Revolutionary War Dbq Essay

The term revolutionary means something that has or had a significant effect or sudden impact on the society and human behaviour. After and during the revolutionary war if a citizen was rich, white and a man he would have benefited from the revolutionary war, such as being able to enlist in the army willingly. However, if a citizen did not fall into that category they would have gained very little from the war. Contrary to G. Wood’s idea in the Radicalism of the American Revolution that patriots carried along and enforced the “Spirit of Equality” throughout the war (Document B), there was no equality shown to people of color, middle to lower class citizens and women. The revolutionary war did not make the lives of these individuals better in terms of race, class and gender. While the United States as a country was emancipated from Great Britain, the United States as a society was not
Middle class and lower class citizens were able to class raise their social status before and during the war. The Sons of Liberty was formed by middle class men who wanted to see a change in their community. In the painting of the Gaspee burning , it shows the Sons of Liberty burning the British as a protest against the Townshend duties (Document A). This even created the committees of correspondence with helped with the spread of the idea “Spirit of Equality”. One could say that for these reasons, the revolutionary war was revolutionary however they have neglected to include the fact that after the war they were treated the same as they were before the war. They were treated as inferior citizens by the upperclassmen even though it was mainly the middle class country men who fought in the war. After the war ended it was upper class white men who were represented in the government, which contradicted to the idea of “Spirit of