America's Independence Heroes

The United States War of Independence was a military

conflict that pitted the original Thirteen British
Colonies in North America against the Kingdom of
Great Britain. During this war, France aided the
American revolutionaries with ground troops
commanded by Rochambeau and the Marquis de La
Fayette and by fleets under the command of sailors
such as Guichen, de Grasse, and d'Estaing. The British
colonies that became independent from Great Britain
built the first liberal and democratic political system,
giving birth to a new nation, the United States of
America, incorporating the new revolutionary ideas
that advocated equality and freedom.
America's Independence Heroes

The first fights

On April 19, 1775, British soldiers marched out of

Boston to prevent a colonists' rebellion by seizing a
colony's arms depot in neighboring Concord. In the
town of Lexington they faced 70 militiamen. No one
knows who opened fire and thus began the war of
independence. The British took Lexington and
Concord, but on their way back to Boston they were
harassed by hundreds of volunteers from
Massachusetts, Lexington and Concord. The first
casualties of the conflict occur, eight settler soldiers.
By June, 10,000 colonial soldiers besieged Boston.

In May 1775, a Second Continental Congress met in

Philadelphia and began to assume the functions of the
national government. He appointed fourteen generals,
authorized the invasion of Canada, and organized a
field army under the command of George Washington,
a Virginia planter and veteran of the French and Indian
War. Knowing that the southern colonies were wary of
Massachusetts fanaticism, John Adams pushed for this
forty-three-year-old Virginian militia colonel to be
chosen as commander-in-chief. It was an inspired
America's Independence Heroes
choice. Washington, attending Congress in uniform,
looked just right: tall and poised, with a dignified
military air that inspired confidence. As one
congressman put it, "He wasn't a wild-eyed, ranting,
swearing guy, but a sober, steady, calm guy."

Soldiers began to be recruited from all over the

colonies. Many of them were farmers or hunters,
bullies and little trained in combat. In the first fights
against the British, George Washington even said: "we
have recruited an army of generals, they obey no one."

At first, the war was unfavorable for the colonists. In

June 1775 the two armies met at Bunker Hill across
from Boston. The rebels had dug in on the hill, and
despite the British storming the mainland positions
with violence, the settlers managed to hold off the
attack for quite some time; when the last raiders
manage to reach the top, British casualties are 800
soldiers. It's a pyrrhic victory for the British
America's Independence Heroes
Four of the main figures of independence:
George Washington

(1732-99) was both a hero in the fight for freedom, that

of the thirteen colonies against Great Britain, and a
slave owner. He owned more than a hundred, dedicated
to cultivating a huge expanse of land.

ThomasJefferson

was born on April 13, 1743 in Virginia. He was the

chief architect of the United States Declaration of
Independence and the nation's first secretary of state
(1789–1794), second vice president (1797–1801), and
third president (1801–09).
America's Independence Heroes
Benjamin franklin

Contributes to the end of the War of Independence,

with the signing of the Treaty of Paris (1783). From
there, he contributed to the writing of the American
Constitution (1787). In 1785 he was elected Governor
of Pennsylvania, and devoted himself fully to the
construction of the North American nation.
John Adams

As a Massachusetts delegate to the Continental

Congress, he played a major role in persuading
Congress to declare independence, and assisted
Thomas Jefferson in drafting the United States
Declaration of Independence in 1776.