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Core historical themes

Competition between European powers: After tobacco prices started to remain stagnant, plantation owners in Virginia wanted to move west into the Ohio River Valley to produce more tobacco and hopefully drive prices of that cash crop up. However, both Britain and France claimed ownership of the lands in the Ohio River Valley. The conflict between the two lead to the start of the Seven Years’ War.

Cooperation with Natives: Both the French and the British cooperated with Native Americans to use their forces in the Seven Years’ War. The French allied with the Hurons, whereas the British allied with the Iroquois. These alliances caused tension after the war in which the British began siding with Native Americans who were against colonial interest to move westward.

Migration after the war: When the Seven Years’ War ended, the British won all of France’s land holdings in colonial America. Colonists wanted to expand westward into these new lands in order to gain more land, but fearing conflicts with Native Americans, Britain passed the Proclamation of 1763. The proclamation prohibited movement west of the Appalachian Mountains, upsetting many colonists who wanted the land to increase their wealth. Thousands of colonists defied the law, moving west to claim land for themselves.

• The Stamp Act was enacted in 1765 by British Parliament. It imposed a direct tax on all printed material in the North American colonies.

• The most politically active segments of colonial society—printers, publishers, and lawyers—were the most negatively affected by the act.

• The Stamp Act intensified colonial hostility toward the British and was a pivotal development on the road to the American Revolution.

The Seven Years’ War and British debt

Between 1754 and 1763, Britain and France—and their respective allies—fought the Seven Years’ War. Though the war was triggered by competing colonial claims to the Ohio territory of North America, the European allies of both Britain and France quickly became involved and the scope of the war widened dramatically to include every European great power except the Ottoman Empire.

The Seven Years' War was a world war that ended with France surrendering all claims to Canada and to territories east of the Mississippi River and Spain ceding Florida to Britain. Although the Treaty of Paris—signed in 1763 formally concluding hostilities—was favorable to Britain, much blood and treasure had been sacrificed in waging the war. After its termination, Britain sought to ease its financial difficulties by taxing the North American colonies.\[^1\]

The Stamp Act

The first measure undertaken for this purpose in the colonies was the Stamp Act. In March 1765, British Prime Minister George Grenville authored the act, which required that all newspapers and documents—including official court documents—in the North American colonies be printed on stamped paper from London. Additionally, the stamped paper had to be purchased in British hard currency, which was much more rare than the abundant colonial paper currency.

The only opposition to the act in Parliament came from William Pitt, Grenville’s brother-in-law turned political rival. Pitt challenged Parliament’s right to tax the colonists. The British Constitution prohibited the taxation of British subjects without their consent, which was provided through representation in Parliament. Though the British had imposed restrictions and duties on colonial trade, the passage of the Stamp Act was the first time they had sought to tax the colonists for the explicit purpose of raising revenue.\[^2\]

Prelude to revolution

The Stamp Act was greeted with widespread and unconcealed hostility in the colonies. Unfortunately for Parliament, the segments of colonial society that were most detrimentally affected by the act—newspaper printers, students, attorneys, and judges—were also among the most politically active. They mobilized popular opposition to the act, which frequently took the form of street protests that sometimes turned violent. Newspapers ominously predicted the demise of the journalistic profession.

While townspeople rioted, colonial assemblies debated. Samuel Adams and Benjamin Franklin were among the most influential voices arguing that since the American colonies were not represented in the British Parliament, that body had no right to tax them. The slogan “No taxation without representation!” arose from colonial opposition to the Stamp Act and proved enduring. The British countered with the theory of virtual representation, which held that members of Parliament were obligated to defend the interests of British subjects and colonists alike.

In October 1765, delegates from the colonies convened in New York City at the Stamp Act Congress, where they drew up formal petitions to the British Parliament and to King George III to repeal the act. It was the first unified colonial response to British policy and it provided the British a taste of what would come soon thereafter.

The British had been receiving reports of mob violence in the colonies, and Prime Minister Grenville had been replaced by Lord Rockingham, who proved more sympathetic than his predecessor to the colonists’ demands.

