Get revenge from the Brits?
The Thirteen Colonies gradually obtained more, albeit limited, self-government. British mercantilist policies became more stringent, benefiting the mother country which resulted in trade restrictions, thereby limiting the growth of the colonial economy and artificially constraining colonial merchants' earning potential. The American Colonies were expected to help repay debt that had accrued during the French and Indian War. Tensions escalated from 1765 to 1775 over issues of taxation without representation and control by King George III. Stemming from the Boston Massacre of 1770 when British Redcoats opened fire on civilians, rebellion consumed the outraged colonists. The British Parliament had imposed a series of taxes such as the Stamp Act of 1765, and later the Tea Act of 1773, against which an angry mob of colonists protested in the Boston Tea Party by dumping chests of tea into Boston Harbor. The British Parliament responded to the defiance of the colonists by passing what the colonials called the Intolerable Acts in 1774. This course of events ultimately triggered the first shots fired in the Battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775 and the beginning of the American War of Independence. A British victory at the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775 agitated tensions even further. While the goal of attaining independence was sought by a majority known as Patriots, a minority known as Loyalists wished to remain as British subjects indefinitely. When the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia in May 1775, deliberations conducted by notable figures such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and John Adams eventually resulted in seeking full independence from the mother country. Thus, the Declaration of Independence, unanimously ratified on July 4, 1776, was a radical and decisive break. The United States of America became the first colony in the world to successfully achieve independence in the modern era.
In early 1775 the Patriots forced all the British officials and soldiers out of the new nation. The British returned in force in August 1776, and captured New York City, which became their base until the war ended in 1783. The British, using their powerful navy, could capture major ports, but 90% of the Americans lived in rural areas where they had full control. After the Patriots captured a British invasion force moving down from Canada in the Saratoga campaign of 1777, France entered the war as an ally of the US, and added the Netherlands and Spain as French allies. Britain lost naval superiority and had no major allies and few friends in Europe. The British strategy was then refocused on the South, where they expected large numbers of Loyalists would fight alongside the redcoats. Far fewer Loyalists took up arms than Britain needed; royal efforts to control the countryside in the South failed. When the British army tried to return to New York, its rescue fleet was turned back by the French fleet and its army was captured by combined French-American forces under General George Washington at the Siege of Yorktown in October 1781. That effectively ended the fighting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom%E2%80%93United_States_relations#American_Revolution
Never forget.
