Prisoners In The American Revolutionary War
During the American Revolutionary War (1775–83) the management and treatment of prisoners of war (POW) was very different from the standards of modern warfare. Modern standards, as outlined in the Geneva Conventions, expect captives to be held and cared for by their captors. One primary difference in the eighteenth century was that care and supplies for captives were expected to be provided by their own army, their government, or private resources.
However, it was not until seven years into the conflict and only one year before the Treaty of Paris (1783) officially ended the war, and primarily as a consequence of the Battle of Yorktown in 1781 resulting in the second British army of the war being captured, that American combatants were finally recognized as POWs by the Parliament of Great Britain in 1782.
Read more about Prisoners In The American Revolutionary War: Background, American Prisoners, British and German Prisoners
Famous quotes containing the words prisoners, american and/or war:
“We are all conceived in close prison; in our mothers’ wombs, we are close prisoners all; when we are born, we are born but to the liberty of the house; prisoners still, though within larger walls; and then all our life is but a going out to the place of execution, to death.”
—John Donne (c. 1572–1631)
“Most American children suffer too much mother and too little father.”
—Gloria Steinem (20th century)
“No spoon has yet destroyed a mouth, but the knife of war cuts portions that are hard to swallow. Perhaps the big mouths of the privileged are able to cope with them, but they dull the teeth of the little people and ruin their stomachs.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)