This unit follows the colonies from loyal British subjects in 1763 to an independent country governing itself under the Articles of Confederation in the 1780s. After it, you should be able to explain why colonists broke with Britain, how they won the war, and why their first national government was built to be weak.
Read the overview first, then work through the four review notes and answer each checkpoint before you look at the common mistakes.
Unit 3 covers roughly 1763 to 1787. It connects four stories. You learn why colonists resisted British policy, how the Continental Army survived and won, what the Declaration of Independence argued, and how the first national government worked.
Honors US History Unit 3 covers the American Revolution. You study the causes, starting with Britain's debt after the French and Indian War and the laws Parliament passed to raise money and tighten control, including the Sugar Act, Stamp Act, Townshend Acts, Tea Act and Coercive Acts. You follow the war from Lexington and Concord in 1775 through the turning point at Saratoga in 1777 and the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781, ending with the Treaty of Paris in 1783. You read the Declaration of Independence as an argument built on John Locke's ideas about natural rights. You finish with the Articles of Confederation, the first national constitution, and the weaknesses that led to the Constitutional Convention in 1787.
For decades Britain had loosely enforced its rules and let colonial assemblies run local affairs, a policy called salutary neglect. When Parliament began taxing the colonies to pay war debts, colonists said this violated their rights as English subjects because they elected no one to Parliament. Each new law and each round of protest pushed the two sides further apart.
Washington lost more battles than he won, but he kept the Continental Army in existence. The victory at Saratoga in 1777 brought France into the war. French troops, money and especially the French navy made the trap at Yorktown possible in 1781.
The Declaration argued that government gets its power from the consent of the governed and can be replaced when it violates natural rights. The same fear of abusive power led Americans to design the Articles of Confederation with no national executive branch, no general system of national courts and no power to tax.
Colonists started out demanding their rights as Englishmen and ended up claiming that the people themselves are the source of government's authority. That idea justified breaking from the king in 1776. It also made Americans so wary of strong central government that their national government had limited powers, including no power to tax, which helped set up the debate over the Constitution in 1787.
The Revolution started as an argument about money and authority.
The war began on April 19, 1775, when British troops marched from Boston to seize militia weapons at Concord and exchanged fire with Minutemen at Lexington.
The Second Continental Congress voted for independence on July 2, 1776, and approved the Declaration on July 4.
The Articles of Confederation were drafted in 1777 and took effect in 1781, after all thirteen states ratified them.
The Revolution started as an argument about money and authority. Britain won the French and Indian War (1754-1763) but came out deeply in debt, and Parliament decided the colonies should help pay for their own defense. That ended a long stretch of salutary neglect, when Britain had enforced its trade laws loosely and let colonial assemblies run local affairs.
The Proclamation of 1763 restricted colonial settlement beyond a boundary along the Appalachians, angering colonists who wanted land claimed by Britain after the war. Then came revenue laws, including the Sugar Act (1764), the Stamp Act (1765) and the Townshend Acts (1767). Colonists argued that only their own elected assemblies could tax them, since they had no representatives in Parliament. That is what "no taxation without representation" means.
Resistance became more organized each time. The Sons of Liberty led protests, merchants boycotted British goods, and Committees of Correspondence spread news between colonies. After the Boston Massacre (1770) and the Boston Tea Party (December 1773), Parliament passed the Coercive Acts in 1774 to punish Massachusetts. Colonists called them the Intolerable Acts, and twelve colonies sent delegates to the First Continental Congress that fall.
Enlightenment ideas, especially John Locke's argument for natural rights and government by consent, helped colonists turn complaints about taxes into a case about rights.
Why did the Stamp Act provoke more anger than older trade laws like the Navigation Acts? (Answer: It was a direct tax on everyday items used inside the colonies, passed only to raise revenue, so colonists saw it as Parliament taxing them without consent rather than simply regulating trade.)
| British action | Year | What it did | Colonial response |
|---|---|---|---|
| Proclamation of 1763 | 1763 | Restricted settlement beyond a boundary along the Appalachian Mountains | Settlers ignored it and land speculators resented it |
| Sugar Act | 1764 | Lowered the duty on molasses but enforced it strictly | Merchant protests and early complaints about taxation without representation |
| Stamp Act | 1765 | Taxed printed paper such as newspapers, legal documents and playing cards | Stamp Act Congress, boycotts and repeal in 1766 |
| Townshend Acts | 1767 | Placed duties on imported glass, lead, paint, paper and tea | Boycotts led to repeal of most duties in 1770, except the one on tea |
| Tea Act | 1773 | Let the East India Company sell cheaper tea directly to the colonies | Boston Tea Party in December 1773 |
| Coercive Acts | 1774 | Closed Boston Harbor and restricted Massachusetts self-government | First Continental Congress and a new boycott of British goods |
The war began on April 19, 1775, when British troops marched from Boston to seize militia weapons at Concord and exchanged fire with Minutemen at Lexington. Two months later at Bunker Hill, the British took the hill but lost over 1,000 men, a sign the war would not end quickly.
The early years went badly for Washington. He lost New York in 1776 after a defeat on Long Island. He rebuilt morale by crossing the Delaware River to surprise Hessian troops at Trenton on December 26, 1776, then won again at Princeton days later. His main strategy was to keep the Continental Army intact, because as long as the army existed, the Revolution did too.
Saratoga (September-October 1777) was the turning point. General Burgoyne surrendered about 6,000 troops, and France signed an alliance with the United States in 1778. Spain and the Netherlands later went to war with Britain as well. That winter at Valley Forge (1777-1778), Baron von Steuben drilled the army into a more disciplined force.
