undeclared wara threatened war with Francewar with France
The Kingdom of France, a crucial ally of the United States in the American Revolutionary War after early 1776, had loaned the U.S. large amounts of money, and in 1778 it signed a treaty of alliance against Great Britain. However, Louis XVI of France was overthrown in 1792 during the French Revolution, and the French monarchy was abolished. In 1794 the U.S. government reached an agreement with Great Britain in the Jay Treaty, which was ratified the following year. It resolved several points of contention between the United States and Britain that had lingered since the end of the American Revolution.

Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette

LafayetteMarquis de LafayetteGeneral Lafayette
Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette (6 September 1757 – 20 May 1834), known in the United States simply as Lafayette, was a French aristocrat and military officer who fought in the American Revolutionary War, commanding American troops in several battles, including the Siege of Yorktown. After returning to France, he was a key figure in the French Revolution of 1789 and the July Revolution of 1830. Lafayette was born into a wealthy land-owning family in Chavaniac in the province of Auvergne in south central France. He followed the family's martial tradition and was commissioned an officer at age 13.

French Revolutionary Wars

French RevolutionaryFrench Revolutionary troopsWar with France
Soldiers of the French Revolution (1989). Forrest, Alan. "French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802)" in Gordon Martel, ed. The Encyclopedia of War (2012). Fremont-Barnes, Gregory. The French Revolutionary Wars (Essential Histories) (2013) excerpt and text search. Gardiner, Robert. Fleet Battle And Blockade: The French Revolutionary War 1793–1797 (2006), naval excerpt and text search. Griffith, Paddy. The Art of War of Revolutionary France, 1789–1802 (1998) excerpt and text search; military topics, but not a battle history. Knight, Roger. Britain Against Napoleon: The Organisation of Victory, 1793–1815 (2013). Lavery, Brian.

John Adams

AdamsJohnJ. Adams
On July 14, 1789, the French Revolution began. Republicans were jubilant. Adams at first expressed cautious optimism, but soon began denouncing the revolutionaries as barbarous and tyrannical. Washington eventually consulted Adams more often, but not until near the end of his administration, by which point Hamilton, Jefferson, and Edmund Randolph had all resigned. The British had been raiding American trading vessels, and John Jay was sent to London to negotiate an end to hostilities. When he returned with a peace treaty on terms unfavorable to the United States, Adams urged Washington to sign it to prevent war. Washington chose to do so, igniting protests and riots.

Louis XVI of France

Louis XVIKing Louis XVIKing
In the spring of 1776, Vergennes, the Foreign Secretary, saw an opportunity to humiliate France's long-standing enemy, Great Britain, and to recover territory lost during the Seven Years' War, by supporting the American Revolution. In the same year Louis was persuaded by Pierre Beaumarchais to send supplies, ammunition, and guns to the rebels secretly. Early in 1778 he signed a formal Treaty of Alliance, and later that year France went to war with Britain.

American Revolution

RevolutionRevolutionary WarRevolutionary
Bibliography of the American Revolutionary War. Timeline of the American Revolution. Diplomacy in the American Revolutionary War. Founding Fathers of the United States. List of plays and films about the American Revolution. Cappon, Lester J. Atlas of Early American History: The Revolutionary Era, 1760–1790 (1976). Fremont-Barnes, Gregory, and Richard A. Ryerson, eds. The Encyclopedia of the American Revolutionary War: A Political, Social, and Military History (5 vol. 2006) 1000 entries by 150 experts, covering all topics. Gray, Edward G., and Jane Kamensky, eds. The Oxford Handbook of the American Revolution (2013) 672 pp; 33 essays by scholars. Greene, Jack P. and J. R. Pole, eds.

