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The French and Indian War
In the beginning, the colonies were proud to be British. But when the French and Indian War took place (1754 – 1763), King George III lost a great deal of money due to buying expensive supplies for his army and the colonies. In order to pay off his debt, he imposed taxes on the colonies without their consent. This outraged the colonists. -
Boston Massacre
The Quartering Act incensed the colonies most. The king and parliament revived an old law requiring colonists to house British soldiers in their homes. Because of the Boston Massacre (4 years earlier, in 1770), the colonists were afraid of the soldiers in their homes. They would lay awake at night with fear for their children embedded in their hearts like a knife. -
Boston Tea Party
Boston Tea Party, 1774 The colonists decided they would see none of the tea leave the ship. A group of colonists dressed as American Indians boarded the ship at night and threw the tea overboard into the harbor, ruining all of it. When they saw one of their comrades trying to stuff some in his pockets, they stripped the tea from his grasp and sent him home without his pants. They then stripped the ship owner of his clothes and tarred and feathered him. -
Declaration of Rights and Grievances
The congress was in session for two solid months in September and October of 1774. After much dissension, they decided to send a "Declaration of Rights and Grievances" to King George, hoping their demands would be met. At this point, the colonists still could not foresee separating from Britain. -
Paul Revere's Ride
It came soon enough. Paul Revere's ride on April 19, 1775 was to announce the approach of British soldiers to stamp out colonist resistance in the towns of Lexington and Concord. -
The Continental Congress gathering
It was time to do something. The Continental Congress gathered again in May of 1775, where they would become and remain the government of the colonies until the end of the Revolutionary War. -
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
