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A series of horesback riders led by Paul Revere went off the the countryside to warn the people that the Regulars were coming. Their warnings allowed the Colonial soldiers to better prepare for the ensuing battle at Lexington and Concord.
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Thomas Paine wrote "Common Sense" arguing for independence from Britain and the creation of a democratic republic. It stirred newfound American nationalism and immediately aided the patriots' cause.
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Mohawk chief Thayendanegea, a.k.a. Joseph Brant, convinced four of the six Iroquois nations to join him in an alliance with the British. He also led combined Indian, British, and Loyalist forces on punishing raids in western New York and Pennsylvania, making him the most important Iroquois leader in the revolutionary era. He was eventually countered by George Washington and the Americans when they fought back in battle and destroyed the Native American towns and crops.
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Baron Von Steuben was a military leader from Prussia. Over the course of the winter at Valley Forge, he gave the troops of the Continental Army some much needed discipline, although some of them did not make it until spring.
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Benjamin Franklin used his excellent diplomatic skills in order to have France sign a treaty with the United States. This alliance would ultimately help America win the war.
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Farmers from western Massachusetts, led by Daniel Shays a Revolutionary War veteran, followed petitions for economic relief with a full-scale 6-month revolt.The governor of Massachusetts, James Bowdoin, organized a military force funded by eastern merchants that crushed the movement. Nonetheless, the underlying social forces that propelled such dramatic action remained and influenced the revision of the Articles of Confederation.
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James Madison proposed The Virginia Plan at The Constitutional Convention in Philidelphia. Calling for a strenthened central goernment that would have a close relationship to the people, it clearly placed national supremacy above state sovereignty and called for three branches of federal government. After a bit of tweaking to cater to the small states (The Connecticut Compromise), the plan would become part of the U.S. Constitution.
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As Washington's Secratary of the Treasury, Hamilton tackled the issue of public credit. His proposal involved the federal government paying off all confederation debts with the help of securities bonds, adopting a mercantilist economic policy, and making a Bank of the United States. His policies, although deeply controversial at the time, paved the way for the American economy.
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Judith Sargent Murray challenged the view that men had greater intellectual capacities than women with her essay "On the Equality of the Sexes". She expressed the idea that the "Order of Nature" demanded full equality between the sexes, but that male domination corrupted this principle. She was considered one of the first public champions of women's rights in America.
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General Wayne secured this major victory near present day Toledo, Ohio, in effect shaping the conditions under which the treaty of Greenville was negotiated in 1795.
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Richard Allen founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the most famous black public institution of the revolutionary era. It served as a symbol for a gradual gain in equality of African-Americans and a growing population of free African-Americans.
