Problems on the frontier

As British colonial settlements expanded westward, further into the interior of the continental United States and away from the Atlantic seaboard, confrontations between colonists and Native Americans intensified. Continuing British advancement westward also increased the possibility of violent confrontation with the French. When the previously little-known Major George Washington led a military expedition into the Ohio River Valley, primarily on behalf of the Virginia Land Company, the ensuing armed confrontation with French scouts and their Native American allies quickly escalated into the opening battles of what Americans today know as the French and Indian War.

Imperial realignments

While the British, their colonial militias, and their Native American allies fared poorly in the early stages of the French and Indian War, their later military successes resulted in costly and humiliating defeats for the French, their Dutch and Spanish allies, who had primarily joined the war efforts to inflict damage on the British, and the Native American societies that fought alongside the French. According to the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1763), one of multiple so named treaties that you will learn about in AP US History, France relinquished its North American colonies and Spain similarly forfeited Florida to the British; France, Netherlands, and Spain all sought revenge against the British in later conflicts, particularly the American Revolution.

Impacts on Native American societies

With the collapse and retreat of their French allies, Native American societies confronted the harsh realities of continuing British colonial expansion on their own. British colonists, seeing their primary opposition either isolated or removed, sought to expand their territorial dominion west of the Appalachian Mountains, predictably provoking a series of armed confrontations with resident Native Americans. Sensing both opportunity and prospective suffering and removal, Ottawa chief Pontiac and Seneca chief Kiyasutu urged a wide array of Native American nations to resist colonial encroachment. The ensuing war would become known as Pontiac’s Rebellion, and would result in defeats for the Native Americans as well as increased tensions between the British government and the colonists.

Conflicts between the British and the colonists

Neither the British authorities nor the colonists were particularly satisfied with the victory in the French and Indian War. The British government blamed the colonists for provoking the French and the Native Americans in the 1750s as well as for Pontiac’s Rebellion in the 1760s. British anger over increased indebtedness and what many British perceived as insolence and cowardice from and by the colonists resulted in the passage of a series of new taxes and the end of salutary neglect. The colonists resented what they perceived as British arrogance, ignorance about the challenges colonists confronted as well as colonial contributions to victory in the French and Indian War, and what they believed were punitive and unjust taxes and restrictions.

Throughout the 1760s and the first half of the 1770s, these mutual resentments and hostilities would emerge in a series of escalating confrontations including the protests over the reviled, by the colonists, Stamp Act, the Boston Massacre, and the Boston Tea Party. During this period of mutual mistrust and confrontation, an increasing chorus of American voices would emphasize the increasing separation between the British and the colonists and the need for independence from British rule, culminating in the American Revolution (1775-1783).

Achieving independence

By 1775, tensions between the British government and their appointed colonial authorities and the colonists erupted in organized armed conflict. Within months, the world’s then most powerful empire, Great Britain, was engaged in a sustained war against the 13 colonies on the Atlantic seaboard that had united to fight for independence. After several years of war, including the critical victory at the Battle of Saratoga in October 1777, and diplomatic efforts led by Benjamin Franklin, France formally joined the American war effort, complemented by later Dutch and Spanish assistance. With the American victory at Yorktown in October 1781, the British government realized that it needed to end the war in North America lest Britain face bankruptcy and further dissolution of its empire. While the Americans celebrated the formal recognition of their independence in the second Treaty of Paris signed in 20 years, enormous challenges confronted the newly independent Americans.

A new nation

After achieving independence, the American people sought to develop a functioning, fully sovereign country. Facing significant internal and external challenges, the early American republic found itself severely tested within a few years. Still operating under the Articles of Confederation, the loose governmental system established during the American Revolution, the national government consisted almost entirely of a unicameral, single house, of Congress that lacked the ability to effectively enforce the few extant national laws or to collect the taxes needed to fund an effective army. While many Americans viewed permanent standing armies with suspicion, particularly after years of pre-war British military occupation of cities like Boston, the internal cohesion of the country seemed precarious in the fall and winter of 1786-1787. When Revolutionary War veterans in western Massachusetts armed themselves while protesting tax collection, the Massachusetts state government and revered political and military leaders around the country, including George Washington, feared that Shays’s Rebellion, named for the ostensible leader Daniel Shays , portended a swift end to the American political experiment.

Crafting a Constitution

Seeking to redress the problems that provoked Shays’s Rebellion, and to prevent further such rebellions, many American political leaders assembled in Philadelphia in May 1787, presumably to correct the defects in the Articles of Confederation. Quickly, though, the assembled delegates decided in secret to draft the framework for a new system of government. When the convention concluded in September of 1787, the architecture for a new government was unveiled to the American public with the majority of the delegates striving to persuade their respective states to ratify this new constitution. By late June 1788, 9 states, the requisite number under the Articles of Confederation, had ratified the Constitution, allowing it to go into effect; efforts to achieve ratification by all 13 original states continued until Rhode Island ratified the Constitution in May 1790. Once the Constitution went into effect, the new government, consisting of 3 coequal branches and with George Washington serving as its first chief executive, or president, began operating.

The Washington and John Adams’s administrations

The first two presidential administrations under the new constitutional system provided essential leadership in the early years of the republic, but even widely revered figures like George Washington confronted substantial challenges. Washington’s government faced immediate challenges, particularly in finances and foreign relations, while later confronting recurring obstacles such as conflicts with Native Americans and a potential farmers’ rebellion over taxation. Serving as Washington’s vice president for both terms, John Adams then served one tumultuous presidential term in which his government faced both internal and external challenges, most importantly the prospect of taking sides in European wars.

New opportunities, enduring problems

Throughout the second half of the 18th century, Americans, first as British colonists, and later as citizens of a new country, sought to expand their territorial and economic boundaries. The Treaty of Paris ending the American Revolution dramatically expanded the size of the United States, and in the 1790s, 3 new states were admitted to the country. American farmers and merchants strove to sell their crops and products in markets around the world, and the new American government jostled for diplomatic position with European empires, including their former imperial overseers, the British.

While the United States developed as a country, it continued to confront foundational challenges and contradictions, including relations with the Native Americans and how to reconcile enslaving hundreds of thousands of people while emphasizing natural rights and liberty.