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Benjamin Franklin's proposed plan for uniting the colonies in response to French attacks on the frontier.
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When George III became king ,he had different ideas about how he colonies should be governed. He was determined to deal firmly with the American Colonies.
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The French and Indian War started as a struggle between the French and British over land in western Pennsylvania and Ohio. By 1756, several other European countries became involved. Great Britain won the war in 1763 and gained complete control of the eastern third of the continent.
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To help pay for the war, the king and his ministers levied taxes on tea, sugar, glass, paper, and other products. The act imposed the first direct tax on legal documents, pamphlets, newspapers, and even dive and playing cards.
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Nine colonies sent delegates to a meeting in New York called the Stamp Act Congress. This was the first meeting organized by the colonies to protest King George's actions. Delegates to the Congress sent a petition to the king, arguing that only colonial legislatures could impose direct taxes such as the Stamp Tax.
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A group of colonists, dressed as Mohawk Indians, dumped 342 chests of British tea into Boston Harbor.
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In retaliation to the Boston Tea Party, Parliament pass the Coercive Acts, which the colonists called the Intolerable Acts. One of these acts closed Boston Harbor. Another withdrew the right of the Massachusetts colony to govern itself. By the early 1770s, events clearly showed that revolution was not far off.
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Organizations called committees of correspondence were urging resistance to the British. These committees consisted of colonists who wanted to keep in touch with one another as events unfolded.
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The colonists finally imposed an embargo on Britain and agreed not to use British goods. They also proposed a meeting the following year if Britain did not change its policies.
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Within three weeks of the first battles, delegates from all thirteen colonies gathered in Philadelphia for the Second Continental Congress. The Continental Congress immediately assumed the powers of a central government.
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The first battle of the Revolutionary War. British Redcoats clashed with colonial minutemen at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts.
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More than a year after fighting had begun in the colonies, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia did declare for independence. Lee introduced a resolution in the Continental Congress "that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states."
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After Lee's resolution, the Congress promptly named a committee of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman to prepare a written declaration of independence. It explained the reasons for declaring independence.
