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In 1763, French power in America ended. Britain took all of its possessions east of the Mississippi River. ‎France ceded Louisiana to Spain in compensation for Spain’s loss of the Floridas. After few months settlers ‎began flowing into Indian lands, the lands of the Seneca, Delaware, Ottawa and others. Indian resentment ‎of settlers led to bloodshed. The war, called Pontiac’s Rebellion. The rebellion convinced King George III ‎and Parliament that the fighting should not be repeated. The British decided to keep the settlers and the ‎angry tribes apart. In October 1763, the king proclaimed that all lands beyond the Appalachians be closed to ‎any purchases and settlements.‎

Grenville Taxes the Colonies
Although Britain’s victory in the French War and Pontiac’s Rebellion expanded its empire and ‎strengthened its control, it proved costly. Britain’s national debt had doubled. The empire had to be ‎protected and governed, and that cost money. Britain’s new minister of finance, George Grenville, thought ‎that the colonies should bear some of these costs. Britain had levied customs duties to regulate colonial ‎trade. The British customs service levied lower duties on goods brought in from Britain than on goods ‎imported from other nations. However, colonists smuggled many goods. Grenville found that the customs ‎service in America cost more to operate than it collected in duties. To stop the smuggling, he strengthened ‎the service. Collectors were encouraged to use warrants, called writs of assistance, to search buildings that ‎might contain illegal goods. Moreover, accused smugglers would no longer be tried in courts with juries of ‎their fellow colonists. Instead, they would be tried in British admiralty.‎

Furthermore, Grenville imposed new duties on the colonists as a way to raise money. In 1764, for ‎instance, Parliament passed the Sugar Act which added or increased duties on foreign imports such as ‎sugar, cloth, wine, and coffee. In 1765, it found a way to reduce Britain’s costs for its troops in America. As ‎a result, it passed the Quartering Act which required colonial assemblies to provide the royal troops with ‎barracks and provisions. During the same year, it passed the Stamp Act under which written material such ‎as newspapers, contracts, diplomas, birth certificates, and advertisement would have to be printed on a ‎special stamped paper.‎

Previous acts of Parliament had infuriated colonists; most colonists realized that they were not being ‎taxed more than people in Britain, who also paid a stamp tax. But colonists objected to the way they were ‎taxed. The colonial assemblies gave colonists direct representation, because the colonists themselves elected ‎the delegates who levied taxes. The colonists, however, did not elect representatives to the British ‎Parliament.‎
A small but determined minority of colonists set to work. These Patriots formed groups called the Sons ‎of Liberty and the Daughters of Liberty. Patriotic merchants refused to trade with Britain. The atmosphere ‎of protest also generated the boycott of the British goods. In response, representatives from nine colonies ‎met in New York in October 1765. At the Congress, a South Carolina representative put the new spirit of ‎unity into words: “There ought to be no New Englander, no New Yorkers, known on the continent, but all ‎of us Americans.” In a petition to Parliament, the Congress urged repeal of the Stamp Act.‎
The petition reached an England already divided over the tax issue. The American boycott had hurt ‎English merchants. In March 1766, the Stamp Act was repealed, but Parliament in return passed the ‎Declaratory Act according to which it upheld Parliament’s power to make laws for the colonies in all cases ‎whatsoever.‎

The Townshend Acts
Later, Britain was deeply affected by a depression. Like Grenville, Charles Townshend turned to the ‎colonies for revenue. In May 1767, Parliament passed the Townshend Acts. New duties were levied on ‎imports such as paper, glass, tea. The acts urged the establishment of a supervisory board in Boston to keep a ‎close eye on the collection of duties. Townshend also enforced the Quartering Act that the colonial ‎assemblies had been evading. In December 1766, the New York assembly refused to raise money to supply ‎British troops, claiming that the Quartering Act was a tax. The third Townshend Act suspended the New ‎York assembly for its defiance. Through that gesture, the colonists concluded that no assembly was safe. ‎Without assemblies, there would be no representative government. Across the colonies, people protested ‎against theses taxes disguised as duties.‎

The Boston Massacre
In September 1768, two regiments of British soldiers arrived in Boston and took up quarters in the hostile ‎city. Throughout 1769, an uneasy standoff prevailed. Then, on March 5, 1770, a crowd gathered at the ‎Boston customs-house, throwing snowballs at British troops guarding the place. When the smoke cleared, ‎three of the people in the crowd lay dead, and two were wounded.‎

The British commander, Thomas Preston, and eight soldiers were arrested and charged with murder. But ‎Massachusetts lawyer John Adams worried that if the British could not get a fair trial in America, so he ‎himself undertook the defense of the British. The Patriot lawyer managed to prove that the crowd had ‎provoked the shooting. Preston and six soldiers were acquitted.‎

In England, Lord Frederick North, the new Prime Minister, felt that the Townshend Acts had been a ‎mistake. Worse, British trade to major colonial ports had already been cut in half by the boycott. In 1770, ‎consequently, Parliament repealed the Townshend Acts. But Lord North did not want American colonists to ‎think that, by protesting, they could control Parliament. He advised to keep the tea tax as a symbol of ‎parliamentary authority.‎

The Tea Act and the Boston Tea Party
In 1773, Parliament gave the colonists another reason to protest when it passed the Tea Act. The purpose ‎was to aid the failing British East India Company which sold tea to America. British wholesale merchants ‎had bought tea from that company, then sold it to American wholesalers, who sold it to retailers to reach the ‎shops, its price was high; so Americans bought cheaper tea smuggled in from Holland. The Tea Act allowed ‎the company to sell its tea directly to American retailers. Additionally, Parliament reduced the duty the ‎colonies would have to pay for the imported tea. Now, the price of the company’s tea was less than that of ‎smuggled tea. The act came to hurt the business of American wholesale merchants. Once that kind of ‎monopoly was established, colonial merchants began to wonder, how soon would the precedent apply to ‎other commodities?‎

