The Road to Revolution

The Seven Years' War ended in 1763 with Britain victorious over France, but the peace brought unforeseen consequences. Britain had accumulated an enormous war debt, much of it incurred defending the American colonies from French and Native American threats.

Parliament concluded it was only reasonable that the colonies should contribute to their own defense — and so began a decade of taxation that the colonists found both economically burdensome and constitutionally outrageous.

The Stamp Act of 1765 imposed a direct tax on paper goods of every kind — newspapers, legal documents, playing cards — and ignited a firestorm of protest. 'No taxation without representation' became the rallying cry of a people who had no seats in the Parliament that was taxing them.

The repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766 seemed to offer hope, but Parliament simultaneously passed the Declaratory Act, asserting its absolute right to legislate for the colonies 'in all cases whatsoever.' The Townshend Acts of 1767 imposed new duties on imported goods, and Britain stationed troops in American cities to enforce compliance.

In Boston, the tension boiled over on March 5, 1770, when a crowd of colonists taunted a small squad of redcoats with snowballs and ice chunks. Someone — it remains disputed who — fired. When the smoke cleared, five colonists lay dead, including Crispus Attucks, a Black dockworker who became the first martyr of the Revolution.

Paul Revere's engraving of the 'Boston Massacre' — depicting disciplined soldiers firing into a peaceful crowd — inflamed colonial opinion from Georgia to New Hampshire.

Parliament repealed the Townshend duties except for the tax on tea, hoping to assert the principle of parliamentary supremacy while easing the practical burden. The colonists refused to accept even this fig leaf.

On the night of December 16, 1773, members of the Sons of Liberty, some thinly disguised as Mohawk Indians, boarded three ships in Boston Harbor and dumped 342 chests of British East India Company tea into the water. The value was approximately £10,000 — nearly a million dollars today.

Parliament's response was swift and punishing: the Coercive Acts (which colonists called the Intolerable Acts) closed Boston Harbor, revoked Massachusetts's self-governance, and quartered soldiers in colonial homes. Rather than isolating Massachusetts, Parliament had united all the colonies.

The First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia in September 1774 and coordinated a continent-wide boycott of British goods.

By spring 1775, Massachusetts was on the edge of open rebellion. British General Thomas Gage, aware that colonists were stockpiling weapons at Concord, ordered a night march on April 18 to seize the stores and arrest patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock. Paul Revere and William Dawes rode through the night to warn the countryside.

When the 700 British regulars arrived at Lexington Green at dawn on April 19, they found 77 Minutemen drawn up in two lines under Captain John Parker. Parker reportedly told his men: 'Stand your ground. Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.' A single shot rang out — from which side, no one ever agreed.

Within minutes, eight colonists lay dead and ten were wounded. The war had begun.