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The American Revolution ends October 19 with the surrender of General Cornwallis, but the British will not evacuate Savannah until July of next year, will hold Charleston until December, and will retain New York until November 1783. The Americans win their War of Independence only after some bloody encounters.
Spanish forces under Don Eugenio Pourre in Michigan take Fort St. Joseph from the British in January.
British forces plunder and burn Richmond, Virginia, January 5 with help from Benedict Arnold.
The Battle of the Cowpens in North Carolina January 17 ends in victory for 800 Continental infantrymen, dragoons, and militiamen commanded by wagoneer Brig. Gen. Daniel Morgan, now 44, who distinguished himself at Saratoga in 1777. His men defeat 1,000 British light cavalry dragoons and infantrymen under the command of Sir Banastre Tarleton, 27, killing 110, wounding 200, and capturing 550, while losing only 12 killed, 60 wounded. Following on the heels of last year's Battle of Kings Mountain, Morgan's success persuades many patriots that they can defeat Britain's southern strategy.
New Jersey troops mutiny January 20; Pennsylvania troops at Morristown have broken camp with demands for back pay, and General Washington fears that his entire army may dissolve. He orders General Robert Howe at West Point to quell the uprising and execute its ringleaders; a court martial organized by Howe sentences three men to be shot by 12 of their fellow mutineers, two are executed, one is pardoned, and Washington writes to a congressional committee January 27 that "it now becomes proper to justice" to address the soldiers' grievances.
General Nathaniel Greene reaches Virginia February 13 after a 2-week retreat from North Carolina in which he has eluded British pursuers.
The colonies adopt Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union March 1 as delegates from Maryland add their signatures to the document after New York and Virginia have ceded their western land claims to the newly emerging republic (see 1777). Virginia's Thomas Jefferson has said in relinquishing his state's claims to western lands, "The lands . . . will remain to be occupied by Americans and whether these lands be counted in the members of this or that of the United States will be thought a matter of little moment" (see Constitution, 1787).
The United States in Congress Assembled convenes March 2; most Americans still call it the Continental Congress.
The Battle of Guilford Court House in North Carolina March 15 ends with the British proclaiming victory, but General Greene has cut them off from their supplies, obliging them to forage for food, and their pillaging so alienates the locals that they force the invaders and their Loyalist supporters to leave North Carolina for Virginia. General Greene turns back and retakes South Carolina and Georgia, wearing down the British with hit-and-run tactics before being defeated April 25 at Hobkirk's Hill, South Carolina.
Spanish forces take West Florida from the British, who surrender Pensacola to Governor Galvez May 9 (see 1779; 1782).
Admiral George Rodney sails into the harbor of the St. Eustatius capital Oranjestad, sacks the town, and seizes 250 ships of all nationalities, taking arms and provisions intended for the American rebels (see 1762; 1779). His able second in command is Rear Admiral Samuel Hood, 56, but Rodney's action brings denunciations in Parliament from Edmund Burke and Charles James Fox, 32, who sympathize with the American cause, and angry British merchants strip Rodney in prize courts of much of the £4 million in loot that he has seized.
French and Spanish naval forces take Tobago as François Joseph Paul, comte de Grasse, defeats the British commander Admiral Hood and captures the island of Tobago in January. Now 58, de Grasse joined the French Navy in 1740 after 6 years' commanding galleys for the Knights of Malta. He is given the rank of admiral in reward for his victory, but Admiral Hood defends St. Eustatius, Demerara, Saint Kitts, Nevis, and Monserrat, defeating de Grasse near Dominica April 9 and 12 (see 1782).
General Washington and the comte de Rochambeau meet at Wethersfield, Connecticut, the night of May 21 and agree to ask Admiral de Grasse to come north for a combined land-and-sea operation.
The isolated British garrison at South Carolina's Fort Ninety-Six repulses General Greene June 18; he has besieged the fort since May, and although his final assault is not successful it helps make clear that the British strength in the southern hinterlands is too dispersed to be effective.
General Cornwallis repulses General Lafayette July 6 at Jamestown Ford, Virginia, but is forced to retire August 1 to what he considers defensible positions at Yorktown and Gloucester Point on the York River. His ill-provisioned men are exhausted from days of marching through mosquito-infested swamps, but the Royal Navy still commands the American coast and Cornwallis calculates that in his new position he can be supplied by sea. He has advanced into Virginia without the authority of the British commander in chief in North America, Sir Henry Clinton, believing in error that his action would consolidate his hold on the Southern colonies.