In March 1766, the Stamp Act was repealed. But the stage for the American Revolution had already been set.\[^3\]

• Pontiac was a leader of the Odawa tribe located in the area of modern-day Ontario, Canada, and the Great Lakes region.

• He led a rebellion against the British colonists after they expanded their military presence in the Great Lakes area during and after the French and Indian War.

• Pontiac’s uprising demonstrated the viability of pantribal cooperation in the struggle against European-American territorial expansionism and contributed to the deterioration of relations between Great Britain and its North American colonies.

The Seven Years' War

The Seven Years' War, also called the French and Indian War, which broke out in 1754 and lasted until 1763, was an imperial war between Britain and France over control of the Ohio territory. The French and British rushed into the region to build forts and establish a military presence in order to solidify their colonial claims on the area. A young George Washington, at only 21 years of age, was sent on behalf of the Virginia colony to build a fort at the forks of the Ohio river in what is modern-day Pittsburgh. When Washington and his small force of Virginians and Native American allies attacked a French reconnaissance party, the French counterattacked and drove them out of their fort and back into Virginia. The skirmish led to an outright declaration of hostilities.\[^1\]

The war pitted the British colonists and their Native American allies against the French colonists and their Native American allies. Though the French gained the advantage in the early years of the war, the British ultimately triumphed, and in the Treaty of Paris, signed in 1763, France surrendered nearly all of its claims to North American territory. The Native American tribes of the region rejected the notion that France had the authority to cede their lands to the British.

Moreover, the Seven Years' War heightened tensions between the British and its North American colonies; once the French were removed from the region, a variety of other issues arose, including disagreements over westward expansion, taxation, and relations with the native tribes.\[^2\]

Pontiac’s uprising

At the end of the French and Indian War, France abandoned its outpost at Fort Detroit, in what is present-day Michigan. The British took control of Fort Detroit and imposed a number of changes that dissatisfied the various Native American tribes that inhabited the Great Lakes region and had allied with France.

For instance, whereas the French had respected Native American traditions and had traded freely with the tribes, the British did not seem to care about maintaining good relations with the Native Americans and restricted their ability to trade. The Native Americans had grown accustomed to hunting with weapons and ammunition supplied by the French, but when the British took control of the area, they refused to provide arms to the Native Americans, which had a negative effect on their ability to hunt. British attitudes and actions provoked the distrust and hostility of the tribes in the area, many of which banded together to resist the further encroachment of the British onto their lands.\[^3\]

In May 1763, Pontiac, a leader of the Odawa tribe, led a force of 300 members of different tribes in an attack on Fort Detroit, attempting to wrest it from the British. The British commander of the fort learned of Pontiac’s plan, however, and successfully defended against the siege. Although the British managed to hold onto Fort Detroit and put an end to Pontiac’s siege, Native American resistance spread, and soon Pontiac had tripled his force. Moreover, other Native American tribes launched attacks on British settlements and military outposts, managing to capture eight of the 11 British forts in the Ohio Valley.\[^4\]

On July 25, 1766, Pontiac and the British Superintendent of Indian Affairs negotiated an end to the war. Though the Native Americans were unable to kick the British out of the Great Lakes region, the uprising demonstrated the viability of pantribal cooperation in the struggle against European-American colonialism. The British government issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763, drawing a boundary line in the Appalachian mountains and forbidding colonists from settling the lands west of the line, which were designated Indian territory.

The British hoped to neutralize conflict between white settlers and Native Americans, but they ended up provoking the wrath of the colonists, who cited the Proclamation of 1763 as one of the grievances leading to the American Revolutionary War.\[^5\]

• The Townshend Acts, passed in 1767 and 1768, were designed to raise revenue for the British Empire by taxing its North American colonies. They were met with widespread protest in the colonies, especially among merchants in Boston.

• The Townshend Acts renewed a fierce debate over the British Parliament’s right to tax the colonies.