As a result, colonial merchants alerted people to the new danger. The British government, they reported, ‎was trying to purchase their loyalty and passivity with cheap tea. Popular hostility within New York and ‎Philadelphia forced ships’ captains to leave without unloading. In Maryland, patriots burned a ship carrying ‎tea. In Boston, they disguised themselves as Indians, boarded the ships, and dumped the tea into the harbor. ‎This event – the Boston Tea Party – became the symbol of an angry people.‎

The Boston Tea Party outraged the British authorities. Destruction of valuable property could not be taken ‎slightly. So, in May 1774, Parliament passed the four Coercive Acts which were designed to punish ‎Massachusetts, the heart of American patriotism. Massachusetts would be an example to other colonies ‎where patriots might be tempted to destroy British tea.‎
The Boston Port Act closed the harbor until the tea was paid for.‎

The Administration of Justice Act protected Crown officials in Massachusetts. If British officials were ‎accused of committing an offense while collecting duties, they could be tried in another colony or in Britain. ‎The Massachusetts Government Act repealed most of the colony’s independent rights under the ‎Massachusetts charter. Members of the governor’s council appointed by the king. Under this act, ‎Massachusetts civil authority had been replaced by military authority.‎
The Quartering Act was applied to all colonies. The new act stated that if the quarters were not available, ‎troops would be quartered in occupied dwelling even homes.‎
The Coercive Acts shocked people throughout the colonies. Colonists who called them the Intolerable ‎Acts agreed to meet at a continental congress to decide what to do. The Massachusetts assembly, ‎consequently, suggested a meeting at Philadelphia.‎

In September 1774, the First Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia. There were delegates from all ‎the colonies except Georgia, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and the Floridas. The Adams cousins, that is, John ‎Adams, and Samuel Adams, a member of the Massachusetts assembly, and other patriots were already ‎talking about independence if their demands were not met. Although they were a minority in the Congress, ‎these patriots were united and determined. One of them was Patrick Henry, a member of the Virginia House ‎of Burgesses. Another was Richard Henry Lee, a Virginia planter, who strongly believed in print as a means ‎of spreading the Patriot point of view. Also a member of the group considering independence was ‎Christopher Gadsen, a plantation owner. Other patriots, such as Virginia planter George Washington, took a ‎more moderate view and wanted to compromise with Britain.‎

In the First Continental Congress, the delegates drew up a list of resolves in which they demanded an end ‎to the Coercive Acts, claiming that Parliament had no right to tax the colonies. The First Continental ‎Congress adjourned on October 26, 1774. People in Massachusetts were already preparing for war. In ‎Britain, King George took the colonial actions as open defiance, and Parliament declared Massachusetts to ‎be in a state of rebellion.‎
In May 1775, delegates convened at Philadelphia for the Second Continental Congress. The colonists ‎were already at war with Britain. They created a Continental Army, and George Washington of Virginia ‎became its commander-in-chief.‎

As the breach between the American colonies and Britain was widened by bloodshed, moderates in the ‎Continental Congress searched for a compromise with Britain. In July1775, the delegates sent a petition to ‎King George. In The Olive Branch Petition, they pledged their loyalty to the king and asked him to resolve ‎colonial grievances, which they blamed on Parliament. In November, the delegates received their answer. ‎The king, who had refused to read their petition, declared the colonies to be in a state of rebellion. ‎Consequently, he closed the colonies to all trade, and commanded that American ships under sail be seized. ‎The king’s actions unified Congress which was for the first time truly representative of all colonies as ‎Georgia had sent delegates in September.‎

Common Sense
One person who helped Americans to define their loyalties was Thomas Paine, who had migrated to the ‎colonies from England. In 1776, he published Common Sense, a pamphlet in which he called for ‎independence. Paine wrote: “There is something very absurd in supposing a continent to be perpetually ‎governed by an island…. England (belongs) to Europe. America to itself.” He also attacked King George, ‎calling him a “royal brute” who menaced American freedom. Within a few months, 150,000 copies of ‎Common Sense had been sold. First North Carolina, then Virginia, advised their delegates in Congress to ‎vote for independence.‎

The Declaration of Independence
After debate, Congress formed a committee to write a declaration of independence. The committee members ‎were Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman. Thomas ‎Jefferson, a Virginia legislator, was chosen, to do the actual writing of the document. He had studied the ‎political theory of John Locke, a philosopher of the previous century. Locke had written that ‎government

was a contract, or compact, between the government and the people. If the government violated the people’s ‎natural rights, they could rebel and set up another government.‎
Jefferson applied Locke’s theory to the preamble of the Declaration. The last section of the Declaration ‎pointed out that Americans had tried, and failed, to convince Britain to set right these wrongs. Therefore, ‎the representatives of the United States of America, acting by the “authority of the good people of these ‎colonies,” declared their complete independence from Great Britain. Congress debated what Jefferson had ‎written, making several changes. Then on the evening of July 4, 1776, the delegates approved the final ‎wording of the Declaration. All colonies voted for it except New York, which abstained.‎
The American Revolution lasted eight years. The fighting began at Lexington, Massachusetts on April ‎‎19, 1775 and then spilt over into the rest of the colonies. The peace treaty that was signed in Paris on April ‎‎15, 1783 acknowledged the independence, freedom, and sovereignty of the thirteen former British colonies, ‎now states.‎