Are You an Expert on the American Revolution's Early Days?

Before Americans took up arms against Great Britain, they took up pens. One of the most famous examples is the series of 12 essays written by John Dickinson, called “Letters From a Farmer in Pennsylvania.” Written in 1767 and 1768 as a reaction against the Townshend Acts, the essays argued that Parliament had no right to tax the colonies. Dickinson’s voice joined a growing chorus of voices decrying the well-known phrase “No taxation without representation.”

Thomas Jefferson was the famous author of the Declaration of Independence, and was also a proud Virginian, which is why he gleaned inspiration for the document’s opening lines from Virginia’s Declaration of Rights. This declaration was written by George Mason and adopted by the state’s legislature on June 12, 1776 — less than one month before Jefferson presented his document of freedom to the Second Continental Congress.

The prelude to the American Revolution was punctuated by a series of acts passed by the British Parliament and forced on the American colonies. In 1766, Parliament repealed the much-hated Stamp Act but reasserted its authority by passing the Declaratory Act, stating that the governmental body had the right to make laws for the colonies “in all cases whatsoever.” This didn’t go over well in the colonies, where anti-British sentiment was on the rise.

Many think the Revolution got underway following the signing of the Declaration of Independence in July 1776, but military actions had already taken place well before then. For example, Washington’s army liberated Boston from British occupation months earlier, and in May 1775, Ethan Allen’s Green Mountain Boys famously captured Fort Ticonderoga to secure artillery for the war effort.

Although Founding Fathers often get portrayed as paragons of virtue, some of them got into serious legal trouble. John Hancock, who eventually became famous for his bold signature on the Declaration of Independence, was charged in 1768 for being a smuggler. However, Hancock escaped the charges thanks to his lawyer, fellow founding father John Adams.

The history of Great Britain is a millennia-long story split into eras closely aligned with royal dynasties. The kingdom took shape under the medieval rule of the Plantagenets before evolving into the houses of Tudor and Stuart. During the American Revolution, the House of Hanover was at the wheel, with King George III as the ruling monarch.

At the end of the French and Indian War in 1763, the British Empire tightened its control over the colonies. In response, Ottawa Chief Pontiac led a rebellion against the British. To appease the Indigenous tribes, King George III issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763. The proclamation discouraged colonists from establishing settlements west of the Appalachian Mountains, which became a point of contention between colonists and their mother country.

The British Parliament passed many acts that soured relations between the colonies and Great Britain. But four acts in particular — the Quartering Act, Boston Port, Act, Administration of Justice Act, and the Massachusetts Government Act — were “intolerable” to American patriots. Parliament never passed a “Molasses Act,” but it did pass a Sugar Act in 1764, the very first tax on the colonies.

Most of America’s founding figures were born in the British colonies, but the same can’t be said for Alexander Hamilton. The first U.S. secretary of the treasury was originally born on the Caribbean island of Nevins in 1757 before spending most of his formative years in St. Croix. In 1772, the local community gathered funds to send the bright young man to New York City.

On December 16, 1773, members of the Sons of Liberty — disguised in Native American garb — dumped 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor. The revolutionaries, armed with tomahawks, chopped gashes into the chests of tea to “thoroughly… expose them to the effects of the water.” The tea is estimated to have cost around $1 million in today’s dollars.

Although a devout patriot, lawyer and future President John Adams served as the legal defense for British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre, a violent event in which British soldiers fired into a crowd in 1770. Adams ardently believed in the right to a fair trial. Of the eight soldiers, all but two were found innocent. Adams later described the decision as “the greatest service I ever rendered my country.”

Today, George Washington is known as the dogged commander-in-chief who won America’s independence, but in the Seven Years’ War he was only a lieutenant who made many mistakes. Washington played a pivotal role in igniting the Seven Years’ War, and his ill-fated march to Fort Duquesne taught the young Washington many lessons that he heeded during the American Revolution.

Known as the “French and Indian War” in the American colonies, the Seven Years’ War saw France and Britain battle for dominance in North America and beyond. When Britain emerged victorious in 1763, Parliament began taxing American colonies to pay its debts. These taxes, levied without colonial representation, became a major rift between the fledgling America and its mother country.

When Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” pamphlet was anonymously published in January 1776, many colonists were still wary of a complete political break with the king and Great Britain. “Common Sense” helped turn the tide of public sentiment by laying out logical reasons behind America’s need to separate from the empire.

As the colonies slid closer and closer to conflict, two sides quickly emerged — revolutionaries and loyalists, or those aligned with Great Britain and the king. Although Loyalists was the more commonly used name, they also called themselves tories, king’s men, and even royalists. Eventually, many loyalists took up arms against the Continental Army during the revolution.

In 1754, Benjamin Franklin published a cartoon of a snake labeled with the abbreviations of the colonies and the phrase, “Join, or Die.” Although some people misinterpreted the cartoon as a call to unite against British aggression, the founding father drafted it to galvanize the colonies during the Seven Years’ War. Historians consider Franklin’s creation to be one of the first political cartoons in U.S. history.

One of Britain’s first direct taxes on the American colonists was the Stamp Act — and it did not go over well. Learning of the tax, the colonies formed a Stamp Act Congress to organize a united opposition, and the famous Sons of Liberty coalesced into fiery opposition against Britain’s perceived tyranny. Led by Boston’s Samuel Adams, the group stoked the fires of revolution.

One of the most impassioned patriots in Virginia was Patrick Henry. In March 1775, only weeks before the battles of Lexington and Concord, Henry addressed the Second Virginia Convention in Richmond. He argued that peace with Britain was no longer an option and that war was already upon them, before uttering this now-famous phrase. His speech convinced the convention to prepare Virginia for war.

Boston silversmith Paul Revere was one cog in an elaborate warning system to quickly communicate British troop movements. On April 18, 1775, Revere learned that the British were advancing on Lexington and Concord to capture weapons and arrest patriot leaders. Revere rushed to deliver the news, a ride that was later immortalized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “Paul Revere’s Ride.”

The morning after Paul Revere’s “Midnight Ride,” around 70 American minutemen gathered to face the advancing British redcoats. Although no one knows which side fired first, a shot rang out that began the first major battle of the American Revolution — more than a year before delegates arrived in Philadelphia to declare independence from Britain.