Battles of Saratoga

SaratogaBemis HeightsBattle of Saratoga
There are a number of ships named after the battles including USS Saratoga (1842), USS Saratoga (CV-3), and USS Saratoga (CV-60)

Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis

Lord CornwallisCharles CornwallisCornwallis
With the arrival of the French fleet under the Comte de Grasse and General Washington's combined French-American army, Cornwallis found himself cut off. After the Royal Navy fleet under Admiral Thomas Graves was defeated by the French at the Battle of the Chesapeake, and the French siege train arrived from Newport, Rhode Island, his position became untenable. He surrendered after about three weeks' siege to General Washington and the French commander, the Comte de Rochambeau, on 19 October 1781. Cornwallis, apparently not wanting to face Washington, claimed to be ill on the day of the surrender, and sent Brigadier General Charles O'Hara in his place to surrender his sword formally.

Federalist Party


Thomas Jefferson

JeffersonPresident JeffersonJeffersonian
While in France, Jefferson became a regular companion of the Marquis de Lafayette, a French hero of the American Revolutionary War, and Jefferson used his influence to procure trade agreements with France. As the French Revolution began, Jefferson allowed his Paris residence, the Hôtel de Langeac, to be used for meetings by Lafayette and other republicans. He was in Paris during the storming of the Bastille and consulted with Lafayette while the latter drafted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

Alexander Hamilton

HamiltonHamiltonianA. Hamilton
He took an early role in the militia as the American Revolutionary War began. In 1777, he became a senior aide to General Washington in running the new Continental Army. After the war, he was elected as a representative from New York to the Congress of the Confederation. He resigned to practice law and founded the Bank of New York. Hamilton was a leader in seeking to replace the weak national government under the Articles of Confederation; he led the Annapolis Convention of 1786, which spurred Congress to call a Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.

United States Declaration of Independence

Declaration of IndependenceindependenceAmerican Declaration of Independence
Many leaders of the French Revolution admired the Declaration of Independence but were also interested in the new American state constitutions. The inspiration and content of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (1789) emerged largely from the ideals of the American Revolution. Its key drafts were prepared by Lafayette, working closely in Paris with his friend Thomas Jefferson. It also borrowed language from George Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights. The declaration also influenced [[Russia in the American Revolutionary War#Russia and the Declaration of Independence|the Russian Empire]].

Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau

RochambeauComte de RochambeauGeneral Rochambeau
Doniol's History of French Participation in the Establishment of the United States * France and the American Revolution at the John Carter Brown Library Rochambeau's son, the vicomte de Rochambeau, was an important figure in the Haitian Revolution, French Revolutionary, and Napoleonic Wars. Rochambeau Middle School in Southbury, Connecticut is named for the comte de Rochambeau, as is the Rochambeau Bridge which carries Interstate 84 and U.S. Highway 6 between Southbury and Newtown, Connecticut (Rochambeau's army marched through the area during the American Revolutionary War). There are also various shopping centers and minor streets named in Rochambeau's honor throughout Connecticut.

Kingdom of Great Britain

Great BritainBritishBritain

XYZ Affair

failed diplomatic attemptsM. HautevalX.Y.Z.
In the wake of the 1789 French Revolution, relations between the new French Republic and the American administration of President George Washington became strained. In 1792, France and the rest of Europe went to war, a conflict in which Washington declared American neutrality. However, both France and Great Britain, the major naval powers in the war, seized ships of neutral powers (including those of the United States) that traded with their enemies. With the Jay Treaty, ratified in 1795, the United States reached an agreement on the matter with Britain that angered members of the Directory that governed France.

Jay Treaty

Jay's Treatytreatyagreed
The Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation, Between His Britannic Majesty and the United States of America, commonly known as the Jay Treaty, and also as Jay's Treaty, was a 1795 treaty between the United States and Great Britain that averted war, resolved issues remaining since the Treaty of Paris of 1783 (which ended the American Revolutionary War), and facilitated ten years of peaceful trade between the United States and Britain in the midst of the French Revolutionary Wars, which began in 1792. The Treaty was designed by Alexander Hamilton and supported by President George Washington. It angered France and bitterly divided Americans.

Thomas Paine

Tom PainePainePaine, Thomas
Paine was an enthusiastic supporter of the French Revolution, and was granted honorary French citizenship alongside prominent contemporaries such as Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and others. Paine's honorary citizenship was in recognition of the publishing of his Rights of Man, Part II and the sensation it created within France. Despite his inability to speak French, he was elected to the National Convention, representing the district of Pas-de-Calais.