• In 1772, Boston revolutionary Samuel Adams urged the creation of a committee of correspondence to communicate with other colonial assemblies, educate townspeople about their political rights, and rally opposition to British rule.

Colonial opposition to the Townshend Acts

After a century and a half of salutary neglect of its North American colonies, Britain sought to impose tighter control over them.

What does salutary neglect mean?

After the Seven Years’ War ended in 1763, leaving the British Empire in financial distress, the British Parliament sought to fill its coffers by taxing the colonies.\[^1\] The Stamp Act, which levied taxes on all printed material in the North American colonies, had provoked so much unrest that Britain was ultimately forced to repeal it. At the same time, however, the British Parliament passed the Declaratory Act, which asserted Britain’s ultimate right of control over the colonies. The repeal of the Stamp Act stopped the protests and rioting, and the colonists did not at first oppose the Declaratory Act—until the British began to enforce it.\[^2\]

In 1767, Charles Townshend, Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer, imposed a series of new taxes designed to raise revenue. All imports of glass, lead, paint, and tea were to be taxed, new customs officials were to be sent to the colonies to collect, and courts of admiralty were created to prosecute violators and smugglers. These actions became known as the Townshend Acts, and they unleashed another wave of protest in the colonies.

The acts renewed a fierce debate over whether the British Parliament had the right to tax the North American colonies solely for the purpose of raising revenue. The colonists protested, “no taxation without representation,” arguing that the British Parliament did not have the right to tax them because they lacked representation in the legislative body. They asserted that only colonial assemblies elected by themselves should have the power to impose taxes.

The British responded with the theory of virtual representation, which held that the members of British Parliament were duty-bound to protect the interests of British citizens and subjects alike, including the colonists. When the colonial assemblies of New York and Massachusetts denied Parliament’s right of taxation and urged the other colonies to resist, the Crown-appointed governors of the colonies dissolved the assemblies, touching off a struggle between executive authorities and the representatives of the people.

Colonists organized boycotts of British goods to pressure Parliament to repeal the Townshend Acts. As British customs officials arrived to collect taxes and prosecute smugglers, colonial opposition intensified, resulting in street demonstrations and protests that sometimes turned violent.

The Townshend Acts were especially reviled in Boston, where the Customs Board was headquartered. Merchants in Boston signed a nonimportation agreement, which suspended all imports of British goods. Merchants in New York and Philadelphia followed with their own nonimportation pledges. The British responded by sending naval and military officials to Boston to enforce the Acts, setting the stage for the Boston Massacre in 1770.

Committees of correspondence

Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson, who had been appointed by the Crown, sought to compose a faction of pro-British Loyalist officials and thereby widen support for Britain’s mercantilist taxation policies. In 1772, Boston revolutionary Samuel Adams responded by urging Massachusetts to employ a committee of correspondence to contact townspeople and stay apprised of events occurring at town meetings throughout the area. The purpose of such a committee was to rally opposition to British policies, to educate the townspeople of Massachusetts about their constitutional rights and the British threats to those rights, and to encourage townspeople to become more politically active. By 1774, every colonial assembly had created a committee of correspondence.\[^3\]

Adams’s effort was successful. The committee forged unity among the towns and intensified their resistance to British rule. This burgeoning republican spirit would flower as the revolutionary crisis unfolded. Although pro-British Loyalists like Governor Hutchinson claimed that the committees deceived naïve country dwellers into fomenting rebellion, in reality, the people of Massachusetts were engaging with political ideals and debating the proper form, function, and scope of government. The ideology of republicanism was taking root in the critical colony of Massachusetts, which would prove a leader in the American Revolution.\[^4\]

• Boston, Massachusetts was a hotbed of radical revolutionary thought and activity leading up to 1770.

• In March 1770, British soldiers stationed in Boston opened fire on a crowd, killing five townspeople and infuriating locals.

• What became known as the Boston Massacre intensified anti-British sentiment and proved a pivotal event leading up to the American Revolution.