General Washington and General Rochambeau begin a march to the south August 19 with about 10,000 men, having united their forces July 5 at White Plains, New York. News has reached them August 14 that Admiral de Grasse with his French fleet was headed for the Chesapeake Bay. Washington leaves a 3,000-man force behind to deceive the British at New York, the rest of the Franco-American army gains the west side of the Hudson by August 26, and 3 days later it begins a quick march toward Philadelphia. Rochambeau loans Washington $20,000 in hard money to pay his troops a month's salary.
A French fleet from the Caribbean arrives in the Chesapeake Bay August 30 with 24 ships of the line under the command of Admiral de Grasse, who within a few days offloads heavy cannon and disembarks 3,200 troops that join forces with General Lafayette, but he warns that he can stay for only two weeks because the hurricane season is approaching. A Royal Navy fleet with 19 ships of the line arrives from New York under the command of Rear Admiral Thomas Graves, now 55, whose flagship is the 74-gun H.M.S. Bedford, but Graves takes so long following the rigid protocol of getting his ponderous ships into position to fire broadsides that de Grasse is able to get his own ships out to sea. Firing at the British spars and rigging, de Grasse sinks only one ship of the Royal Navy in the 2-hour Battle of the Capes off the Virginia coast September 5, but he cripples the rest of Graves's fleet.
Benedict Arnold helps British forces plunder and burn New London, Connecticut, September 6.
The Battle of Eutaw Springs in South Carolina September 8 ends with General Greene retreating and the British retiring to Charleston. General Greene has abandoned his pursuit of Cornwallis and attacked Lieut. Col. Alexander Stewart with 400 more men than Stewart's 2,000, but he loses 138 killed, 375 wounded, and 41 missing, whereas Stewart loses 85 killed, 351 wounded, 257 missing. American soldiers pursuing the British come across sick and dying blacks and suspect that the former slaves were sent out deliberately to spread smallpox; it will later turn out that General Alexander Leslie of the British Army wrote to General Cornwallis July 13 saying, "Above 700 Negroes are come down the River in the Small Pox. I shall distribute them about the Rebell Plantations."
A new French squadron with siege guns from Newport, Rhode Island, arrives in the Chesapeake Bay September 10 under the command of the 26-year-old Paul-François-Jean Nicolas, comte de Barras, and Admiral Graves is unable to stop the French from landing men and supplies; he heads back to New York; Generals Washington and Rochambeau meet with Admiral de Grasse aboard the Ville de Paris at Hampton Roads September 18, and 16,100 Allied troops lay siege to Yorktown beginning September 28, a siege made possible by the success of Admiral de Grasse at sea. Bombardment of Yorktown begins October 14; General Cornwallis has made his headquarters in the home of Thomas Nelson, Jr., who signed the Declaration of Independence, and at Nelson's insistence General Washington fires on the house, destroying it. Cornwallis orders about 1,000 of his men to attempt an escape across the York River October 16.
General Cornwallis surrenders with 7,000 troops at Yorktown October 19 after a 3-week siege; the British Army and Royal Navy at New York have argued too long over the issue of whether or not to send reinforcements to Cornwallis, and on October 13, when the fleet was supposed to sail, a thunderstorm sent such strong gusts of wind across New York Harbor that one ship of the line snapped her anchor cable and was driven into another, damaging both. Brig. Gen. Henry Knox, now 31, has directed the Continental artillery to deadly effect at Yorktown; a crucial attack by the First Rhode Island Regiment during the siege has won respect for the blacks who comprise three-fourths of its number (roughly one out of every five men in the Continental Army is black). Colonel Alexander Hamilton has impetuously resigned from General Washington's staff and led a 400-man nighttime assault on a key British redoubt while French infantrymen seized another redoubt nearby. The Americans at Yorktown have lost 20 killed, 56 wounded, the French 52 killed, 134 wounded, and the British 156 killed, 326 wounded; the British lay down their arms. Sir Henry Clinton arrives with 7,000 reinforcements October 24, finds that he has come too late, and returns to New York October 28 to 30. Henry Knox is promoted to major general November 15.
Alexander Hamilton moves to Albany to study law and publishes newspaper essays advocating a strong federal government; he will be admitted to the bar next year and elected to Congress. The New York colony has seen 228 engagements during the war, second only to New Jersey's 238.
General James Abercrombie, British Army, dies at Stirling in Stirlingshire between April 23 and 28 at age 74; Admiral Edward Hawke, 1st Baron Hawke, at Sunbury, Middlesex, October 17 at age 71.
The British release Henry Laurens on parole December 31 (see 1780). He will be exchanged next year for General Cornwallis.
