THE 13 COLONIES IN AMERICAN REVOLUTION (1774)

The 18th-century struggle by 13 American colonies to gain independence from Great Britain, culminating in victory throught the War of Independence (1775-83) and in the formation of the United States of America.


Britain´s vastly expanded empire in North America after the last French and Indian War (1754-63) resulted in the need for increased revenues and larger troop requirements in the New World. A series of British ministries, supported by George III, felt justified in trying to make the colonies share these burdens and chose to disregard the political and economic maturity that had developed over 150 years of American history by instituting more direct control from London.


Resisting those policies, the colonists found particularly objectionable the quartering provisions for British soldiers (1765, 1774) and the unprecedented revenue taxes levied by Parliament in the Sugar Act (1764), Stamp Act (1765), and Townshend Acts (1767). "Patriots" throughout the colonies responded by noncompliance with the laws, committees of correspondence, economic boycott, agitation in the press, and public rallies.


No unified movement for national resistance developed, however, until the First Continental Congress met in 1774 to support Boston, then under British military jurisdiction following the Boston Tea Party. What began as insistence on the rights of Englishmen gradually moved into the more fundamental Enlightenment concepts of the rights of man; many American conservatives who resisted tightened British control were not prepared for the proliferation of demands for political and social reform spawned in the name of change.


About one-third of the American colonists remained loyal to Britain, but moderates and radicals gained a majority after fighting broke out in 1775 and independence was declared in 1776.


In the very process of a united effort to wage and finance war, the 13 colonies forged a nation, establishing an army, a central legislature, executive departments, and foreign alliances and diplomacy. The independence of the new nation was acknowledged by Great Britain at the Treaty of Paris (1783), marking the first cleavage in the British colonial system.


Though political and economic power remained largely in the same hands after the war as before, new written constitutions in the various states guaranteed civil rights and separation of church and state, afforded greater popular control through referenda and constitutional conventions, provided for legislative predominance over the executive, and extended suffrage.


Internally, the changes wrought by the American Revolution were less than radical (slavery remained an important institution in American life), but as the first succesful attempt to achieve independence by a European colonial possession, it had widespread ramifications. In its antimonarchical character, its republican institutions, and its espousal of Enlightenment ideals, the American Revolution gave impetus to the trend toward change in Europe, culminating in the French Revolution (1789), and also helped inspire the independence movement in Latin America.