Boston, cradle of revolution

Even before the event that went down in history as the Boston Massacre, Boston, Massachusetts was a center of radical revolutionary ideas and sentiment. The colonists had endured years of conflict with British officials, and the number of people living in poverty and/or unemployed was growing in the city. With so many idle young men competing for work, there was bound to be trouble as British rule became more onerous.

After the Seven Years’ War had drained Britain’s coffers, the royal government imposed tighter controls over its North American colonies in order to raise revenues. When customs officials complained about the difficulties of collecting from disobedient colonists, Britain sent troops to impose order. The arrival of British soldiers in October 1768 heightened tensions in a city already on the edge of an uprising.

Over the next two years, Boston existed in a state of virtual British military occupation—one out of three men in the city was a Redcoat, a common nickname for British soldiers due to the color of their uniforms.\[^1\] Radical townspeople and idle young men harassed the soldiers, leading to numerous skirmishes and scuffles.

The Boston Massacre

In March 1770, British officials ordered the removal of all occupants of the Boston Manufactory House—a halfway house for people living in poverty, those who were ill, and those who were homeless—so that a regiment of British soldiers could be garrisoned there. The Manufactory House’s homeless occupants put up a resistance, and the British backed down, but other confrontations ensued.

On March 5th, one such confrontation turned violent. As a mob of angry townspeople encircled a British sentry shouting insults and throwing rocks and sticks, nervous Redcoats opened fire into the crowd, killing five Bostonians and wounding several others. One of the victims was Crispus Attucks, a free sailor of African and Native American descent who has gone down in history as the first casualty of the American Revolution.\[^2\]

Local newspapers eulogized Attucks and the others as martyrs to British tyranny. Paul Revere and Samuel Adams, two of Boston’s most influential revolutionaries, proved adept propagandists. Revere is known for producing the most famous depiction of the incident—though in reality he merely copied the original engraving by young Boston-area artist Henry Pelham. The image was published in the Boston Gazette and circulated widely, stoking the flames of anti-British anger and revolutionary righteousness. Pro-British Loyalists promoted an alternate narrative, accusing agitators in the crowd of deliberately provoking the incident. Nevertheless, the radical narrative proved far more influential.\[^3\]

The colonists did not want to give the British a pretext for retaliation, and so preparations were made to ensure a fair trial. A young lawyer named John Adams, despite his commitment to the revolutionary cause, agreed to defend the Redcoats, all but two of whom were acquitted.

Even though British troops were recalled from Boston, the incident inflamed hostilities and intensified revolutionary sentiment among the colonists. For the revolutionaries, the so-called massacre demonstrated the corrupting influence of standing armies and the tyranny of the British. It was a major signpost on the road to revolution; indeed, John Adams later claimed that the “foundation of American independence was laid” that fateful day of March 5, 1770.\[^4\]

• The Boston Tea Party, which involved the willful destruction of 342 crates of British tea, proved a significant development on the path to the American Revolution.

• The Boston Tea Party, which occurred on December 16, 1773 and was known to contemporaries as the Destruction of the Tea, was a direct response to British taxation policies in the North American colonies.

• The British response to the Boston Tea Party was to impose even more stringent policies on the Massachusetts colony. The Coercive Acts levied fines for the destroyed tea, sent British troops to Boston, and rewrote the colonial charter of Massachusetts, giving broadly expanded powers to the royally appointed governor.

British taxation policies

After the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War in 1763, the British Empire was in financial distress. Though the British had won the war, they had spent vast amounts of blood and treasure in the process. At the end of the war, the British Parliament sought to replenish its depleted coffers by taxing the North American colonies.\[^1\]

When the British Prime Minister, Lord North, proposed the Tea Act in May 1773, he was not even thinking of the North American colonies, but rather of the East India Company, which had assumed control over India. In exchange for the power to appoint its governors, North loaned the company £1.5 million—the equivalent of about $270 million today.\[^2\] North also granted the company a monopoly on the right to sell tea in the North American colonies.

