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.

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 entrepts. 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, where John Adams nominated Washington as the commander-in-chief. 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. The Continental Army then went into winter quarters in Valley Forge, where General von Steuben drilled it into an organized fighting unit.

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. The war officially 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.

Ethnic Germans served on both sides of the American Revolutionary War. Large numbers of Germans had emigrated to Pennsylvania, New York and other American colonies, and they were generally neutral or supported the Patriot cause. Many belonged to pacifist sects such as the Amish. Britain had a small army, most of which were needed at home. It decided to rent regiments. Most governments refused, but several small German states such as Hesse had a reputation as "mercenary states" and rented regiments to the British for combat duty. The Patriots called them all "Hessians" and denounced them all as "mercenaries" who were not fighting for their native land. In his history of the Hessians, Rodney Atwood says, "By common usage, however, the Hessians have been called mercenaries. In this work I refer to them as both auxiliaries and mercenaries."