A war that changed the rules
Britain won the French and Indian War (1754-1763) but ended it with huge debts and a much larger empire to defend. Parliament decided the colonists should help pay. For a generation colonists had been used to light control, so each new measure felt like a break with the past.
The road to rebellion
- Proclamation of 1763: limited settlement west of the Appalachians. Many colonists resented it.
- Stamp Act (1765): a direct tax on printed paper. Colonists argued that only their own assemblies could tax them, summed up as "no taxation without representation". Protests and boycotts led to repeal in 1766.
- Townshend duties (1767) and the Boston Massacre (1770): more taxes, more boycotts, and soldiers firing on a crowd in Boston.
- Tea Act and Boston Tea Party (1773): colonists dumped tea into the harbour. Parliament answered with the Coercive (Intolerable) Acts, closing Boston's port.
- First Continental Congress (1774), then fighting at Lexington and Concord (April 1775).
Independence
In 1776, Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense argued plainly for a break with the king. On July 4, 1776 the Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, drafted chiefly by Thomas Jefferson. It listed grievances and stated that governments get their power from the consent of the governed.
The war
Britain had more soldiers and ships, but Americans had a long supply line to fight over and a cause that kept enough people committed. The victory at Saratoga (1777) convinced France to ally with the colonies, bringing money, troops and a navy. At Yorktown (1781), French and American forces trapped a British army, and the Treaty of Paris (1783) recognised American independence.
Worked example: why was Saratoga a turning point?
- Before Saratoga, France wanted to weaken Britain but did not want to back a likely loser.
- At Saratoga a British army under Burgoyne surrendered in October 1777.
- This proved the Americans could win battles in the field.
- In 1778 France signed a treaty of alliance.
- French naval power later made the Yorktown trap possible.
A turning point is judged by what it changed afterward, not by how big the battle was. Here the result changed who was fighting on the American side.