American Revolution Summary

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

It is also known as the war for independence. The first 13 British colonies in America were ruled by the king of Great Britain. The colonist were not happy about how the government managed the colonies. They were very discontent, mostly with all the taxes the king was imposing on them.

Why was the king charging so many taxes? Well, Great Britain was at war with the French who were also immigrating to north America, and had acquired a huge debt to fight the war, after the war was over, the king of Great Britain expected the colonist to help to pay the debt of the kingdom. The colonist did not agree. So the king started to create other taxes with the purpose to raise income from the colonies with taxes such as the Sugar Act, which was a tax on sugar and molasses, Stamp Act, printed material, all legal documents and even playing cards required a stamp, Tea Act, which was a tax on tea.

Every action had a reaction, the colonist started a riot at a port in Boston, and in that riot, British Soldier shot some colonist, not many people died, but it upset the colonist very much. After that, a group of rebels called the sons of liberty planned a boycott, and they went up in a ship that was arriving to the Boston port, and threw all the tea that the boat was carrying on the ocean, the value of the tea surpassed $1,000,000 dollars. This boycott was better known as the Boston Tea Party.

Losing a million dollars plus the taxes that could have been collected, the king was very mad, and he created a legislation that was the intolerable Acts, that were created to punish Massachusetts colonist for destroying the tea. This act consisted on closing the Harbor, forbidding town meetings and others.

All of these events led the colonist to create a continental congress, which purpose was to appeal the king, the king turned down all the colonists’ requests and there was no other choice, but to start a war for independence. The colonies officially decided to separate from Great Britain and become a country. This war lasted 8 years, and by July of 1776 revolutionaries were in control of all thirteen colonies. Independence was declared and ratified on July 4, 1776.