Talk:American Revolutionary War

Notice

This article focuses on the military campaign, while the American Revolution covers the origins of the war, as well as other social and political issues.

Please try to keep this article at a reasonable length. The current approach has been to summarize the war in a way that will be clearly understandable to the general reader, without cluttering it up with too many details. Concentrate on the major figures and actions, and try to leave detailed discussion of war strategies, battle casualties, historical debates, etc. to linked articles about specific battles or actions.

Instead of adding additional detail to this lengthy article, consider adding your information to an article on a specific battle, or to one of these campaign articles currently in development. Additionally, one campaign, Northern theater of the American Revolutionary War after Saratoga (box at right), does not yet have an article specifically about those operations.

• Boston campaign (1775–76)
• Invasion of Canada (1775) (1775–77)
• New York and New Jersey campaign (1776–77)
• Saratoga campaign (1777)
• Philadelphia campaign (1777–78)
• Northern theater of the American Revolutionary War after Saratoga (1778–81)
• Sullivan Expedition (1779)
• Southern theater of the American Revolutionary War (1775–83)
• Western theater of the American Revolutionary War (1779–82)
• West Indies and Gulf Coast campaigns (1775–82)

• Naval operations in the American Revolutionary War
  • American Waters (1775–82)
  • European Waters (1778–82)
  • West Indies (1778–82)
  • East Indies (1778–83)

Arming the rebels from April 1776 was a joint Franco-Spanish operation

France and Spain formed a company for that very purpose. (2A00:23C4:6388:7300:6417:5FDD:3561:8F6F (talk) 20:33, 5 December 2016 (UTC))

Revolutionary War in the United States

The first begins "The American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), also referred to as the American War of Independence and the Revolutionary War in the United States". I think we should restructure this sentence in some way. It's not clear if we're saying one name for the war is 'the Revolutionary War in the United States' or if we're saying the war is known as the 'Revolutionary War' in the United States. Some guy (talk) 08:42, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 February 2017

Under the "Test Acts" section, first paragraph, I think "double or treble taxes" should read "double or triple taxes". 74.108.8.77 (talk) 20:04, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

74.108.8.77 - Thanks for the suggestion; since 'triple' is preferred in American English, I will make this change. Quasar G. (talk) 20:14, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

The cause

            The Revolutionary War is for one main cause; a series of acts, which request taxes. The colonists despised the acts very much. They created a plague of protests to convince the British Parliament to repeal the acts. Fortunately, King George III repealed the acts except that they added a new tax on tea which angered the colonists more. As long as it was taxed, it was invalid for them. They felt unjust when the British taxed them to pay their debt. When the Boston Tea Party was released, King George got fed up and declared war. The only reason why the British taxed the colonists was that they felt that they fought the 7 Years War for them, not for themselves, so they felt the should pay for their protection.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iluvemc (talk • contribs) 02:40, 14 March 2017 (UTC) 

Yeah, right, if you say so --Godwhale (talk) 12:45, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Quebec

Infobox lists Quebec as an ally fighting on the British side. I don't think this was accurate. Some did fight on the Patriot side, and most were uninvolved in either. --JWB (talk) 23:41, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 March 2017

Please re-format reference 32 to say, "{{cite book|author= Gladney, Henry M. |title=No Taxation without Representation: 1768 Petition, Memorial, and Remonstrance|year=2014|url=http://www.hgladney.com/PMR/No_Taxation_without_Representation_(book_description).pdf|archive-url=http://wayback.archive.org/web/20150513135503/http://www.hgladney.com/PMR/No_Taxation_without_Representation_(book_description).pdf|archive-date=May 13, 2015}}".
Gladney, Henry M. (2014). No Taxation without Representation: 1768 Petition, Memorial, and Remonstrance (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on May 13, 2015.
95.44.50.222 (talk) 09:33, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Done Gulumeemee (talk) 09:45, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Some more bare urls

Please edit

• Reference 6 to say:

Jaques, Tony (2007). Dictionary of Battles and Sieges: F-O. p. 720. Retrieved 1 April 2017.</ref>

• Reference 7 to say:

Jaques (2007), p. 666. 95.44.50.222 (talk) 11:14, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Done Gulumeemee (talk) 06:33, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

victory

For most wars it says under outcome who the victor of the war was while for this one nothing is shown even though the us clearly won, why is this and could someone either explain it or fix it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:41:C101:93C0:A97A:A799:4FB5:300E (talk) 23:45, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Quite simply because not all of the Franco-American allied powers were victorious. Each power signed a separate peace treaty with the British, while the United States and Spain won clear cut victories over the British, the French victory is seen as relatively minor since they only managed to make relatively minor territorial gains, the Dutch actually lost territory to the British, Mysore fought the British to a draw and neither gained nor lost territory, and the Native American tribes that fought on the side of the UK lost the Indian Reserve territory the british had set up solely for them as the British ceded the area to the United States.XavierGreen (talk) 20:47, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't personally care one way or the other, but that's not necessarily consistent. The Hundred Years' War is largely viewed as a conflict between England and France resulting in an overall victory for the French (as the article indicates), but was a protracted series of conflicts involving a large number of sovereign powers, each of which experienced varying degrees of defeat and victory. Consider also the French and Indian War (many nations; British victory). I think that your argument would hold more weight if the American War of Independence was viewed more generally as a regional conflict between rival coalitions, rather than primarily a conflict between Britain and its American colonies. Yes, countries like France, Poland, various German states, etc., played a significant role in the conflict, but it was still largely a conflict between Americans and the British crown. And more importantly, one of the more solid and concrete conclusions that one can draw from the history of the revolutionary war is that it was, resoundingly, a victory for the United States and a defeat for Britain. The US gained independence and potential access to an entire continent while Britain lost vast swaths of territory and permanently lost access to the most resource-rich parts of North America. We all know how the story goes from there. Other countries' participation recedes into the background in the face of such a far-reaching and world-historical event. The infobox as it stands does appear to understate things when it lists "Treaty of Paris" as the principal result. While technically true, its placement would seem to diminish the much more significant results listed as mere bullet points beneath it: US independence and the end of the First British Empire. All that being said, it's really a minor issue; it's just fun to chew on. --TimothyDexter (talk) 20:28, 18 April 2017 (UTC)