The Revolutionary War began on April 19, 1775, at the Battle of Lexington and Concord.The Second Continental Congress met in May 1775 to discuss stronger action for independence, tensions in the American colonies were very high. Colonists who did not support British subjects declared themselves "Patriots", those who remained faithful to England called themselves "Loyalists."  Things were going badly, and the armed forces were disorganized. The Continental Congress created the Continental Army and named George Washington as commander-in-chief. The Congress, a young and unsteady organization, had little money.

On June 11, 1776, the Second Continental Congress appointed a committee of five men to write a Declaration of Independence from British Rule.Thomas Jefferson's work was approved later he maked little changes in the Decaration of Independence, Church bells rang out on July 4, 1776, the day that the Declaration of Independence was adopted and the United States of America was officially independent.

 

The Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of Independence was a statement aproved by the Continental Congress in July 4, 1776, that stated that after the war with Great Brittain, the 13 colonies will be independent, and no longer part of England.

It was primarly written by Thomas Jefferson. It stated that why do they wanted to declare independence from Great Brittain, more than one year after of the American Revolution´s War. It stated a list of grievances against King George III.

Bu July 1776, the colonies and Great Brittain had been in war during one year. The relation between the Colonies and England began to deteriorate.

Declaration of Independence 

                                                                                
List of Signers of the American Declaration of Independence.

John Hancock                      
Joshia Bartlett
William Whipple
Matthew Thornton
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Roger Sherman
William Hungtington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
William Floyd
Phillip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morrison
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
George Read
Caesar Rodney
Thomas McKean
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carrol of Carrollton
Gergre Gwythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward Jr.
Thomas Lynch Jr.
Arthur Middleton
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

Samuel Adams

He was born September 27,1722 on Boston Massachussetts and he died on October 2, 1803 in Cambridge, Massachussetts. He was one of the leaders of the American Revolution. Adams was part of the movement opposed to the Brittish Parliament´s effort to tax the American Colonies without their approvement. 


To help coordinate resistance to what he saw as the British government's attempts to violate the Brittish Constitution at the expense of the colonies, in 1772 Adams and his colleagues devised a committee of  correspondence system, which linked like-minded Patriots throughout the Thirteen Colonies.


After Parliament accepted the Intolerable Acts in 1774, Adams went the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, which was convened to coordinate a colonial response. He helped guide Congress towards issuing the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

John Hancock

John Hancock 

John Hancock was a Patriot of the American Revolution. He was born on January 23, 1737 in Baintree, Massachussetts and he died on October 8, 1793 in Hancock Manor, Boston. He was the president of the Second Continental Congress. He is remember because of his large signature in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America.




On December 1,1774 the Massachussetts´s Provincial  Congress elected Hancock as their delegate in the Continental Congress. Before the American Revolution, he was a very wealthy man. Hancock used his wealth  to support colonial cause. He was one of the Boston Leaders during the crisis that led  the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War in 1775. He served for the Continental Congress in Phylapelphia.

On May 24, 1775 he was unanimously elected  President of The Continental Congress succeding to Peyton Radolph. He was the president of The Continental Congress during the signing of the Declaration of Independence. He is remembered because of his big signature.

Slavery in Colonial America

Slavery is an imporant part United States history that was originated in the fifteenth century. Slaves had few or no rights at all in the south. Many worked as servants and farm workers. Some had some more skill required works such as shoemaking, others worked on cotton plantations. Men and women did harsh labor in the fields. They cleared new land, planted seeds, and harvested crops in all weather.   Teenagers worked alongside the adults pulling weeds, picking insects off the crops and carrying water to the other workers.

    Some slaves became skilled workers such as blacksmiths and carpenters. Some slaves worked in cities but their earnings belonged to their owners. Planters often hired these skilled workers to work on their plantations. Older slaves like women worked as servants in the planter’s house. They cooked, cleaned and did other chores under the supervision of the planter’s wife.



A slave being whipped by its owner, if you look at the owner's hand, he has the slaves baby



    The slave’s life depended on their individual owners. Some owners treated their slaves well by making sure they had decent food, clean houses, and warm clothes to wear. Other planters spent little time caring about these things. They were determining to get the most work possible from their slaves. Slaves worked from morning to sunset, as much as sixteen hours a day. They sometimes suffered whippings and other cruel punishments. Owners thought of them as valuable property, that way the owners wanted to keep their human property healthy and as productive as they can.

    Keeping slaves families together was very difficult to do because slaves were considered as property so owners could buy and sell them at their will. The law did not recognize slave marriages or their families that’s why a husband and wife could be sold to different plantations; the children could be taken away from their parents and sold also.

    African customs had its roots in slavery the extended family formed a close knit family group.   They handed down stories,

song to the children as a way to pass on their history and ideas. Faith in God helped slaves deal with the uggly daylife.

     The problem of slavery and the constitution brought on more issues. There was some peoples who thought slavery should be abolished, Patrick Henry refused to attend the convention because he “smelt a rat that believed a time will come when an opportunity will be

 offered to abolish this dumb law.

     In the constitution amendment 13 states “Abolition of Slavery”. It did away with slavery all together stating that it shall not exist in the United States or any place. Thomas Jefferson he insisted on having slaves until he died in 1826. 

Taxation without Representation

During the 1760s, American colonists were not satisfied at the fact that all taxation related decisions were made by people living across an ocean, without consious of concerns in their colony. Colonists sought to challenge the status quo, which lead to a  revolution where the colonies fought the British empire for its own independence to have a right to govern its own affairs.

Taxation without Representation is a situation in which a government imposes taxes on a particular group of its citizens, despite the citizens not consenting or having an actual representative deliver their views when the taxation decision was made. This situation was one of the events that inspired the original thirteen American colonies to revolt against the British Empire.