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If you sometimes don’t want to do what your parents tell you, then you know how Great Britain’s 13 American colonies felt in the 1770s. British people had been coming to America since 1607. They had come for many reasons: religious freedom, making money, and a new life, among others.
Many colonists had differences with Britain. But most still considered themselves loyal subjects of the Crown.
Starting around 1763, arguments between Britain and the colonies got worse. The French and Indian War was over. Britain had driven the French from the continent. But it had huge war debts. Parliament (the lawmaking body of Britain) felt the colonies should help pay these debts. The Americans disagreed. They said they shouldn’t be taxed because they had no representation in Parliament. The British offered to let the colonists elect representatives to Parliament. The colonists said no. They thought they’d never have enough votes to have any real power. Problems between the colonists and Britain continued. On April 19, 1775, an armed conflict began.
◀ On March 5, 1770, some colonists began yelling at British soldiers guarding the customhouse in Boston, Massachusetts. The mob threw snowballs, rocks, and ice. One person clubbed a British soldier. The British started shooting. Five colonists died. The first was Crispus Attucks (pictured), a runaway slave. At the trial, future U.S. president John Adams successfully defended the British soldiers against a murder charge. He said the angry mob made them do it. Adams later changed his mind about this conflict. It’s now known as the Boston Massacre.
▲ By 1773, the only British tax on the colonies was the one on tea. It didn’t cost the colonists a lot of money. But it was a hated symbol of Britain’s power. On the night of December 16, 1773, 50 leading citizens of Boston dressed up as Mohawk Indians. They boarded three British ships. Then they threw 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor. The tea was worth about $2 million in today’s money. So Britain closed the port of Boston. Then it put Massachusetts under military control. In protest, representatives from every colony except Georgia met in Philadelphia. They formed the First Continental Congress. They also agreed to end trade with Britain.
You might think these tax protests were because the colonists suffered financially. But in fact they had the highest per capita (per person) income of any people in the world.
