The Events Leading Up To The American Revolution

In the beginning, the American Revolution was only a rebellion by British colonists, however, it quickly turned into something much more. The road to the Revolution started with a nine-year war between the French and the British over land in the Ohio River Valley, and ended with the battles in Lexington and Concord between the minutemen and militia. The road to the American Revolution was paved by the French and Indian War, all the acts passed by England, the events in Boston, and the Battles in Lexington and Concord. In the course of twenty-five years, the American colonists went from loving the British to loathing the British. While many events led up to the American Revolution, the French and Indian War started the road leading up to the …show more content…
The French wanted the land to use the Ohio River for traveling from Lake Ontario to the Mississippi River, and to connect New France to Louisiana, while, the British wanted the land for land speculation and the plentiful amount of beavers for the fur trade. It later became a fort race between Fort Duquesne for the French and Fort Necessity for England. During the Battle of Monongahela, in 1755, the Natives used guerilla warfare to attack after the British surrendered Fort Duquesne. When William Pitt became Prime Minister, he turned things around, and sent George Washington to attack Fort Duquesne once more. The French, however, burned their own fort and retreated. The fort was rebuilt by the British and renamed Fort Pitt. The British then gained control of the Ohio River Valley. The Treaty of Paris of 1763 was written after the British won the French and Indian War, which gave the British control of the Atlantic Coast to the Mississippi River, Florida from Spain, and Quebec lands east of Mississippi from France. However, France lost all their possessions in America except for a few Haitian islands, along with Louisiana land west of Mississippi. Due to the fact that William Pitt practically funded the French and Indian War himself, England was in a huge debt after the war. The solutions to help with the debt, would make the colonists very angry with the British and cause tension to rise in …show more content…
Minutemen were the highly prepared special forces-like militia, led by Hancock. The official government consisted of Thomas Gage and his army of militia. Gage’s militia consisted of men aged sixteen to sixty, who were not professional soldiers, and had to supply themselves with their own guns. Even from the beginning, Hancock’s minutemen had the upper hand against Gage’s militia. Gage’s orders were to arrest John Hancock and Sam Adams, who were in Lexington, and to secure the weapons that were being held in Concord. Paul Revere’s famous ride took place on April 19th, 1775, as he warned the the minutemen of the approaching British soldiers at Lexington and Concord. The Battle at Lexington happened first, when the British caught the colonists completely off guard when the first shot was fired from an unknown place and person. Eight colonists were killed and ten were wounded, while only one British was killed. Although the colonists lost Lexington, they won Concord. An intimidating four hundred minutemen sent the British troops running back to Lexington, without even a fight at Concord. On their retreat, the British troops were unexpectedly shot at from the surrounding woods. Although ungentleman-like, the guerilla warfare proved successful when there were three hundred British casualties, and the colonists had less than one hundred. The Battles at Lexington and