American Revolution

American Revolution is the term given to the war for independence fought by the British North American colonies from 1775 to 1783. For a century and a half following the first English settlements along the coast of North America, the British government mostly ignored them. All of the colonies had written charters, issued either by the King or by the corporate structure that had originally funded them. By the 1750s, most of the colonies had a royal governor, appointed by the King. The colonies were expected to levy their own taxes to pay for the upkeep of the governor, the other executive offices, and their court systems. Beyond that, little was expected of the colonists beyond trade with the mother country. In fact, the colonial legislatures usually used their responsibility to support the governor as a weapon against him. Governors demanding too much power or being otherwise unpopular with the elites who controlled the local legislatures often found themselves unpaid.

The French and Indian War between Great Britain and France (1754–1763; known in Europe as the Seven Years' War) saw North America become a major theater of operations. Several armies from the mother country were dispatched to the colonies, which were expected to support them. Depending on the tact and persuasive powers of the English commanders, many of the colonists began to view the “protection” offered by the armies as a mixed blessing. To this uneasiness was added the personal arrogance of many of the British officer corps, and their widespread contempt for the colonials. The upper-class Americans took this disdain particularly badly, having considered themselves “country squires” every bit as well off as their English counterparts. In fact, many of the American officers who would later lead the Revolution began their military careers during this war and remembered, with disgust, being looked down on by their English counterparts.

After the Seven Years' War ended in 1763 with a crushing English victory, the British government found itself with a massive war debt and a much enlarged empire to police. The government decided that the colonists should pay a portion of the costs that were, from the government's perspective, incurred to protect them. The colonists thought otherwise. Over the next 10 years, Parliament tried repeated schemes to impose some kind of tax on the colonies; each [Page 96]attempt was met with increasing, and increasingly violent, resistance.

Massachusetts in particular found itself in a cycle of increasingly violent response to Parliament's attempts to exercise control. After Bostonians dumped a load of taxed tea in the harbor (the famed Boston Tea Party) on December 16, 1773, London shut down the port and occupied it with British regular army forces. The rest of the colonies rallied to Massachusetts' support, mindful that any of them could be next to feel Parliament's wrath. A Congress of all of the colonies was called for Philadelphia.