In 1492, Christopher Columbus, unknowingly, discovered the New World. This New World was rather notorious for having a lot of gold, leading many European countries to set up shop. After many years of waring with each other and the natives, the European powers had gained quite a decent amount of land.
A small strip between Britain and France’s land in the region was disputed by the two sides, until the British sent up-and-comer, George Washington to the region to sort things out. This eventually lead to the Seven Years War between Britain and France.
Britain came out as the victor but at a great monetary cost. In order to get their money back, they decided to tax the American colonies to hell and back. Think of any random every day object and there was probably a tax for it. Stamps? Paper? Sugar? Tea? All taxed
Not only this but the colonies had no representatives in Parliament, despite them being taxed. This is called “Taxation without Representation”, which was drilled into my brain by my Year 11 History teacher.
The Americans ended up boycotting all British goods, meaning Britain was still poor. Eventually, King George had to concede and removed all taxes except for the one on tea and sent 1000 British troops to Boston, forcing the colonists to pay.
On March 5th, 1770, a large group of Colonists came to protest against the soldiers. As back-up arrived for the soldiers, more Colonists arrived and began to throw things at the soldiers, from snowballs to rocks. Eventually, the soldiers had enough, took aim and fired.
5 civilians were killed in the massacre. Many Colonial newspapers claimed this was a brutal attack against the colonists and a war crime.
The people were incredibly angered and the violence escalated. Schooners that ran aground would be raided, pro-British politicians would have their houses burnt down and on December 16th, 1773, a group of colonists would disguise themselves as Native Americans, jump onto a shipment of tea and pour it all into the Boston Harbour.
In response, the British dissolved their assembly, revoked their charter and sent 3000 more troops to Boston. Boston was now a directly British Occupied City. And the people were angry. Fearing they may be next, other colonies gathered to discuss what to do next
They decided to politely ask Britain to stop and after they (obviously) said no, they decided to set up groups of soldiers across the 13 colonies, to be ready at a minute’s notice. Hearing this, the British sent out 700 troops into the American Occupied Massachusetts. After setting off to concord in the middle of the night, many Americans were heard to be in the streets yelling “The British are Coming!” The two sides encountered in Lexington. After minutes of yelling, one side shot first. This is considered to be the start of the Revolutionary War.