What event effectively ended the American Revolutionary War with a British surrender at Yorktown?

• A. British surrender at Yorktown
• B. Battle of Antietam
• C. Boston Tea Party
• D. Proclamation of 1763

Answer: (A)

Understanding how a decisive victory can bring a war toward its end is what this question is getting at. At Yorktown in 1781, American forces under George Washington joined with a strong French army and fleet to trap British general Cornwallis on the Virginia coast. The French navy blocked British ships from relieving or evacuating Cornwallis, while Washington’s forces conducted a successful siege. After days of bombardment, Cornwallis surrendered. That surrender showed Britain that continuing the fight was unlikely to yield a better outcome, so peace negotiations moved forward and led to the Treaty of Paris in 1783, which recognized American independence. The other events listed belong to different times or purposes: the Boston Tea Party was a protest before the war, Antietam occurred during the Civil War, and the Proclamation of 1763 set colonial boundaries after the French and Indian War. The surrender at Yorktown is the turning point that effectively ended major fighting.