If you ask a random person on the street who was the revolutionary war between, they’ll probably give you the standard textbook answer: the American colonies versus the British Empire. It’s the version we get in third grade. Redcoats vs. Bluecoats. George Washington vs. King George III.
But history is rarely that clean.
Honestly, the American Revolution was a messy, brutal, eight-year global conflict that looked more like a civil war and a world war than a simple rebellion. You had neighbors killing neighbors over a tea tax that wasn't even that high. You had German mercenaries fighting for a British king who couldn't find Philadelphia on a map. You had French aristocrats bankrolling American rebels while their own peasants were starving. To really understand the "who" in this equation, you have to look past the silk stockings and the powdered wigs.
The Core Players: The Continental Army and the British Crown
At the absolute center of the storm, you’ve got the two main heavyweights. On one side, the British Empire—the 18th-century version of a superpower. They had the world’s most dominant navy and a professional army that was basically the gold standard for discipline.
On the other side, you had the Continental Army.
People forget how pathetic the American forces looked at first. It wasn't an "army" in the way we think of it today. It was a ragtag collection of local militias, farmers with rusty muskets, and teenagers who had never left their counties. George Washington spent most of his time begging the Continental Congress for boots and gunpowder rather than actually planning maneuvers.
But the British had a massive logistical nightmare. They were trying to subdue a population 3,000 miles away across an ocean. Imagine trying to run a war via mail that takes six weeks to arrive. It’s basically impossible. This geographic gap changed the nature of the fight from a quick suppression of a riot into a grueling war of attrition.
The Forgotten Civil War: Patriots vs. Loyalists
Here is the thing most people get wrong: not every American wanted independence. Far from it.
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When we ask who was the revolutionary war between, we have to acknowledge that it was a fight between Americans. Historians like Maya Jasanoff have pointed out that about one-fifth of the white population in the colonies remained loyal to the King. These people were called Loyalists or Tories.
They weren't "villains" or "traitors" in their own eyes. They were people who valued order, feared anarchy, and thought the British Constitution was the best system of government in the world. In places like New York and the Carolinas, the fighting was horrific. It wasn't line-of-battle stuff with flutes and drums. It was "hit-and-run" raids. It was burning down your cousin's barn because he signed a petition. It was messy.
In some southern campaigns, more Americans fought against each other than there were British regulars involved in the skirmishes. If you were a Loyalist in a Patriot-heavy area, you might be tarred and feathered. If you were a Patriot in a British-occupied city like Charleston, you were essentially a prisoner in your own home.
The Global Stakes: France, Spain, and the Netherlands
If the French hadn't shown up, we’d all be eating bangers and mash for breakfast.
The American Revolution was a single theater in a much larger global chess game between Britain and the Bourbon powers (France and Spain). King Louis XVI didn’t give a damn about "liberty" or "democracy." He was an absolute monarch. He helped the Americans because he wanted to punch the British in the nose after France lost the Seven Years' War.
By 1778, the war became a multi-national nightmare for London.
- France provided the navy that eventually trapped Cornwallis at Yorktown.
- Spain attacked British outposts in Florida and along the Mississippi.
- The Dutch provided loans and a secret supply line through the Caribbean.
Suddenly, the British couldn't just focus on George Washington. They had to defend the English Channel from a French invasion. They had to protect their sugar islands in the West Indies, which were worth way more money than Virginia or Massachusetts. This global expansion of the war is what actually forced the British to give up. They didn't "lose" a total military defeat; they just decided the colonies weren't worth the global headache anymore.
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The Hessians: Germany’s Role in the Fight
Let's talk about the "Mercenaries."
About 30,000 German soldiers fought for the British. Most came from the region of Hesse-Kassel, which is why we call them Hessians. King George III was also the Elector of Hanover, so he had deep German roots. He didn't have enough British soldiers to occupy a continent, so he basically rented an army.
These guys were terrifyingly professional. They were the ones who cleared the field at the Battle of Long Island. But they were also in a weird spot. Many of them ended up liking America. By the end of the war, thousands of Hessians actually deserted or stayed behind to start farms in Pennsylvania and Maryland. They came to fight for a King and stayed to live in a Republic.
Indigenous Nations and the Impossible Choice
For Native American tribes, the question of who was the revolutionary war between was a matter of survival. They were stuck between a rock and a hard place.
The British had issued the Proclamation of 1763, which tried to stop white settlers from moving west of the Appalachian Mountains. Because of this, many tribes—like the Mohawk, Onondaga, and Cayuga—sided with the British. They saw the "Patriots" as land-hungry invaders who would stop at nothing to clear the forests for farms.
The Iroquois Confederacy, which had stood for centuries, actually collapsed because of this war. Some tribes sided with the Americans (like the Oneida and Tuscarora), leading to a civil war within the Six Nations. It was a tragedy that rarely gets enough space in the history books. Regardless of who won the war, the Indigenous peoples almost always lost.
Enslaved People and the Quest for Freedom
There’s a massive irony in the Revolutionary War. While Thomas Jefferson was writing about how "all men are created equal," he was enslaved by over 600 people.
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The British recognized this hypocrisy and tried to use it. In 1775, Lord Dunmore, the Royal Governor of Virginia, issued a proclamation promising freedom to any enslaved person who fled their Patriot masters and fought for the Crown. This created "Lord Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment."
Thousands of Black Loyalists joined the British side because the British offered the most direct path to liberty. On the flip side, many Black soldiers also fought for the Continental Army, especially in the later years of the war when the North needed manpower. By the end of the conflict, the Rhode Island Regiment was largely composed of Black and Indigenous soldiers. For these participants, the war wasn't about "No Taxation Without Representation." It was about the fundamental right to own their own bodies.
Why the "Who" Matters Today
Understanding that the Revolutionary War was a global, multi-ethnic, and civil conflict changes how we view the founding of the United States. It wasn't a pre-ordained victory. It was a chaotic mess that barely succeeded.
The British lost because they couldn't win "hearts and minds" in a landscape where their presence felt like an occupation. The Americans won because they outlasted the British will to fight, heavily subsidized by French gold and Spanish diversions.
To dig deeper into the actual experience of the war, you should look into the primary sources. Reading the diary of Joseph Plumb Martin gives you the perspective of a common soldier who was constantly hungry and cold. Alternatively, researching the "Book of Negroes" provides a list of the thousands of Black Loyalists who evacuated with the British to Nova Scotia at the end of the war.
If you want to understand the reality of 1776, stop looking at the oil paintings and start looking at the logistics. Follow the money from the Dutch banks and the movement of the French fleet. History is a web, not a straight line.
Actionable Next Steps for History Buffs
- Visit a "Non-Standard" Site: Everyone goes to Philly or Boston. If you want to see where the war was won, visit the Cowpens National Battlefield in South Carolina or Fort Ticonderoga in New York to see the importance of the frontier.
- Read "The Unknown American Revolution" by Gary Nash: This book does an incredible job of highlighting the roles of women, enslaved people, and the working class, rather than just the Founding Fathers.
- Check the Records: Use resources like the National Archives or the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) GRS system to see if you have ancestors on either side. You might be surprised to find a Loyalist in the family tree.
- Watch the Geography: Open a map of the 13 colonies and look at the "Proclamation Line" of 1763. It explains almost everything you need to know about why certain groups chose the sides they did.
The war ended officially with the Treaty of Paris in 1783, but the tensions between these groups—the centralizers vs. the localists, the expansionists vs. the indigenous nations—remained the defining features of American politics for the next century.