The Boston Tea Party

As the British authorized the shipment of thousands of pounds of tea to its colonies in North America—Boston, Charleston, New York City, and Philadelphia—colonial tea merchants protested.

In Boston, Governor Thomas Hutchinson, a pro-British Loyalist, demanded that the ships be allowed to dock and that colonial merchants pay the duties on the cargo. Boston was the center of colonial revolutionary fervor, and its radicals did not take kindly to Hutchinson’s demands. The Sons of Liberty, a secret society formed by radical colonists to protest British taxation policies after the passage of the Stamp Act in 1765, spearheaded the opposition to the Tea Act.\[^3\]

On December 16, 1773 at Griffin’s Wharf, a group of approximately 50 Bostonians disguised as Native Americans boarded the ships Beaver, Dartmouth, and Eleanor, and proceeded to dump 342 crates of tea into the Boston harbor. In doing so, they destroyed almost 10 thousand pounds sterling worth of tea—worth about $1.7 million today—that belonged to the British East India Company. The incident, referred to at the time by John Adams as the Destruction of the Tea, would not become known as the Boston Tea Party for another fifty years.\[^4\]

Paul Revere carried the news of the destruction of the tea to New York, which in turn refused to allow the British ships to unload. In Philadelphia, as well, townspeople gathered to turn the British ships away from harbor. In Charleston, the ship was docked, but customs officials seized the cargo.

The British empire strikes back

Instead of reforming their tax policies or accommodating the demands of the colonists, the British responded to the incident by passing the Coercive Acts, which shut down Boston’s port, modified the charter of Massachusetts—effectively shutting down the colony’s legislative assembly—and sent British troops under General Thomas Gage to occupy Boston.\[^5\]

Gage was appointed governor, with broadly expanded powers to appoint local sheriffs, lodge troops in private homes, and deny townspeople permission to hold meetings. In response, the colonies called for a continental congress. The First Continental Congress convened in the autumn of 1774 and approved a general boycott of British goods. The stage was set for the ultimate showdown between the British and the colonies in the American War for Independence.

• In the spring of 1774, the British Parliament passed the Coercive Acts, which quickly became known in the North American colonies as the Intolerable Acts.

• The Intolerable Acts were aimed at isolating Boston, the seat of the most radical anti-British sentiment, from the other colonies.

• Colonists responded to the Intolerable Acts with a show of unity, convening the First Continental Congress to discuss and negotiate a unified approach to the British.

Radical Boston and the Intolerable Acts

By 1774, there had been almost a decade of revolutionary fervor in Boston. British taxation policies, such as the Stamp Act of 1765, had sparked a debate in the North American colonies over the constitutional meaning of representation. Leading radicals like Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, and John Hancock argued that because the colonists weren’t represented in Parliament, that legislative body had no right to tax them.\[^1\] The stationing of British troops in Boston had infuriated townspeople, setting the stage for the Boston Massacre in 1770. In 1773 Boston radicals led by the Sons of Liberty boarded British ships filled with thousands of pounds of East India Company tea. They dumped nearly 350 crates into the harbor.\[^2\]

After the Boston Tea Party, the British adopted a divide-and-conquer strategy that sought to isolate troublemaking Boston from the other colonies, which leaders in Parliament believed were merely tagging along with Boston’s radicals. In the spring of 1774, Parliament passed the Coercive Acts, which were aimed solely at Boston and envisioned as punishment for its radical opposition to British policies. The Coercive Acts, which quickly became known in the colonies as the Intolerable Acts, consisted of four separate legislative measures:

1. The Boston Port Bill fined Boston for the tea destroyed in the Boston Tea Party and closed the harbor until the fines were paid.

2. The Government Bill rewrote the Massachusetts colony’s charter granting broadly expanded powers to the royal governor.

3. The Administration of Justice Act authorized the governor to send indicted government officials to other colonies or to London for trial.

