Page 153 - Key to Social Studies 6

The Colonists in America started to realize that they
The American Revolution
had to take aggressive, or angry and violent, actions
The British colonies in North America were ruled by governors who had been appointed by monarchs
to protect themselves from the British rule.
from their home country in Britain.
Fueling the Fires of the Revolution
The British monarchy considered the colonies their own property, and the colonists were expected to
• In 1770 C.E., the Boston Massacre took place, where
serve their homelands by producing goods and paying taxes.
British soldiers killed some civilians on King street.
The colonies in North America, known as the thirteen colonies, produced many crops, natural resources, This was the last straw, and it ignited the revolution.

and consumer goods that were shipped to Europe.
The First Continental Congress
The Beginning
• In 1774 C.E., the British colonists who lived in
Colonists who were born in the thirteen colonies considered themselves as American and not British, so
America decided to hold the First Continental
their loyalty, or their strong feeling of support, was more to America than to their home nation. They got Congress and sent fty-six delegates from the

tired of restrictions placed on them that made their lives more di cult. A restriction is the limitation or thirteen colonies to meet in the city of Philadelphia.

control of someone or something. For example, colonists were not allowed to trade with other nations. They decided together that the British parliament

They were only allowed to sell their goods to Britain. Some colonists started to see themselves as an had no right to pass laws in the colonies; they had

independent, or free, nation that should not be controlled by any other nations. only the right to arrange trade. A painting of the Boston Massacre,1770

Getting Worse • In 1775 C.E., tensions increased, and the thirteen colonies began to prepare their troops to protect

The situation worsened in 1765 C.E., when King George III of Great Britain imposed taxes on the thirteen themselves from the expected war with the British army. They engaged with the British army in the Battle of

colonies, without o ering them representation or votes in the parliament. The colonists refused to pay, Lexington which signaled the start of the American Revolutionary War.

and the king used military force to demand payment.

A meeting of colonists protesting the British treatment The Battle of Lexington

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