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Beginning in 1763 Great Britain started taxing the American colonies to help pay for the Debt accrued during the French and Indian War.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/stamp-act-imposed-on-american-colonies

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In an effort to raise funds to pay off debts and defend the vast new American territories won from the French in the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763), the British government passes the Stamp Act. It enraged the colonists.

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Colonial resistance led to violence in 1770 when British soldiers killed five men.

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After December 1773, a band of men altered their identity to board British ships and dumped 342 chests of tea into the Boston Harbor. This led to the Intolerable (or Coercive) Acts. These were designed to reassert imperial authority in Massachusetts.
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/road-to-revolution/the-american-revolution/a/the-boston-tea-party

https://youtu.be/1cT_Z0KGhP8

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The Boston Tea Party, which involved the willful destruction of 342 crates of British tea, proved a significant development on the path to the American Revolution.

The Boston Tea Party, which occurred on December 16, 1773 and was known to contemporaries as the Destruction of the Tea, was a direct response to British taxation policies in the North American colonies.

The British response to the Boston Tea Party was to impose even more stringent policies on the Massachusetts colony. The Coercive Acts levied fines for the destroyed tea, sent British troops to Boston, and rewrote the colonial charter of Massachusetts, giving broadly expanded powers to the royally appointed governor.

British taxation policies

After the conclusion of the Seven Years' War in 1763, the British Empire was in financial distress. Though the British had won the war, they had spent vast amounts of blood and treasure in the process. At the end of the war, the British Parliament sought to replenish its depleted coffers by taxing the North American colonies.

When the British Prime Minister, Lord North, proposed the Tea Act in May 1773, he was not even thinking of the North American colonies, but rather of the East India Company, which had assumed control over India. In exchange for the power to appoint its governors, North loaned the company £1.5 million-the equivalent of about $270 million today. North also granted the company a monopoly on the right to sell tea in the North American colonies.

The Boston Tea Party

As the British authorized the shipment of thousands of pounds of tea to its colonies in North America-Boston, Charleston, New York City, and Philadelphia-colonial tea merchants protested.

In Boston, Governor Thomas Hutchinson, a pro-British Loyalist, demanded that the ships be allowed to dock and that colonial merchants pay the duties on the cargo. Boston was the center of colonial revolutionary fervor, and its radicals did not take kindly to Hutchinson's demands. The Sons of Liberty, a secret society formed by radical colonists to protest British taxation policies after the passage of the Stamp Act in 1765, spearheaded the opposition to the Tea Act.

On December 16, 1773 at Griffin's Wharf, a group of approximately 50 Bostonians disguised as Native Americans boarded the ships Beaver, Dartmouth, and Eleanor, and proceeded to dump 342 crates of tea into the Boston harbor. In doing so, they destroyed almost 10 thousand pounds sterling worth of tea-worth about $1.7 million today-that belonged to the British East India Company. The incident, referred to at the time by John Adams as the Destruction of the Tea, would not become known as the Boston Tea Party for another fifty years.

Paul Revere carried the news of the destruction of the tea to New York, which in turn refused to allow the British ships to unload. In Philadelphia, as well, townspeople gathered to turn the British ships away from harbor. In Charleston, the ship was docked, but customs officials seized the cargo.

The British empire strikes back

Instead of reforming their tax policies or accommodating the demands of the colonists, the British responded to the incident by passing the Coercive Acts, which shut down Boston's port, modified the charter of Massachusetts-effectively shutting down the colony's legislative assembly-and sent British troops under General Thomas Gage to occupy Boston.

Gage was appointed governor, with broadly expanded powers to appoint local sheriffs, lodge troops in private homes, and deny townspeople permission to hold meetings. In response, the colonies called for a continental congress. The First Continental Congress convened in the autumn of 1774 and approved a general boycott of British goods. The stage was set for the ultimate showdown between the British and the colonies in the American War for Independence.

What do you think?

How would you describe British tax policies in the colonies?

How important do you think the Boston Tea Party was in the ultimate outbreak of war between Britain and its North American colonies?

Why do you think the British refused to back down in the face of opposition to its policies?

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The Boston Tea Party (article) | Khan Academy

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Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

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The American Revolution began April 19, 1775 in Massachusetts.
Minute Men :https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/patriotsday-minute-men/

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Individually and collectively, the minute men of Massachusetts played important roles in the beginning of the Revolutionary War. The life stories of these people help explain how they came to oppose their government and propose violent struggle.

Concord Museum, Concord, MA

Ready on Short Notice
The American militias established in the colony of Massachusetts were based on an English militia model. Every man over age sixteen was required to join and bring his own weapon to the mandatory musters (training meetings). The governor had authority over the groups. As European settlers spread into Native American territories, conflicts increased. To increase the colonial fighting units' flexibility, power was decentralized. In 1645, company commanders were ordered "to appoint out and to make choice of thirty soldiers of their companies in ye hundred, who shall be ready at half an hour's warning upon any service they shall be put upon by their chief military officers." By 1756, the designation "minute men" appears on a payroll document, but it was not until 1774 and the establishment of the Provincial Congress that the minute men, as we remember them today, were formed.

Loyalty to the Colony
Many of the militia men were veterans of wars against the French and Indians. In those earlier battles, they had fought in the name of the English crown, but their true loyalty may have been toward their own colony. Minute men like Lexington's Ebenezer Locke were third- or fourth-generation Americans, and therefore somewhat removed from their British roots.

