Protest Of The Colonies: The Stamp Act

The American colonists objected to the collection of taxes by the British Parliament, a body in which they had no direct representation. Until the 1760s, the British-American colonies had a high degree of autonomy in their internal affairs, which were regulated by the colonial legislative bodies. The passage of the Stamp Act of 1765, which introduced internal taxes for the colonies, caused a protest of the colonies and a meeting of representatives of several colonies in Congress on the Stamp Act. Tensions eased after the British repealed the Stamp Act, but escalated again with the passage of the Townsend Laws in 1767. The British government sent troops to Boston in 1768 to quell the riots that led to the Boston Massacre in 1770. Gorenje Gaspe. In Rhode Island in 1772 and the Boston Tea Party in December 1773 further increased tensions. The British responded by closing Boston Harbor and passing several punitive laws that effectively annulled the privileges of self-government of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The other colonies rallied around Massachusetts, and a group of American patriot leaders formed their own government in late 1774 at the Continental Congress to coordinate their resistance to Great Britain; the other colonists remained loyal to the crown and were known as loyalists or Tories.

Open warfare began when British regular troops sent to seize a cache of military supplies clashed with local Patriot militia in Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. The Patriot militia, joined by the newly formed Continental Army, then besieged British troops in Boston. Each colony formed a Provincial Congress that took power away from the former colonial governments, suppressed loyalties, and contributed to the Continental Army led by General George Washington. The Continental Congress declared King George III a tyrant who trampled on the rights of the colonists as Englishmen, and on July 2, 1776, they declared the colonies free and independent states. The leadership of the patriots professed a political philosophy of liberalism and republicanism, rejecting the monarchy and aristocracy. and they proclaimed that all people are created equal.

The Patriots unsuccessfully tried to invade Quebec in the winter of 1775-1776. The newly formed Continental Army drove the British military out of Boston in March 1776, but that summer the British captured New York and its strategic harbor, which they held throughout the war. The Royal Navy blockaded the ports and briefly captured other cities, but they failed to destroy Washington's forces. The Continental Army captured the British army at the Battle of Saratoga in October 1777, and then France entered the war as an ally of the United States. Great Britain then refocused its war to make France the main enemy. Great Britain also tried to hold the southern states with the expected loyalist help, and the war moved south. Charles Cornwallis captured an army in Charleston, South Carolina, in early 1780, but he failed to attract enough loyal civilian volunteers to take control of the territory. Finally, a combined American and French force captured the second British army at Yorktown in the fall of 1781, effectively ending the war. The Treaty of Paris was signed on September 3, 1783, officially ending the conflict and confirming the complete separation of the new nation from the British Empire. The United States seized almost all of the territory east of the Mississippi River and south of the Great Lakes, while the British retained control of northern Canada and Spain retained control of Florida.

Among the significant results of the revolution were the independence of America and friendly economic trade with Great Britain. Americans adopted the Constitution of the United States, creating a strong national government that included an elected executive branch, a national judicial system and an elected bicameral congress representing the states in the Senate and the population in the House of Representatives. About 60,000 loyalists migrated to other British territories, especially to British North America (Canada), but the vast majority remained in the United States.