4. The Quartering Act, which applied to all of the North American colonies, was designed to provide shelter for the British troops, allowing them to be housed in private buildings.\[^3\]

Forging unity: the First Continental Congress

Instead of isolating Boston from the other North American colonies, the Intolerable Acts had the opposite result. Delegates from all of the colonies except Georgia gathered in Philadelphia for the First Continental Congress in the autumn of 1774. The purpose of the Congress was to show support for Boston and to work out a unified approach to the British.

Nevertheless, divisions plagued the colonies. Though the congress agreed to implement a boycott of British imported goods, the northern and southern colonies argued fiercely over a measure to ban all exports to Britain. The southern colonies were economically dependent on revenues from their exports of raw materials such as cotton and rice to the motherland. The delegates ultimately reached a compromise, agreeing that all exports to Britain, Ireland, and the British West Indies would be banned after a year, starting in September 1775. This would give the southern colonies some time to prepare for the economic impact of the export ban.\[^4\]

On October 14, 1774, the First Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Colonial Rights and Grievances. The declaration denied Parliament’s right to tax the colonies and lambasted the British for stationing troops in Boston. It characterized the Intolerable Acts as an assault on colonial liberties, rejected British attempts to circumscribe representative government, and requested that the colonies prepare their militias. Despite its harsh tone, the declaration did affirm Parliament’s right to regulate trade, and did not challenge colonial loyalty to the British monarch, King George III.

Although some of the more radical delegates, particularly Samuel Adams, already believed that war was inevitable, the congress did not seek or declare independence from Britain at this time. The delegates agreed to meet again the following May if Anglo-American relations did not improve.\[^5\]

• The Battles of Lexington and Concord, fought on April 19, 1775, were the first military clashes of the American Revolutionary War.

• The Massachusetts militia routed the British Army forces and were soon joined by militias from Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. These militias would become the core of the Continental Army.

Growing tensions leading to the American Revolution

In February 1775, British Parliament declared that the colony of Massachusetts was in a state of rebellion.

After Parliament had passed the Intolerable Acts—largely aimed at punishing Boston’s revolutionaries for the Boston Tea Party—the British government had tightened its grip on the government of Massachusetts. The royally appointed governor, Thomas Gage, had been granted broadly expanded powers, and the British had sent thousands of troops to Boston.

The Massachusetts colonial assembly responded to these provocations by directing townships to ready their militias. War was coming, and Boston’s patriots were preparing for it.

The British were preparing, too, and in April 1775, they directed Gage to disarm the rebels. Gage ordered Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith to gather 700 British Army soldiers and march to Concord, where the rebels were reportedly storing mass quantities of arms and ammunition. Their orders were to find the stash and destroy it.

The Patriots, as the anti-British rebels were known, had established a fairly effective intelligence network, and some historians even believe that Gage’s American wife, Margaret Kemble Gage, was a rebel spy. Whether or not she was the one who provided the Patriots with the information about the planned seizure and destruction of the armory at Concord, they received word of the British orders.

On April 18, Patriot Paul Revere rode to Concord and notified local militias in the area to be on the alert for the British army forces.\[^1\]

The "shot heard round the world"

On April 18, Revere was warned that British Army regulars were making their way to the towns of Lexington and Concord. Having already warned the militia in Concord, which had secured the weapons supply, Revere rode quickly to Lexington to warn the townspeople of the expected British onslaught. The rebel intelligence network suggested that the British aim in Lexington was to capture Samuel Adams and John Hancock, two of the most prominent Patriot leaders, but the size of the British army force was large enough to suggest they had bigger goals in mind.

The British soldiers and rebel militiamen raced to Lexington during the night; they confronted each other at Lexington Green—a village common area—just as the sun was rising on the morning of April 19. Captain John Parker, a veteran of the Seven Years' War, led a contingent of 80 Lexington militiamen, known as minutemen because they had to be ready to fight at a minute’s notice. Years later, one of the participants recalled Parker’s words right before the deadly skirmish: “Stand your ground; don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.”\[^2\]

A British officer demanded that the militia disarm and disperse, and in the ensuing confusion, shots were fired. To this day, there exists considerable uncertainty over whether the militiamen or the British soldiers fired first. Regardless, the British soldiers rushed forward with their bayonets. A skirmish ensued, during which eight militiamen were killed and only one British soldier wounded.