Democratic Guerrillas
Seventy-seven members of the Lexington Training Band stood together on April 19, 1775. Most were over thirty years of age, and twenty were veterans of the French and Indian wars, where they learned the guerrilla tactics that would come into play defending their town. Their captain, John Parker, was one of those veterans, a forty-five-year-old farmer and father of seven. Although others were more experienced in military combat and had held higher ranks in earlier wars, Parker was democratically chosen to lead the company, perhaps for his calm demeanor and sound judgment. Theirs was not a strict military unit. Instead, the Training Band was more of a democratic assembly in which the captain freely asked the advice of older veterans, and everyone stood by the captain's decisions once they were made.

Skilled but Unorthodox
Though not strict, the Lexington minute men were a well-trained group. Observing them at Concord's North Bridge on April 19, 1775, British Lieutenant William Sutherland remarked that the minute men marched "in a very military manner." But the minute men fought without regard to the era's rules of military engagement. Historians have not been able to determine that they had a premeditated plan to counter the regular tactics of the British. More likely, the events resulted from a breakdown in command. The British, following standard late 18th-century military procedure, formed orderly rows, setting up walls of men who fired their muskets, then dropped back to reload as other soldiers took their places. At the Bridge, this tight formation limited the number of men who could fire without harming their comrades -- and simultaneously created a mass of enemies that the minute men could fire into, spilling the first British blood of the Revolution. On their return march to Boston, encountering the irregular tactics of the minute men, the British kept to the road. It was the fastest way to get out of the danger zone.

Ruthless Improvisers
Fighting for their homes, the minute men were ruthless and improvisational. They hid behind stone walls and buildings to fire at the British. At one point in the British flight, Noah Eaton of Framingham found a Redcoat in his sights. "Surrender or die," he commanded, pointing his gun for emphasis. The regular, in the middle of reloading his musket, handed it over and was taken prisoner. Eaton did not mention that his gun, too, was empty.

Rejecting British Authority
The minute men were, quite simply, Americans, born in New England. Vast distances of time and space made British authority more of an abstraction than a reality to them. Aside from trade regulation, probably the most important government service they required was defense against the Native Americans (whose land they were taking). Once even that function was self-regulated, through the creation of local militias, British taxes were perceived as more and more burdensome -- without any clear benefits. By April 1775, the minute men were spoiling for a fight.

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The Minute Men | American Experience | PBS

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Individually and collectively, the minute men of Massachusetts played important roles in the beginning of the Revolutionary War. The life stories of these people help explain how they came to oppose their government and propose violent struggle. Ready on Short Notice The American militias established in the colony of Massachusetts were based on an English militia model.

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June 17, 1775. The first major action of the war. The inexperienced patriots hold off British forces for over two hours. Though they abandon their post, they show they are not intimidated by the British. Almost half of the British soldiers that fought ended up dead or wounded.
https://youtu.be/9UqJzKX03-0

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Battle of Bunker Hill (The American Revolution)

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Feb. 27, 1776. The Loyalists (Americans who do not want independence from Britain) are defeated by the patriot army.

https://www.nps.gov/mocr/index.htm

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In the early morning hours of February 27, 1776, Loyalist forces charged across a partially dismantled Moores Creek Bridge. Beyond the bridge, nearly 1,000 North Carolina Patriots waited quietly with cannons and muskets poised to fire. This battle marked the last broadsword charge by Scottish Highlanders and the first significant victory for the Patriots in the American Revolution.

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Moores Creek National Battlefield (U.S. National Park Service)

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In the early morning hours of February 27, 1776, Loyalist forces charged across a partially dismantled Moores Creek Bridge. Beyond the bridge, nearly 1,000 North Carolina Patriots waited quietly with cannons and muskets poised to fire. This battle marked the last broadsword charge by Scottish Highlanders and the first significant victory for the Patriots in the American Revolution.

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After an all-day attack on Sullivan's Island on June 28, 1776, the British become frustrated from the tricky waters of the Charleston Harbor and retreat.

https://youtu.be/hPzrDfLBX4U

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Southern Campaign Pt 1 (Siege of Savannah, Siege of Charleston, Battle of Camden)

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July 1776 the Declaration of Independence is adopted by the Second Continental Congress. Loyalist sentiment remains strong in many areas, and Americas primary allegiance is to their states.

https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript

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https://youtu.be/BXQRf2QBegk

Sept. 19, 1777
Colonists used guerrilla warfare to target officers to change the rules of war forever.

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Battle of Saratoga (American Revolution)

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Sept. 17, 1781.
The Franco-American alliance surrounded Yorktown, VA on all sides by land and sea and laid siege leading to Cornwallace's surrender.
https://youtu.be/Mg7GA_aBeHw

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Battle of Yorktown (American Revolution)

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General Lord Cornwallis surrenders to the American forces on October 17, 1781. He surrendered 7087 officers and men, 900 seamen, 144 cannons, 15 galleys, a frigate, and 30 transport ships.
He did not attend the surrender ceremony due to "illness".
This ended the fighting for the American Colonies- though war still continued on the high seas.

https://www.aoc.gov/explore-capitol-campus/art/surrender-lord-cornwallis