RH+Why+did+the+colonists+declare+and+fight+for+their+independence?

 In the late 1770's the American colonists were starting to the importance of independence. They definitely could be depicted from the British and surely were different both socially and economically. Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson were men of different importance to the society but it was clear to both of them that they needed to be independent. They had the right to be independent because of their conflicting social structures, government types, and economical differences.

Before the French and Indian War the British and the colonists allied to defeat the French. The war brought debt to Britain that they apparently could not handle because they attempted to solve the debt by taxing American colonists. The Stamp, Sugar Act, and the Quartering Act of the 1760’s angered the colonists very much. The colonists had band together as members of the Loyal Nine and the Sons of Liberty to rebel against the acts of the king. The Boston Massacre and The Boston Tea Party are examples of these rebellions.

After the First Continental Congress in 1774 the great battle between the British and the colonists occured at Lexington and Concord. The colonist militia stock piled weapons in concord. Thomas Gage heard of the stock pile and took many troops to collect the weapons and confiscate them from the rebels. “The shot heard ‘round the world” is the first real clash in the history of American Revolution. The colonists believed they had the right to fight for independence because, as stated in Thomas Paine’s book of Common Sense, a smaller force should not control one larger.

The Second Continental Congress in Early May of 1775 causes a second clash, known as the Battle at Bunker or Breeds Hill. General Putnam leads two thousand troops of the British army up Bunker Hill in hopes of conquering it for Britain. Putnam will fail twice and on the third try when Putnam has only ten percent of his army left the colonists at the top of the hill are not there. One week after the battle the Olive Branch Petition in mentioned. George Washington is elected to lead the colonists into the American Revolution during the Second Continental Congress mostly because he is from Virginia. Virginia is the colonists’ only real hope of gaining independence which is recorded in history on July 4, 1776.

The colonists deserve their independence because of all they have worked for to gain it. America is what it is today because they fought for it so long ago. The king of Britain made some wrong choices and Thomas Jefferson will not mention any faults on the side of the colonists because there were none other than fighting with the British to gain independence.