How Did African Americans Develop Their Personal Freedoms

The thirteen colonies that became the United States had long been governed by the British Empire, however in the late 1700’s the citizens of these colonies had gotten past fed up with British rule, and the first seeds of the American Revolution grew. People of color as well as women longed for access to equal rights and suffrage in democracy. Although white men were already treated with this sense of social equality, they were displeased with the taxation without representation and inability to govern themselves. Although each category of citizens had a different reason for doing so, they all stood in support of the American Revolution as an attempt to promote their own personal freedoms.
Free blacks in northern states sought to utilize the progressiveness of the Revolution and its fundamental ideals as grounds to push forward their claims to the same rights that all other men claimed when the founding fathers wrote the declaration of independence. In an antislavery petition in Massachusetts, the writers stated that they wrote on behalf of the large black community which were still enslaved in many parts of the country, “that they …show more content…
This struggle for political independence, and equality in some cases, became the first anti-colonial revolution in history. The citizens of the thirteen colonies supported and demanded their ultimate exemption from British rule in order to pursue their own personal desires; women and people of color could strive for equality, men could create a citizen-based democratic government, and all could fulfill the new opportunities that presented themselves with self-empowerment. Because the demands and wishes of the citizens could not be met by the King, the United States declared itself independent and free to seek the American Dream that was