Revolutionary War Dbq

Throughout the 1700’s, the thirteen colonies faced a great deal of injustice that led them to fight for their independence from the British. Before the war, the British parliament had begun taxing the colonists in order to pay off their own personal war debt. The Stamp Act, Townshend Act, and Tea Act were all taxes imposed on the colonists. Despite of their social class, gender or race, all the colonists came together to protests and rebel against the unfair taxes. Eventually, this combined resistance led to the shared motivation of colonists to separate from the British and become independent. The American Revolutionary War began in 1775, and resulted in the thirteen colonies declaring their independence from the British. They formed their

Britain wanted to punish the entire colony of Massachusetts for the events that had taken place in Boston. Mainly it was a punishment for the Tea Party that took place in December of 1773, where colonists had illegally boarded ships and thrown huge amounts of tea overboard as a protest of the Tea Act. The Intolerable Acts consisted of closing the port of Boston, limiting town meetings to one per year and allowing the quartering of soldiers in colonists’ homes. The closing of the Boston Harbor began to cripple the economy since there was no shipments or trade going in and out of the colony. Secondly, the Parliament claimed that the colony of Massachusetts was having too many town meetings, which led them to restrict the colony to only one town meeting per year. Lastly, another part of the Intolerable Act was the Quartering Act, which allowed British troops to stay in “uninhabited private homes.” The Quartering Act was passed as a punishment for all the colonies despite the rest of the colonies not being involved with the Tea Party. These events all stirred up a lot of tension among the citizens in which they began gathering together to discuss how to deal with the British Parliament. In September of 1774, leaders of all the colonies except Georgia arranged a continental-wide meeting otherwise known as the First Continental Congress. These leaders discussed how to

Even before the war had begun, the colonial resistance that existed managed to unite colonists all over. Resistance groups in opposition of the taxes consisted of traders, lawyers, artisans as well as lower class colonists such as sailors, apprentices and servants. There were also resistance groups formed such as the “Sons of Liberty” and “Daughters of Liberty” that all shared the goal of boycotting British goods. The shared goal among all these colonists to gain independence paved way for the declaration of war. During the war, men, women, children and slaves all contributed to the war in the way they could, and this combined effort helped make a huge impact of the war. The men of the colonies were all recruited to fight against the British. Many women helped by supplying troops with sewn clothing, blankets and savings raps for bandages and bullets. Other women helped the widows and orphans of soldiers. Women that came from poor families came along with the soldiers since they had nothing left for them back home. They cooked for the soldiers, washed them, nursed the wounded and buried the dead and in return received half-rations. Slaves also played a huge role in the war effort since they wanted to fight for liberty as well. Many slaves joined the army and fought against the British, while others joined to serve as a substitute for their masters. The number of colonists that