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Benjamin West ,"The Death of General Wolfe", 1770

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The French and Indian war, sparked by boundary disputes, came to an end in 1763 upon the signing of the Treaty of Paris. Totally defeated, the French had no choice but to surrender on Britain's terms. Britain annexed the French Empire's claims west of the Mississippi. However, the victory was a costly one, as the British were in severe debt immediately following the war.

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C.W. Hills ,"The Battle of Bushy Hill", 1915

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1763: Pontiac's War and the Proclamation Line

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1763: Pontiac's War and the Proclamation Line

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Almost immediately after the French and Indian war an indigenous coalition rose to oppose the British rise to power, starting their offensive by attacking several British defenses during May of 1763. Named after the leader of the Odawa people, the war lasted three bloody years, and heightened tensions between the British and the Natives. As a result, the British empire instated the Proclamation Line, a boundary which sought to stop any Westward expansion by the American colonists in order to reduce conflict with any territorial natives west of the Appalachian Mountains. This was much to the colonists' chagrin, as they believed they fought for the right to this land just months prior.

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Example of a preserved British stamp, which was used to indicate goods that were taxed.

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The British government indebted and at its wit's end, decided to strengthen its hold over the American colonies, and exert its influence on them in order to recuperate their losses. They implemented the Stamp Act in 1765, only to be met with such severe backlash that it was repealed mere months after. But the damage was already done, and the reputation of Britain was damaged to many colonists. Still, the Stamp Act was quite possibly most important for being one of the first of numerous acts that would spark colonial outrage.

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Paul Revere's engraving of the Boston Massacre, one of the most prominent movements of the revolution.

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In the early spring of 1770, a group of nine British soldiers was stationed in Boston. Soon, tensions began to rise between the garrisoned soldiers and a patriot mob, which began harassing them. The event began to spiral out of control, and when the dust settled, the British troopers killed 5 of the crowd and wounded several others. The event sparked an outrage, and was heavily propagandized to portray the British as murderers of innocent colonists who were protesting the recently implemented Townshend acts.

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In 1773 Britain made efforts to cut down on the taxation of tea and conceived the Tea Act, which would eliminate most taxes placed on tea imported to the colonies, with the exception of the Townshend Duties. Unfortunately for the British, the Sons of Liberty argued that these remaining taxes still promoted the ideology that Britain had the right to tax the colonies without giving them representation in Parliament, and responded with numerous protests that culminated in the Boston Tea Party. In the evening of December 16, 1773, a large group of Sons of Liberty boarded several tea-laden vessels and dumped over 300 chests of tea into the Boston harbor. The British, appalled by the actions of the colonists, did not fail to respond to the perceived treason.

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Source:W.D. Cooper. "Boston Tea Party.", The History of North America. London: E. Newberry, 1789.Engraving. Plate opposite p. 58. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (40) Transferred from lb.wikipedia (all following user names refer to lb.wikipedia):

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A patriot cartoon, showing British aristocrats forcing tea upon a Native, an allegory for how they forced imperialism on the colonists.

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Shortly after the Boston Tea Party, the British Government struck back with the intolerable acts, a series of decisions designed meticulously to harm the treasonous Americans. The Sons of Liberty viewed it as proof of the tyranny the British had subjected them to for so long, and tensions between the British and colonists were at a boiling point. It was only a matter of time before it spilled over

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An artists rendition of the now famous Midnight Ride of Paul Revere

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By this point, British troops were enroute to capture several arms caches and potentially rebels throughout Lexington and Concord. Alerted to the imminent arrival of the British troops, Paul Revere warned numerous patriots of the movement, advising for them to prepare for an imminent conflict. Although Paul Revere was eventually intercepted by British soldiers, the signal had already been sent throughout the region, and the British soldiers, after a short altercation, left to warn their commanders. Mere hours later, the ticking timebomb of tensions would finally explode, and the first engagement of the Revolutionary War, The Battle of Lexington and Concord, began.