The American Revolution
Explain imperial crisis, Enlightenment ideas, colonial resistance, independence, military turning points, and revolutionary limits.
A lesson of US History, in Colonial America and the Founding, about 25 minutes.
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to explain how a tax dispute became a war for independence, read a primary source for the claim it is making, and put the decisive events in the order that shows cause rather than just chronology.
A War About Who Decides
Britain won the Seven Years' War in 1763 and finished it deeply in debt. The colonies had been defended at enormous expense, so Parliament did what any government does after an expensive war: it raised taxes.
The colonists' objection was not mainly that the taxes were high. By the standards of the time they were low, lower than what people in Britain paid.
The objection was who had voted for them.
No taxation without representation.
A colonist had no member in Parliament. To Parliament this was not a problem, because a member was said to represent the whole empire, not just the people who elected him. To the colonists that was an argument for having no say at all.
So from the beginning the two sides were arguing about different things. One side was discussing a budget. The other was discussing consent.
The Sequence That Made It a War
Each measure produced a response, and each response produced a harsher measure. Twelve years of that turned a tax dispute into a war.
| Year | Britain acts | The colonies respond |
|---|---|---|
| 1765 | Stamp Act taxes printed matter | Stamp Act Congress, boycotts; the act is repealed |
| 1767 | Townshend Acts tax imports | Boycotts again, troops sent to Boston |
| 1770 | Troops fire on a crowd | The Boston Massacre becomes propaganda |
| 1773 | Tea Act props up the East India Company | Boston Tea Party destroys the cargo |
| 1774 | Coercive Acts close the port | First Continental Congress meets |
| 1775 | Troops march on Concord | Fighting begins at Lexington |
| 1776 | Parliament will not negotiate | Declaration of Independence |
Read down the middle column and it is a government restoring order. Read down the right and it is a people refusing to be governed without consent. Both columns are true, which is what makes this worth studying rather than memorizing.
Put in order
Drag them into sequence, earliest first.
Timeline: The Road to War
The list you just ordered, on a real axis. Watch what the spacing tells you that an ordered list cannot.
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