Was The American Revolution a Civil War? | 1775-1776

The American Revolution was also a civil war among Americans. From Lexington and Concord to the Declaration of Independence, this is the story the triumphant paintings leave out. Chapter Five of Daniel Sjursen's A True History of the United States: Independence and Civil War, Part One. Between 1775 and 1776, the thirteen colonies did not simply unite against Britain. Patriots and loyalists informed on one another, burned each other out, and fought for the loyalty of ordinary people caught in the middle. This film follows the first shots on Lexington Green, the bloody Battle of Bunker Hill (fought on Breed's Hill), King George III's refusal of the Olive Branch Petition, Thomas Paine's Common Sense, and Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. It also asks who that revolution was actually for. The founders who declared that all men are created equal held roughly a fifth of the population in slavery, shut Native nations out beyond the Appalachian frontier, and did not mean to count women at all. The same words Jefferson wrote in 1776 would later be borrowed by a Vietnamese revolutionary, Ho Chi Minh, to declare his own country's independence from the French empire in 1945. Two hundred and fifty years later, one question still cuts to the center of it. Whose revolution was it? CHAPTERS 0:00 Introduction 1:28 The Myth of Yorktown 4:52 Lexington and Concord 8:16 The Battle of Bunker Hill 9:56 The Olive Branch Petition and the Road to Independence 11:10 Thomas Paine and Common Sense 12:45 The Declaration of Independence and the Meaning of Equality 14:13 Whose Words? From Jefferson to Ho Chi Minh 15:33 The Civil War of 1776: Loyalists and Patriots 18:23 Patriot Coercion and the Loyalist Satire 20:01 Counterinsurgency and the War in the South 21:55 The Forgotten Americans SOURCE Adapted from Daniel Sjursen, A True History of the United States, Chapter Five. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/612519/a-true-history-of-the-united-states-by-daniel-a-sjursen/ SERIES The Universal History Lab reexamines American history through critical, postcolonial, and subaltern perspectives. Full series playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW9L4jTRHusXOkwUV6FdmMbAWXGQSHPen MUSIC Score from John Bartmann's Straylight Drones Collection, released under Creative Commons Zero (CC0, public domain). #AmericanRevolution #America250 #USHistory