47 The American Revolution
22.1.8: The American Revolution
France supported the rebellious colonies (eventually the United States) during the American Revolution because it perceived the revolt as the embodiment of Enlightenment ideals and as an opportunity to curb British ambitions.
Learning Objective
Connect the American Revolution and French politics
Key Points
- The origins of the French involvement in the American Revolution go back to the British victory in the French and Indian War. France’s loss in that war weakened its international position at the time when Britain was becoming the most powerful European empire. The outbreak of the American Revolution was thus seen in France as an opportunity to curb British ambitions.
- From the spring of 1776, France (together with Spain) was informally involved in the American Revolutionary War by providing supplies, ammunition, and guns. The 1777 capture of a British army at Saratoga encouraged the French to formally enter the war in support of Congress.
- Benjamin Franklin negotiated a permanent military alliance in early 1778 and thus France became the first country to officially recognize the Declaration of Independence. In 1778, the Treaty of Amity and Commerce and the Treaty of Alliance were signed between the United States and France.
- France supported the United States in North America but as the enemy of Britain, it was also involved in the Caribbean and Indian theaters of the American Revolution.
- France’s material gains in the aftermath of the American Revolution were minimal, but its financial losses huge. The treaty with France was mostly about exchanges of captured territory (France’s only net gains were the islands of Tobago and Senegal in Africa). Historians link the disastrous post-war financial state of the French state to the subsequent French Revolution.
- The American Revolution also serves as an example of the transatlantic flow of ideas. At its ideological roots were the ideals of the Enlightenment, many of which emerged in France and were developed by French philosophers. Conversely, the American Revolution became the first in a series of upheavals in the Atlantic that embodied the ideals of the Enlightenment and thus inspired others to follow the revolutionary spirit, including the French during their 1789 Revolution.
Key Terms
- Enlightenment
- An intellectual movement which dominated the world of ideas in Europe in the 18th century. It included a range of ideas centered on reason as the primary source of authority and legitimacy, and came to advance ideals such as liberty, progress, tolerance, fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of church and state.
- French and Indian War
- A 1754-1763 conflict that comprised the North American theater of the worldwide Seven Years’ War of 1756-1763. The war pitted the colonies of British America against those of New France, with both sides supported by military units from their parent countries of Great Britain and Fran