The American Revolution was a political upheaval that took place between 1765 and 1783 during which

colonists in the Thirteen American Coloniesrejected the British monarchy

and aristocracy, overthrew the authority ofGreat Britain, and founded the United States of America.
Starting in 1765, members of American colonial society rejected the authority of the British Parliament to tax them without any representatives in the government, and resisted
renewed British attempts to collect duties on goods such as sugar and molasses that for many years had gone uncollected through widespread smuggling by colonists. [1] During the
following decade, protests by colonistsknown as patriotscontinued to escalate, as in the Boston Tea Party in 1773 during which patriots destroyed a consignment of taxed tea
from the British government favored East India Company, whose price had been driven artificially low by what was in effect a British subsidy. [2] The British responded by imposing
punitive lawstheCoercive Actson Massachusetts in 1774 until the tea had been paid for, following which Patriots in the other colonies rallied behind Massachusetts. In late 1774
the Patriots set up their own alternative government to better coordinate their resistance efforts against Britain, while other colonists, known as loyalists, preferred to remain subjects
of the British Crown. For some who identified themselves with the Patriot cause, particularly colonial merchants in Virginia, a break with Britain offered a chance to repudiate longstanding debts to British creditors.[3]
Tensions escalated to the outbreak of fighting between Patriot militia and British regulars at Lexington and Concord in April 1775, after which the Patriot Suffolk Resolves effectively
replaced the Royal government of Massachusetts, and confined the British to control of the city of Boston. The conflict then evolved into a global war, during which the Patriots (and
later their French, Spanish and Dutch allies) fought the British and Loyalists in what became known as the American Revolutionary War (17751783). Patriots in each of the thirteen
colonies formed a Provincial Congress that assumed power from the old colonial governments and suppressed Loyalism. Claiming King George III's rule to be tyrannical and
infringing the colonists' "rights as Englishmen", the Continental Congress declared the colonies free and independent states in July 1776. The Patriot leadership professed the political
philosophies of liberalism and republicanism to rejectmonarchy and aristocracy, and proclaimed that all men are created equal. Congress rejected British proposals requiring
allegiance to the monarchy and abandonment of independence.
The British were forced out of Boston in 1776, but then captured and held New York City for the duration of the war, nearly capturing General Washington and his army. The British
blockaded the ports and captured other cities for brief periods, but failed to defeat Washington's forces. In early 1778, following a failed patriot invasion of Canada, a British army was
captured by a patriot army at theBattle of Saratoga, following which the French entered the war as allies of the United States. The war later turned to the American South, where the
British captured an army at South Carolina, but failed to enlist enough volunteers from Loyalist civilians to take effective control. A combined AmericanFrench force captured a
second British army at Yorktown in 1781, effectively ending the war in the United States. A peace treaty in 1783 confirmed the new nation's complete separation from the British
Empire. The United States took possession of nearly all the territory east of the Mississippi River and south of the Great Lakes, with the British retaining control of Canada and Spain
taking Florida.
In the period after the peace treaty in 1783, Loyalists were subjected to extreme suppression and acts of arbitrary violence, including murder by lynching, despite a promise by patriot
leaders to British negotiators that Loyalist rights would be respected. A large proportion were driven off their land and forced to flee as refugees to Canada. [4][5]
Among the significant results of the revolution was the creation of a democratically-elected representative government responsible to the will of the people, but which as a result of
the 'Three-Fifths Compromise' allowed the southern slaveholders to consolidate power and maintain slavery in America for another eighty years. [6] The new Constitution established a

relatively strong federal national government that included an executive, national courts, a bicameral Congress that represented both states in the Senate and population in the House
of Representatives. Congress had powers of taxation that were lacking under the old Articles. The United States Bill of Rights of 1791 comprised the first ten amendments to the
Constitution, guaranteeing many "natural rights" that were influential in justifying the revolution, and attempted to balance a strong national government with strong state governments
and broad personal liberties. The American shift to liberal republicanism, and the gradually increasing democracy, caused an upheaval of traditional social hierarchy and gave birth to
the ethic that has formed a core of political values in the United States. [7][8]