Independence of British States



War of Independence


The American War of Independence (1775-1783) was a conflict between Great Britain and its 13 colonies (Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia) to achieve the independence of Great Britain.

Casus belli:

-Deficient administration: Each colony had its own Assembly with elected members, but there were many conflicts between the Governors and the representatives of the colonies. he administrative system of each colony was controlled by the British Parliament. The British Parliament didn’t recognize the colonial problems, so the colonist raised their voices against the administrative system.

-Restrictions on Colonial Trade: The British government regulated the colonial trade and imposed tariffs to some products. Thus, the colonials carried out the Boston Tea Party, in which the colonials destroyed an entire shipment of tea sent by the East India Company as a protest for the high-prized tariffs.

-Influence of the Seven Years War: This war enabled the people to stand by themselves. They didn’t want to maintain the British Army.

-Writers and Philosophers: Some American writers, like Samuel Adams, were defenders of the independence. In addition to that, these writers were at the same time influenced by the Illustration and its modern ideas.

-The Stamp Act (1765): England decided that the American colonists must support the Army’s expenses. So, George Greneville, the Prime Minister, passed the Stamp Act in 1765. The tax which was collected from this stamp was to be used for the expenditure of the Standing Army in America. The stamp was destroyed by the colonials, and their cry was No taxation without representation (representation in the British Parliament).

-The Declaratory Act (1766): It repleaded the Stamp Act. It declared that the Mother Country had the right to impose taxes on the Colonies. This created a storm among the Americans and they became revolutionary.

-The Declaration of Independence (1776): On 4th July 1776, the 13 American Colonies met at Philadelphia. A paper was drafted by Thomas Jefferson and this Declaration of Independence was unanimously accepted in the Congress by the thirteen American Colonies. This historic document proclaimed the cause of the war.

Course of the War:


By 1775, tensions between the American colonies and the British government approached the breaking point, In the spring of 1775, General Thomas Gage, the British governor of Massachusetts, received instructions from England to seize all stores of weapons and gunpowder accessible to the American insurgents.
The Boston Patriots had been preparing for such a military action by the British for some time, and upon learning of the British plan, Patriots Paul Revere and William Dawes were ordered to set out to rouse the militiamen and warn Adams and Hancock. When the British troops arrived at Lexington, Adams, Hancock, and Revere had already fled to Philadelphia, and a group of militiamen were waiting. The Patriots were routed within minutes, but warfare had begun, leading to calls to arms across the Massachusetts countryside.

When the British troops reached Concord, they found themselves encircled by hundreds of armed Patriots. They managed to destroy the military supplies the Americans had collected. By the time the British finally reached the safety of Boston, nearly 300 British soldiers had been killed, wounded, or were missing in action. The Patriots suffered fewer than 100 casualties.
The battles of Lexington and Concord were the first battles of the American Revolution, a conflict that would escalate from a colonial uprising into a world war that, seven years later, would give birth to the independent United States of America.

Consequences:

After the war, the independence of the Colonies was recognized on the Treaty of Paris (1783). This treaty set the boundaries between Great Britain and the Colonies.


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