The War Ends

1. The War Ends American Revolution

2. The war ends • The British turned to the South by late 1778 • Their goals were to capture key cities, win over the local population and march north, taking state after state • They moved north from Florida and quickly captured Georgia, South Carolina • Their movements, however, were slowed by guerilla fighters, including Francis Marion, aka the “Swamp Fox,” who led men through South Carolina’s swamps on daring and successful attacks

3. The War ends • Loyalist bands plundered and burned Patriot farms throughout the south and killed men, women throughout

4. The war ends • On October 1780 Patriot forces defeated a larger British force on Kings Mountain, in SC • General Nathanael Greene became commander in the South in December and divided his army in two • One half of this army, under General Daniel Morgan, won a stunning victory at the Battle of Cowpens in January 1781 • He sent in a small number of militia to fire three shots then retreat • When the British rushed forward they were met with skilled cavalry and riflemen

5. The war ends • Patriot forces successfully retook much of the South in the months that followed Cowpens • British General Charles Cornwallis moved his men to Yorktown, a small peninsula in Virginia where he believed the British navy could reinforce and supply him • However, the French fleet arrived and chased away the British vessels, leaving him isolated and trapped on the other side by American and French ground forces • Three weeks later, he surrendered • It was the last major battle of the war

7. The War ends • The defeat at Yorktown shocked the British at home • George III wanted to keep fighting, but Parliament voted for peace • American delegates included Benjamin Franklin and John Adams • The British, sick of war after 8 years, gave the Americans most of what they wanted

8. The wAr ends • The Treaty of Paris was signed and approved in 1783 • The main provisions included • Formal recognition of the U.S. as an independent nation • Boundaries set at the Atlantic in the east, Mississippi River in the west, Florida in the south and Canada in the north • Floridawas returned to Spain • The U.S. agreed to restore rights and property taken from Loyalists during the war, though most states ignored the pledge

9. The war ends • In 1789 French citizens, inspired by the ideas of equality and liberty that came out of the American Revolution, rebelled against their own government • They issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, modeled to some degree after the Declaration of Independence • The Revolution inspired Latin American independence movements in later years as well

10. The war ends “The representatives of the French people… have determined to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, unalienable, and sacred rights of man. • Men are born and remain free and equal in rights…. • The aim of all political associations is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptable rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.” --Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen