In the year 1763, Great Britain stood victorious in North America
after sweeping France from the continent with the assistance of the
American colonists, and few would have predicted the end of the long ties
between the English Crown and the American colonies. Yet by the last months
of 1774, "only those with closed eyes and minds could avoid the conclusion
that the Americans were headed toward open and armed rebellion against
Great Britain and the powers of the English monarchy" (McDowell, 45).
The Americans, however, did not rush into a revolution, for before
the final breach England and the colonies suffered under a long series of
conflicts that steadily grew in strength and importance, and "during the
twelve years of disagreements preceding the engagement of arms at Lexington
and Concord, the clashes between the mother country of England and the
American colonies waxed and waned in intensity" (Reeder, 56).
The thirteen American colonies, with over two million citizens which
included some 500,000 black African slaves, formed a diverse group of
political, cultural, economic and religious entities grouped together in a
relatively narrow band of farms, cities and plantations that stretched
along the Atlantic coastline from Canada to Florida and interspersed with
settlements that reached westward towards the Appalachian mountain barrier.
Most of the colonies had developed from 17th century settlements that
represented attempts by the English Crown or numerous British entrepreneurs
to set up strategic or profit-making outposts in the New World. By the
latter half of the 1700's, the colonies displayed distinctive regional and
individual differences based on topography, economics, politics and social
To the north lay the four colonies of New Englandâ€"Massachusetts,
Connecticut, New Hampshire and Rhode Islandâ€""which had been founded
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