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Articles & Books From Steve Wiegand
Explore the good, the bad, and the ugly of the United States historyLooking for the essentials of more than 200 years of United States history? Starting at the early civilizations, U.S. History For Dummies covers the growing pains of a new nation. Brush up on the major wars, from fighting against each other to fighting the world.
Article / Updated 08-04-2023
During the mid-1760s, America and Britain had managed to confine their differences to rhetorical battles and bloodless economic boycotts. But the conflict took a decided turn after the Boston Massacre in 1770 and the Boston Tea Party in 1773. ©Tony Baggett / Adobe StockAn engraved illustration of George Washington crossing the River Delaware during the American Revolutionary War, from a Victorian book dated 1886.
Article / Updated 04-25-2023
America’s independence was ultimately won not by the actions of a few extraordinary individuals, but by the efforts and sacrifices of hundreds of thousands of “ordinary” people. The impact of the struggle on various groups within the country, however, and their reactions to it, varied widely and often set neighbor against neighbor.
Article / Updated 03-07-2022
It is an inescapable fact that there were no “Founding Mothers,” at least not in the sense the term "Founding Fathers” is used to describe the male leaders of the American Revolution. No women served in Congress, signed the Declaration of Independence, or helped draft the Articles of Confederation or US Constitution.
Article / Updated 11-19-2019
Here are quick looks at ten ordinary Americans who did extraordinary things during the American Revolution: Joseph Plumb Martin, Molly Pitcher, James Forten, Daniel Morgan, Roger Sherman, Nancy Hart, Jeremiah O’Brien, Daniel Bissell, Salem Poor, and Deborah Sampson.
Joseph Plumb Martin
Joseph Plumb Martin began the Revolutionary War as a 15-year-old private from Massachusetts and ended it as a 22-year-old private.
Article / Updated 11-19-2019
If one group was destined to lose no matter how the American Revolutionary War came out, it was Native Americans. If the British won the struggle, they were no more likely to be successful in keeping the colonists from encroaching on lands promised to the tribes than they had been before the war. If the Americans won, the push west would only be accelerated.
Article / Updated 11-19-2019
One of the lessons colonists learned in fighting Native Americans was that it was a lot more effective to coordinate their efforts than to fight as individual colonies. But deciding unification was a good idea and actually unifying turned out to be two very different things.
Confederating in New England
Almost as soon as they were done all but wiping out the Pequots, several New England colonies began talking about banding together in some sort of common-purpose group.
Article / Updated 11-19-2019
The American Revolution was drenched with deep and bitter ironies, and none was deeper or more bitter than conducting a fight for personal liberties while continuing to embrace the institution of slavery. It was a contradiction of which the Founding Fathers were well aware.“The Plant of Liberty is of so tender a nature that it cannot thrive long in the neighborhood of slavery,” warned Dr.
Article / Updated 11-19-2019
The Pilgrims who founded the Plymouth Colony actually landed somewhere unintended and lacked any legal right to establish a colony where they were. They named the bay (minus any rock) Plymouth and established the colony based on the Mayflower Compact.In 1608, about a year after the founding of Jamestown, an 18-year-old farmer’s son named William Bradford sneaked out of England with a small group of Separatists and settled in the small Dutch city of Leiden.
Article / Updated 06-23-2022
The American Revolution has had enormous effects on the development of world history since that time. We can learn a lot from exploring other events that happened following the American Revolution and from considering the reasons that this revolution, unlike many others, was a successful endeavor.It was a revolution like no other, “a revolution,” in the words of the 18th century British statesman Edmund Burke, “made not by chopping and changing of power in any of the existing states (nations), but by the appearance of a new state, of a new species, in a new part of the globe.