question archive How did American society changed (and did not) after the Revolution, use specifics

How did American society changed (and did not) after the Revolution, use specifics

Subject:HistoryPrice:2.86 Bought17

How did American society changed (and did not) after the Revolution, use specifics. ou may do other research, like coffee replacing "tea time", people no longer bowing to those in power, Washington and norms created for the presidency cite sources.

 

pur-new-sol

Purchase A New Answer

Custom new solution created by our subject matter experts

GET A QUOTE

Answer Preview

The Revolution brought myriad consequences to the American social fabric. There was no replacement of the ruling class by workers' groups as in revolutionary Russia. Nearly every aspect of American life was somehow touched by the Revolutionary spirit:  from slavery to women's rights, from religious life to voting, American attitudes would be forever changed. On the surface, the revolution did little for ordinary people because it had never initially promised to.

Slavery was undoubtedly weakened by revolutionary ideas and the War of Independence, though in many ways it was also fortified in the new society. The stirring rhetoric of documents like the Declaration of Independence led many slaves to seek their freedom, by escaping or enlisting in the Continental Army or in the various state militias. The numbers of free blacks in America increased almost threefold because of this. The wiser revolutionary leaders recognized the hypocrisy of demanding liberty while keeping people in servitude, but some of the loudest voices, like Jefferson and Washington, kept slaves all their lives.

Abolitionist movements, in existence since before the 1770s amongst groups like the Pennsylvania Quakers, increased markedly during and after the revolution. Yet despite these advances in thinking and the liberation of some Africans from slavery, the institution itself remained as strong as ever. This was particularly true in the southern states, where slavery was essential because of labor-based methods of farming and the lack of a significant white workforce. This economic imperative led southern interests to defend slavery rigorously, so much so that it was factored into the Constitution via the 3/5th Compromise. The Constitution also allowed the slave trade to continue.

Women, though they made up about half the population, seemed to benefit little from the revolution. These included figures like Deborah Samson and Molly Pitcher who actually joined the fight. Despite their contribution to independence, women remained invisible in the new society in terms of citizenship. No woman held office in state or national government, no woman practiced the law or enrolled for a college education; aside from a couple of notable exceptions like the chronicler Mercy Otis Warren, few women engaged in the public debates about revolution, ratification or reconstruction.

The Native tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy participated in devastating raids on colonial settlements in the north-east, prompting Congress and Washington to undertake retaliatory campaigns such as the Sullivan Expeditions, which wiped out native villages and farmland. The increased movement generated by the Revolutionary War brought more natives into contact with more whites, and therefore with white diseases. With no immunity to European diseases, many tribal populations were decimated by these diseases, particularly smallpox, which was ravaging the eastern side of the continent during the 1770s. When the British signed the Treaty of Paris in 1783 to formally end the conflict, they also signed over vast regions of tribal lands to the new United States. Americans had never much recognized native claims to land ownership and the treaty simply formalized this perspective: they were now viewed as a conquered race, living illegally on American land. Within the next century, there was the westward expansion which displaced these natives leading them into a century of dispossession, disorder and death.