile the Indians joined the British to fight against the French, because they thought that the British were powerful and that they could easily take their land. So the Indians allied with the British. At first the French were defeating the British easily but this changed. In 1756 William Pitt became the British secretary of state and he applied more resources and money to the war, now Britain had complete control of the situation. In 1759 the Britsh seized Quebec and in the next year MOntreal and this completed the conquering of the Canadian territory.The war was ended officially in February 10, 1763, when the French signed The Treaty of Paris. France gave all of its holdings in North America, but they got back the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique.