The American Revolution of 1775 did not, in fact, happen spontaneously, but was the result of several skirmishes between the colonists and British leading up to this event. The fighting at Lexington and Concord, the Second Continental Congress, and the Battle of Bunker Hill, were primary instigators in bringing about the war.
The first event to bring about a chain of events leading to the war was the fighting at Lexington and Concord. British general Thomas Gage marched his troops to Concord upon hearing that illegal weapons were supposedly stored there. Colonial troops, the minutemen, vowed to fight when the British arrived. Their need came sooner than expected. On April 18, 1775, Paul Revere rode out on his well-known journey to warn the colonists that 700 British were marching for Concord. Although the British were briefly stopped on their march in Lexington, the British plowed through the minutemen that stood in their way and continued their march to Concord. When the British arrived at Concord, they discovered that the arsenal was empty. The British decided to march back to Boston but were set upon by several thousand minutemen who slaughtered a majority of the British soldiers. The few that survived this onslaught ducked back into Boston, now under siege by the colonists. This event strained the relationship between the Americans and British, to say the least.
In May of 1775, colonial leaders met up in Philadelphia for the Second Continental Congress. Despite debates about whether to be independent or reunite with the British, the Congress decided to appoint the militia as the Continental Army in case of war, and also elected George Washington to lead this army.
On June of 1775, General Thomas Gage, tired of being under siege in Boston, decided to strike against the militia, sending 2400 British troops on Breed’s Hill. The militia retaliated by shooting the advancing wave at close range before retreating. The Battle of Bunker Hill resulted in 1000 British casualties and 450 colonial deaths. Despite this event, some delegates from Congress as well as some colonists still felt loyalty to King George III and blamed his ministers for these unfortunate events. Congress sent out a peace petition, the Olive Branch Petition, to King George III. As a result of this latest outrage, King George III finally snapped and rejected the petition, proclaiming that the colonists were rebels.
As a result of this chain of events, the American Revolution was soon under way.
by Andy and Jonathan
I liked how specific and detailed your summary was, and how you related each event to the start of the revolution. I think it's also good that you mentioned how the war was not spontaneous, because this is a common misconception.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the dates at the beginnings of some paragraphs, but I would rather read this blog as a narrative instead of something like a timeline. The information was spot on and explained a lot regarding the events that lead to the war.
ReplyDeleteI like how your summary is very easy to follow and that you put the dates at the beginning of the paragraph so we can read it like a timeline
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