Britain wasn’t giving up its colonies without a fight! Even before the Declaration of Independence, the British had troops in Boston.
They were there to make sure the colonists obeyed the hated British laws. These troops fought local farmers and other colonists near the Massachusetts towns of Lexington and Concord. It was the first battle of the American Revolution.
A revolution is an act in which an old government is removed by force and a new one is put in its place. It took the American colonies eight years to gain their independence from Britain. Finally, the colonies won! Britain no longer ruled them. The 13 colonies became the first 13 states of a free country called the United States of America.