Russia's Catherine the Great signs a treaty with the Holy Roman Emperor Josef II promising him the entire eastern half of the Balkans. She seeks to drive the Ottoman Turks out of Europe and establish her 2-year-old grandson, Constantine, as head of a new Greek empire.
British forces take Dutch settlements on the west coast of Sumatra.
The rajah Chaith Singh of Banaras revolts against British East India Company rule (see 1775); Company troops under the command of General Sir Eyre Coote, now 55, defeat Haidar Ali July 1 at Porto Novo in the Carnatic, saving South India for the British (see 1780). General Coote gains another victory at Pollilur and routs Mysore forces at Sholingur in August, but the effort exhausts Coote, who gives up his command and moves to Calcutta (see 1782).
Chinese imperial forces under the command of Qianlong suppress a Muslim revolt in Gansu Province.
Spanish colonial authorities in Peru capture the insurgent leader Tupac Amaru II and his family in March (see 1780); taken to Cuzco, he is forced to witness the execution of his wife and sons, whereupon he is mutilated, drawn and quartered, and beheaded May 18 at age 40 (approximate). Tupac has made poorly armed attacks on Cuzco and twice laid siege to La Paz, reducing that city's white population in 109 days to eating rats and boiled shoe leather; "I will return, and I will be millions," he is reported to have said before his death, and although the Spanish crush his native army the revolution he led will continue until the Spanish government issues a general pardon for the insurgents (see 1820).
Spanish colonial authorities at Bogotá agree June 4 to meet the demands of the Communero rebels in the viceroyalty of New Granada (see 1780). A combined force of artisans, peasants, and some Creole leaders have marched on the capital to present their list of demands, using as their slogan, "Long live the king, and down with bad government" ("Viva el rey y muera el mal gobierno!"). The main rebel force disperses and heads for home, whereupon the Spanish viceroy brings up troops from the coast and declares the concessions invalid; some of the Creoles inform on the other Communeros, the Spaniards take prisoners and execute some rebel leaders, and the Roman Catholic clergy threatens divine retribution against peasants harboring rebellious sympathies (see 1782).
Lynch law (or Lynch's law) punishes lawlessness that accompanies the American Revolution in Virginia. Planter Charles Lynch, 45, presides as justice of the peace at an extralegal court, the summary punishment that follows his frequent convictions generally consists of flogging, but the term "lynching" will usually mean hanging by an unlawful mob that has taken the law into its own hands to seize a prisoner.
Notes on Virginia by former Virginia governor Thomas Jefferson addresses the concerns of French philosophes with regard to slavery: "There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the existence of slavery among us. The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other . . . [But] I think a change already perceptible, since the origin of the present revolution. The spirit of the master is abating, that of the slave rising from the dust, his condition mollifying, the way I hope preparing, under the auspices of heaven, for a total emancipation, and that this is disposed, in the order of events, to be with the consent of the masters, rather than by their extirpation."
Fugitive slaves from Virginia and other colonies try to climb aboard British ships after the Continental Army's victory at Yorktown, but colonial authorities post guards to prevent their escape. General orders issued by General Washington October 25 declare that free blacks should be allowed to go where they will, but while slaves who have followed the British must be returned to their owners, some slaves pretend to have been freed, others offer themselves as servants to French and American officers, and some use the confusion of war to gain their freedom in various ways (see Fugitive Slave Act, 1799).
Los Angeles is founded in California by Spanish settlers who call the place El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles (see 1769). Some 44 illiterate settlers recruited by Governor Felipe de Neve gather on the west bank of the river September 4 and claim the land that the Spanish governor has promised.
Former French controller-general Jacques Turgot, Baron de L'aulne, dies at his native Paris March 18 at age 53, having made the last effort to reform France's monarchy from within and been forced to retire in disgrace. He has warned Louis XVI that England's Charles I was beheaded (in 1649) because he was weak (see politics, 1789).
The Continental Congress charters the Bank of North America December 31 at Philadelphia. The first incorporated bank of the new American republic, it has been founded by superintendent of finance Robert Morris, 48, who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and has served the Revolution by arranging for the financing of supplies for George Washington's armies. Morris has used his own personal credit to save the fledgling American government from bankruptcy; the new bank will open January 7 of next year as the first U.S. commercial bank (see loan, 1789).
London's Asprey & Company jewelers has its beginnings in a shop opened at Mitcham by metalworker William Asprey, whose Huguenot ancestors arrived from France a century ago. His initial products are pieces of furniture, and in 1832 Asprey will win appointment as dressing-case maker to the king.
