Notes

This story is about the start of the American War for Independence. After discovering the continent, multiple countries took their share of America, until they fought between each other and only England remained as the “owner” of this colony.

This story starts roughly at that moment, and ends the moment England has been pushed out of the country and America decided to declare itself independent. The battles and wars after that, until we reach the America we know today, will happen in other stories.

For a large part, this story is based on truth and correct. The largest events have all happened, but the exact execution of them (in this story) is made-up. All named characters were important figures, but they weren’t necessarily friends or involved with the actual fighting.

For example, in reality it was general Knox who took the cannons out of Fort Ticonderoga and delivered them in Boston. (After a dangerous and complicated journey that took weeks, through snow-covered hills. Unfortunately, I had no space to expand on this in the story.) When they were placed on the hill, the Brits still had a solid plan to storm them and win. They had the manpower and the weapons. But … the only reason the plan failed was because of an unpredicted storm.

In other words, the only reason Boston was taken by the Americans that day, was a coincidence such as extreme weather. Hopefully this story shows how often this idea of luck or coincidence turned out to be a big factor in large historic events.

(There are stories about troops who accidentally entered a city/country on a national holiday and thus received basically no resistance from the enemy. Or, conversely, troops who accidentally ended up in the harshest winter ever and had to abandon their military campaign—even if they would have surely won otherwise.)

Most of all, though, I wanted to show how special all of this was. How unique that 60+ men, all representatives of different colonies, came together for years and talked about how they’d become a free and independent country. How extraordinary that they saw a future with a form of government that did not look like anything that existed at the time. And how they achieved that together, without anyone ever trying to seize power for themselves, or, I don’t know, attacking congress and killing them.

It’s as if we’d have a congress now with one representative per country, from all over the world, who would discuss for five years how to create a better form of government than democracy. Something most couldn’t even imagine right now. With the final goal to also actually implement those ideas and make them a reality as soon as possible.

In that sense, America has always been different and the stereotype of “the free world” is earned. At the same time, as the story shows, they could do this because all those men were rich and not directly in danger. Until that moment, of course, that they officially put their signature on the declaration of independence …

As always, I encourage you to read and research more about these events if you want to know more.

This story was also an experiment. Never before did I write a story that moves through so many important highlights in a major event. Earlier stories about a historic fact really focus on one thing and make up everything else. But this one tries to show a long chain of decisions and battles.

Did the experiment succeed? I don’t know! The story tries to do too much now and jumps between events too quickly. This means that I saw many opportunities for tense scenes … which already had to be over after only ten paragraphs!

It really is an entirely different way of telling a story, different from what I usually do. Instead of devoting one chapter to one crucial conversation, fight, whatever … these things now happen in 1/3 of a chapter, as if summarized from afar.

But because I tried, I learned from it. Future stories that are so deeply about history will probably consider a shorter list of highlights.

Perhaps this story is simply the perfect example of the difference between a story and a sequence of (true) events.

Characters

• Wasserbox (George Washington) = a soldier who fought for England at first, but then switches sides and ends up leading the entire Continental Army.
• Ajay (John Jay) = a rich philosopher who incited rebellious action against the Brits.
• Jefizon (Thomas Jefferson) = a person who stated he wouldn’t survive without books, who used that knowledge to write the Declaration of Independence (among other things).
• Fracclin (Benjamin Franklin) = an eccentric man who was unpredictable and chaotic, but also charismatic and diplomatic. Sent to France to convince them to join the war, for he was by far the best one to do that. Besides politician or “thinker”, he also had an endless list of hobbies such as inventor and publisher.
• Bardams (John Adams) = known as very serious, curt and formal. But also extremely smart and a good leader, which is why he often got the lead and spoke the most at Continental Congresses. He was instrumental in making that declaration of independence work, for in the end nearly sixty people had to all agree on it.
• Fuja (not based on a real person) = a “Native American” who lost her home and family to British colonists. Wants more action (less talking) and falls in love with Jefizon, which Ajay forbids because it would make them untrustworthy or stupid.
• Beeris (not based on a real person) = an ex-slave, but most of all the Demigod of Luck who has lived for a thousand years and always tries to give the “good side” just that extra bit of luck they need to win.

I left out several important characters to streamline things, such as Alexander Hamilton. Those people will only become relevant in subsequent stories, mostly because they only became relevant then in real life too.