American Revolutionary War: Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette lands near Charleston, South Carolina, in order to help the Continental Congress to train its army.
Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette (6 September 1757 20 May 1834), known in the United States as Lafayette (, French: [lafajt]), 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. He has been considered a national hero in both countries.
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. He became convinced that the American revolutionary cause was noble, and he traveled to the New World seeking glory in it. He was made a major general at age 19, but he was initially not given American troops to command. He was wounded during the Battle of Brandywine but still managed to organize an orderly retreat, and he served with distinction in the Battle of Rhode Island. In the middle of the war, he sailed for home to lobby for an increase in French support. He returned to America in 1780 and was given senior positions in the Continental Army. In 1781, troops under his command in Virginia blocked forces led by Cornwallis until other American and French forces could position themselves for the decisive siege of Yorktown.
Lafayette returned to France and was appointed to the Assembly of Notables in 1787, convened in response to the fiscal crisis. He was elected a member of the Estates General of 1789, where representatives met from the three traditional orders of French society: the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners. After forming the National Constituent Assembly, he helped to write the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen with Thomas Jefferson's assistance. This document was inspired by the United States Declaration of Independence and invoked natural law to establish basic principles of the democratic nation-state. He also advocated the end of slavery, in keeping with the philosophy of natural rights. After the storming of the Bastille, he was appointed commander-in-chief of France's National Guard and tried to steer a middle course through the years of revolution. In August 1792, radical factions ordered his arrest, and he fled into the Austrian Netherlands. He was captured by Austrian troops and spent more than five years in prison.
Lafayette returned to France after Napoleon Bonaparte secured his release in 1797, though he refused to participate in Napoleon's government. After the Bourbon Restoration of 1814, he became a liberal member of the Chamber of Deputies, a position which he held for most of the remainder of his life. In 1824, President James Monroe invited him to the United States as the nation's guest, where he visited all 24 states in the union and met a rapturous reception. During France's July Revolution of 1830, he declined an offer to become the French dictator. Instead, he supported Louis-Philippe as king, but turned against him when the monarch became autocratic. He died on 20 May 1834 and is buried in Picpus Cemetery in Paris, under soil from Bunker Hill. He is sometimes known as "The Hero of the Two Worlds" for his accomplishments in the service of both France and the United States.
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, secured a United States of America independent from Great Britain. Fighting began on April 19, 1775, followed by the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The American Patriots were supported by France and Spain, conflict taking place in North America, the Caribbean, and Atlantic Ocean. It ended on September 3, 1783 when Britain accepted American independence in the Treaty of Paris, while the Treaties of Versailles resolved separate conflicts with France and Spain.Established by Royal charter in the 17th and 18th centuries, the American colonies were largely autonomous in domestic affairs and commercially prosperous, trading with Britain and its Caribbean colonies, as well as other European powers via their Caribbean entrepôts. After British victory in the Seven Years' War in 1763, tensions arose over trade, colonial policy in the Northwest Territory and taxation measures, including the Stamp Act and Townshend Acts. Colonial opposition led to the 1770 Boston Massacre and 1773 Boston Tea Party, with Parliament responding by imposing the so-called Intolerable Acts.
On September 5, 1774, the First Continental Congress drafted a Petition to the King and organized a boycott of British goods. Despite attempts to achieve a peaceful solution, fighting began with the Battle of Lexington on April 19, 1775 and in June Congress authorized George Washington to create a Continental Army. Although the "coercion policy" advocated by the North ministry was opposed by a faction within Parliament, both sides increasingly viewed conflict as inevitable. The Olive Branch Petition sent by Congress to George III in July 1775 was rejected and in August Parliament declared the colonies to be in a state of rebellion.
Following the loss of Boston in March 1776, Sir William Howe, the new British commander-in-chief, launched the New York and New Jersey campaign. He captured New York City in November, before Washington won small but significant victories at Trenton and Princeton, which restored Patriot confidence. In summer 1777, Howe succeeded in taking Philadelphia, but in October a separate force under John Burgoyne was forced to surrender at Saratoga. This victory was crucial in convincing powers like France and Spain an independent United States was a viable entity.
France provided the US informal economic and military support from the beginning of the rebellion, and after Saratoga the two countries signed a commercial agreement and a Treaty of Alliance in February 1778. In return for a guarantee of independence, Congress joined France in its global war with Britain and agreed to defend the French West Indies. Spain also allied with France against Britain in the Treaty of Aranjuez (1779), though it did not formally ally with the Americans. Nevertheless, access to ports in Spanish Louisiana allowed the Patriots to import arms and supplies, while the Spanish Gulf Coast campaign deprived the Royal Navy of key bases in the south.
This undermined the 1778 strategy devised by Howe's replacement, Sir Henry Clinton, which took the war into the Southern United States. Despite some initial success, by September 1781 Cornwallis was besieged by a Franco-American force in Yorktown. After an attempt to resupply the garrison failed, Cornwallis surrendered in October, and although the British wars with France and Spain continued for another two years, this ended fighting in North America. In April 1782, the North ministry was replaced by a new British government which accepted American independence and began negotiating the Treaty of Paris, ratified on September 3, 1783.