2nd Saturday - Bastille Day History
Links between the American and French Revolutions;
General Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette
In the United States, Independence Day celebrates the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, during the American Revolution. Bastille Day celebrates the symbolic start of the French Revolution with the storming of the Bastille prison in Paris on July 14, 1789. These two events happened just 13 years and 10 days apart!
American Revolution (1775-1783)
- In the American Revolution, the Thirteen Colonies that became the United States of America gained independence from the British Empire.
- France played a key role in aiding our new nation with money and munitions, by organizing a coalition against Britain, and by sending an army and a fleet that played a decisive role at the battle that effectively ended the war at Yorktown, Virginia.
- France’s Marquis de Lafayette served in the war as a general and as a diplomat: entirely without pay in both roles.
- Lafayette and General George Washington met in 1777 and became lifelong friends. Washington was the godfather to Lafayette’s son, Georges Washington-Lafayette.
- The war officially ended with the 1783 Treaty of Paris; negotiated and signed in France.
Washington & Lafayette in Delaware County, 230 years ago!
- Washington and Lafayette fought together at the Battle of Brandywine, on September 11, 1777. Lafayette was wounded in the leg and was commended for his bravery.
- Lafayette is said to have purchased a saddle during the war at Media’s oldest building, the Minshall House (circa 1750)!
French Revolution (1789-1799)
- The ideals of the American Revolution greatly inspired the fight for equality amongst the oppressed in France who suffered under the rule of King Louis the 16th.
- The Storming of the Bastille occurred in the midst of riots. Demonstrators attacked the Bastille prison, which housed only seven prisoners at the time, to acquire arms and gunpowder that were stored there. The Bastille was a symbol of Royal tyranny, and its storming symbolizes liberty, democracy, and the struggle against oppression.
- In August 1789, Lafayette is said to have proposed the combination of the colors of red, white and blue, for the French flag, inspired in part by the colors of the U.S. flag.
- In August 1789, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (influenced by the American Declaration of Independence) was proclaimed.
- The actual key to the Bastille is at Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate in Virginia, having been given to Washington by Lafayette in 1790.
Lafayette on slavery
- Lafayette urged Washington to free his slaves as an example to others. Lafayette purchased an estate in French Guiana and settled his own freed slaves there, and he offered a place for Washington's slaves. He wrote, "I would never have drawn my sword in the cause of America if I could have conceived thereby that I was founding a land of slavery." Washington did provide in his last will and testament that all his slaves be freed after his death.
More on Lafayette
- In 2002, President Bush signed a declaration making Lafayette an Honorary Citizen of the United States, pursuant to an Act of Congress. Lafayette is one of only six persons so honored by the USA.
information from wikipedia.com