After order was restored, the British soldiers began the march to Concord, where militias from Concord and the nearby town of Lincoln were waiting. After the British found and destroyed rebel weapons caches, they squared off against the colonial forces at the North Bridge. Outnumbered and outmaneuvered, the British soldiers broke rank and fled, handing the stunned colonists a victory.

The militiamen proceeded to lay siege to Boston, where they were joined by militias from Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. These colonial forces would be constituted as the Continental Army by the Second Continental Congress.

The American Revolutionary War had begun.\[^3\]

• The Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia in the summer of 1775, shortly after the war with the British had begun. It was preceded by the First Continental Congress in the fall of 1774.

• The Congress appointed George Washington as commander of the Continental Army, and authorized the raising of the army through conscription.

• On July 4, 1776, the Congress issued the Declaration of Independence, which for the first time asserted the colonies’ intention to be fully independent of the mother country.

• The Congress established itself as the central governing authority under the Articles of Confederation, which remained in force until 1788.

Fighting the Revolutionary War

In April 1775, at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts, war between Britain and its North American colonies broke out. In order to direct the war effort and begin debating the contours of the system of government that would emerge to replace British rule, delegates from all 13 colonies convened in Philadelphia in the summer of 1775.\[^1\]

The most pressing order of business was the war effort. It was not unified, nor were there many leaders who could potentially command the disparate armed forces—which at this point were mostly composed of various local militias. In June, the delegates voted to raise an army through conscription and appointed George Washington to command the new Continental Army.\[^2\]

Radicals and conservatives at the Second Continental Congress

There were two main factions represented at the Congress: the conservatives—headed by John Jay of New York and John Dickinson of Pennsylvania—and the radicals, led by John Adams of Massachusetts and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia.

The conservatives still believed that reconciliation with the British was possible, and on July 5, the Congress authorized the Olive Branch Petition, which represented one final attempt at negotiation and affirmed the colonies’ loyalty to the Crown.

However, the following day, the Congress issued the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, which explained and justified the 13 colonies’ decision to go to war. This had the effect of invalidating the Olive Branch Petition, which the British summarily rejected. Though the ideas of conservatives continued to be debated in the Congress, the battles at Lexington and Concord and the subsequent siege of Boston pushed many of the delegates into the radical camp.

Declaring independence

The Second Continental Congress assumed the normal functions of a government, appointing ambassadors, issuing paper currency, raising the Continental Army through conscription, and appointing generals to lead the army. The powers of the Congress were still very limited, however. It did not have the authority to raise taxes, nor did it have the ability to regulate commerce.

On July 4, 1776, the Congress took a momentous step and issued the Declaration of Independence. Although the delegates were partly motivated by the necessity of securing foreign allies—particularly the French—to assist with the war effort against Britain, many of them also understood that the time for negotiations was over. Nothing short of full independence would suffice. Thomas Jefferson composed the first draft of the declaration, which was then edited by the other delegates to produce the final version that was approved on July 4.\[^3\]

Waging war and making peace

As the delegates sought to direct the war effort, they were also looking ahead to the end of the war and the government that would replace British rule. What should this government look like? What would be its obligations to citizens, and most importantly, what checks on its power could be put in place so as to prevent another form of tyranny from arising?\[^4\]

After months of fierce debate, on November 15, 1777, the Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, which established a unicameral legislature that served as the fledgling nation’s governing authority until 1788. The Continental Congress effectively transformed a collection of disparate colonies into a country under a functioning central government, and the Articles of Confederation served as the constitution of the new United States—until 1789.

After the British Parliament passed the Stamp Act, the Daughters of Liberty was formed. Established in 1765, the organization was comprised solely of women who sought to demonstrate their loyalty to the revolutionary cause by boycotting British goods and making their own. Martha Washington, wife of George Washington, was one of the most prominent Daughters of Liberty.