Thirteen Colonies

American coloniescoloniescolonial
It raised an army to fight the British and named George Washington its commander, made treaties, declared independence, and recommended that the colonies write constitutions and become states. The Second Continental Congress assembled in May 1775 and began to coordinate armed resistance against Britain. It established a government that recruited soldiers and printed its own money. General Washington took command of the Patriot soldiers in New England and forced the British to withdraw from Boston. In 1776, the Thirteen Colonies declared their independence from Britain. With the help of France and Spain, they defeated the British in the American Revolutionary War.

French and Indian War

French and IndianSeven Years' WarNorth American theatre
Braddock led about 1,500 army troops and provincial militia on the Braddock expedition in June 1755 to take Fort Duquesne, with George Washington as one of his aides. The expedition was a disaster. It was attacked by French regulars, Canadian militiamen, and Indian warriors ambushing them from hiding places up in trees and behind logs, and Braddock called for a retreat. He was killed and approximately 1,000 British soldiers were killed or injured. The remaining 500 British troops retreated to Virginia, led by Washington. Washington and Thomas Gage played key roles in organizing the retreat—two future opponents in the American Revolutionary War.

Dutch Republic

United ProvincesDutchNetherlands
The Dutch Republic or United Provinces was a republic that existed from the formal creation of a confederacy in 1581 by several Dutch provinces (which earlier seceded from Spanish rule) until the Batavian Revolution in 1795. It was the predecessor state of the modern Netherlands and the first nation state of the Dutch people.

Edmond-Charles Genêt

Citizen GenêtCitizen GenetEdmond-Charles Genet
Edmond-Charles Genêt (January 8, 1763 – July 14, 1834), also known as Citizen Genêt, was the French envoy to the United States during the French Revolution. His actions on arriving in the United States led to a major political and international incident, which was termed the Citizen Genêt Affair. Because of his actions, President George Washington asked the French government to recall him. During this time, the government in France changed and an arrest warrant was issued for Genêt. Fearing for his life, he asked for asylum in America, which was granted. Genêt stayed in the United States until his death. Genêt was born in Versailles in 1763.

Marie Antoinette

Marie-AntoinetteQueen Marie AntoinetteQueen Marie-Antoinette
The primary motive for the queen's involvement in political affairs in this period may arguably have more to do with court factionalism than any true interest on her part in politics themselves, but she played an important role in aiding the American Revolution by securing Austrian and Russian support for France, which resulted in the establishment of a neutral league that stopped Great Britain's attack, and by weighing in decisively for the nomination of Philippe Henri, marquis de Ségur as Minister of War and Charles Eugène Gabriel de La Croix, marquis de Castries as Secretary of the Navy in 1780, who helped George Washington to defeat the British in the American Revolutionary War, which ended

George III of the United Kingdom

George IIIKing George IIIKing George
The detailed evidence of the years from 1763 to 1775 tends to exonerate George III from any real responsibility for the American Revolution." Though the Americans characterised George as a tyrant, in these years he acted as a constitutional monarch supporting the initiatives of his ministers. The American War of Independence was the culmination of the civil and political American Revolution resulting from the American Enlightenment.

James Madison

MadisonPresident MadisonPresident James Madison
Madison also lost much of his influence in the Washington administration, as Washington increasingly turned to Jefferson and Hamilton for advice. When Britain and France went to war in 1793, the U.S. was caught in the middle. The 1778 Treaty of Alliance with France was still in effect, yet most of the new country's trade was with Britain. Madison and Jefferson continued to look favorably upon the French Revolution despite its increasingly violent nature, but Washington proclaimed American neutrality. War with Britain became imminent in 1794, after the British seized hundreds of American ships that were trading with French colonies.

Peace of Paris (1783)

Peace of ParisTreaty of VersaillesTreaty of Paris
In the short term, Spain probably fared better out of the American Revolutionary War than any other participant, regaining significant territories lost in earlier conflicts, without the massive costs sustained by France and the United States. As with the French treaty, however, some territories are returned to Britain.