Cornish inventor Jonathan C. (Carter) Hornblower, 28, patents a two-cylinder steam engine that represents the first reciprocating compound steam engine, but the firm of Boulton & Watt claims that Hornblower's double-beat valve infringes on James Watt's patent, Hornblower loses in court, and the principle of his compound engine will not be rediscovered until 1804. James Watt improves his steam engine by adding a sun-and-planet gear (see 1776). His partner Matthew Boulton has urged him to replace the engine's original reciprocating action with a rotary motion that will make it usable in cotton, corn, and malt mills. Watt's new gear enables a shaft to produce two revolutions for each cycle of the engine (see 1782).
The world's first iron bridge opens to traffic January 1 across the River Severn in Shropshire to link Benthall and Madeley Wood, a town that will be renamed Ironbridge. The 100-foot, 378-ton span designed by John Wilkinson of 1774 cannon-borer fame has been cast at Coalbrookdale by Abraham Darby III, 30-year-old grandson of the coke-oven iron pioneer (see 1709; 1717). Built without nuts, bolts, or screws but only dovetailed joints, pegs, and keys, the nearly semi-circular span exploits the strength of cast iron in compression, has taken just 3 months to erect, cost far less than the stone bridges that have spanned rivers since ancient times, and will survive into the 21st century (when disastrous floods devastate the Severn region in 1795, the iron bridge will allow the floodwaters to pass through it, whereas every other bridge in the area will be destroyed).
Uranus is identified March 31 by German-born English music teacher William Herschel, 43, who moved to England at age 19, anglicized his name from Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel, and names the planet for the Greek god of the heavens (Uranos) (see uranium, 1789). The amateur astronomer employs a homemade telescope in the rear garden of his house at 19 New King Street, Bath, to find the first planet to be discovered since the Babylonian era of prehistory (see Adams, 1841).
An Edict of Tolerance issued by the Holy Roman Emperor Josef II October 13 ends an 8-year period during which 700 monasteries have been closed and 36,000 members of religious orders released from their vows. The edict prescribes a new organization for the remaining 1,324 monasteries with their 27,000 monks and nuns, weakens the link with Rome, introduces innovations in the form of worship, and establishes schools with Church property (see abolition of serfdom, 1782).
A treatise "On the Civic Improvement of the Jews" by Wilhelm von Dohm calls upon the Prussian government to give Jews the same rights guaranteed to other subgroups in society (see Mendelssohn, 1743).
The gaon of Vilna issues another herem against hasidic Jews (see 1772). "They must leave our communities with their wives and children," he says, and writes that "it is the duty of every believing Jew to repudiate and pursue them with all manner of affliction." He forbids his people to do business with hasidim, intermarry with them, or assist at their burials, but hasidism spreads beyond Poland and Lithuania despite orthodox efforts to stop it (the efforts will soon end as rabbis of all stripes join forces to resist the Jewish enlightenment, or haskalah).
The Holy Roman Emperor Josef II abolishes press censorship (but see 1790).
Nonfiction: Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der Reinen Vernunft) by German metaphysician and philosopher Immanuel Kant, 57, examines the limitations of human understanding and establishes the rationalism of pure experience with a scheme of transcendental philosophy (see Maimon, 1790); Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Volumes II and III) by Edward Gibbon, who presents Volume II on bended knee to the duke of Gloucester and is told, "Another damned thick book! Always scribble, scribble, scribble: Eh, Mr. Gibbon?" (see 1776; 1779; 1788).
Poetry: Nathan the Wise (Nathan der Weise: Ein dramatische Gedicht) by playwright Gotthold Ephraim Less is an exposition in blank verse of progressive thinking and religious tolerance in the age of enlightenment; "On the Memorable Victory of Paul Jones" by Philip Freneau.
Painting: Belisarius by Jacques Louis David, who completes 6 years of study in Italy; The Queen of Martyrs by Francisco de Goya.
Playwright Gotthold Ephraim Lessing dies in Brunswick February 14 at age 52.
Lancashire-born actor John P. (Philip) Kemble, 24, plays the role of Hamlet at Dublin November 2, having played for a few years in the provinces (see 1783).
Opera: Idomoneo King of Crete (Idomoneo, Rè di Creta) 1/29 at Munich, with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
First performances: Concerto for Two Pianofortes and Orchestra in E flat major by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 11/24 at Vienna.
Some 3½ million Americans live in the new confederation, most of them on or near the Atlantic coast. Most of the country's 850,000 square miles of territory remains sparseley settled, and Europeans inhabit less than one third of the land claimed by the new republic.
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