Britain then shifted to a Southern Strategy, expecting strong Loyalist support. It captured Charleston in 1780 but lost at Kings Mountain and Cowpens. In 1781, American and French troops besieged Cornwallis at Yorktown while the French fleet blocked the Chesapeake Bay. Cornwallis surrendered about 8,000 men, and the Treaty of Paris (1783) recognized American independence.
Why do historians call Saratoga the turning point instead of Yorktown? (Answer: Saratoga convinced France the Americans could win, and the French alliance that followed supplied the troops, money and navy that later made the victory at Yorktown possible.)
The Second Continental Congress voted for independence on July 2, 1776, and approved the Declaration on July 4. By then the war had been going for more than a year. Thomas Jefferson wrote the main draft, and a committee that included John Adams and Benjamin Franklin helped revise it before Congress made its own edits.
Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense, published in January 1776, helped prepare the public. Paine called hereditary monarchy absurd and argued that reconciliation with Britain made no sense. It went through dozens of editions that year and pushed many undecided colonists toward independence.
The Declaration is built like an argument. The opening states a theory of government drawn largely from John Locke. People have unalienable rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," governments exist to protect those rights, and their power comes from the consent of the governed. When a government destroys those rights, the people may alter or abolish it. Next comes a list of 27 grievances against King George III, including taxing without consent, dissolving colonial assemblies and quartering troops. The conclusion says colonists petitioned peacefully and were ignored, so independence is justified.
The Declaration was also written for foreign readers, especially France. Its claim that "all men are created equal" was not applied equally to enslaved people, women or Native Americans in 1776. Later reformers used those words to demand equal rights.
Why does the Declaration direct its grievances mainly at King George III? (Answer: The king represented British authority, and the Declaration accused him of abuses that justified ending allegiance to him. It also accused him of cooperating with others, including Parliament, to impose unjust laws.)
The Articles of Confederation were drafted in 1777 and took effect in 1781, after all thirteen states ratified them. Maryland held out over other states' western land claims. It ratified after New York offered to give up its claims and Virginia offered to cede land north of the Ohio River, though other claims remained. The Articles created a "firm league of friendship" among sovereign states rather than a strong national government, and that was on purpose. Americans had just broken away from a distant government they considered tyrannical.
The national government was a one-house Congress where each state got one vote, so Delaware counted as much as Virginia. Congress could declare war, make treaties and borrow money. It could not tax, regulate trade or force states to follow its decisions. There was no national executive branch to enforce laws and no general system of national courts, though Congress established some limited courts. Certain major decisions needed approval from nine states, and amendments needed approval from all thirteen.
The Articles had real successes. Congress saw the war through to the Treaty of Paris. The Land Ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 set up a system for surveying western land and admitting new states as equals, and the Northwest Ordinance banned slavery in the Northwest Territory.
The weaknesses showed quickly. Congress asked states for money and often received little, so it could not fully pay soldiers or settle its war debts. Shays' Rebellion (1786-1787), an armed uprising of indebted Massachusetts farmers, convinced many leaders that the system needed fixing. That led to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787.
Why did the writers of the Articles refuse to give Congress the power to tax? (Answer: They had just rebelled against a distant government that taxed them without consent, so they kept taxing power with the state legislatures closest to the people.)
| Weakness of the Articles | What it caused |
|---|---|
| No power to tax | Congress could not reliably pay soldiers or meet its debt obligations, including debts to foreign lenders |
| No power to regulate trade | States taxed each other's goods, and foreign trade deals were hard to enforce |
| No executive or national courts | There was no national executive to enforce laws and no general system of national courts, though Congress could provide for some disputes between states to be settled |
| Amendments required all 13 states | A single state could block any reform |
| No strong national army | Britain kept forts in the Northwest, and Congress could not respond quickly to Shays' Rebellion |
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| French and Indian War | The 1754-1763 war in which Britain defeated France in North America, leaving Britain in debt and looking to the colonies for revenue. |
| No taxation without representation | The colonial argument that only legislatures elected by the colonists could lawfully tax them. |
| Sons of Liberty | Groups of colonial activists, including Samuel Adams, who organized protests and boycotts against British laws. |
| Committees of Correspondence | Networks of colonial leaders who exchanged letters to coordinate resistance across the colonies. |
| Loyalists | Colonists who stayed loyal to the British Crown during the Revolution, sometimes called Tories. |
| Patriots | Colonists who supported independence from Britain and backed the Continental Army. |
| Second Continental Congress | The body that met from 1775, created the Continental Army, declared independence and drafted the Articles of Confederation. |
| Valley Forge | The Pennsylvania camp where the Continental Army spent the hard winter of 1777-1778 and trained under Baron von Steuben. |
| Siege of Yorktown | The 1781 siege in which American and French forces trapped and forced the surrender of General Cornwallis, ending major fighting. |
The Tea Act of 1773 actually made East India Company tea cheaper, even with the Townshend tax still on it. Colonists objected because buying the tea meant accepting Parliament's right to tax them. Colonial merchants also feared competition from the company's cheaper tea and its appointed sellers.
Fighting began at Lexington and Concord in April 1775, more than a year before July 1776. During that first year many colonists still hoped to reconcile with Britain. Keep the order straight, with the shooting first and the decision for independence second.
The weak central government was a deliberate choice by people who feared recreating British tyranny. When you write about the Articles, explain that motive and mention successes like the Northwest Ordinance instead of only listing failures.
The phrase drew on the idea that people are equal in their natural rights, but that principle was not applied equally in 1776. Enslaved people, women and Native Americans faced exclusion, and Jefferson himself enslaved people. Later abolitionists and women's rights activists used the Declaration's language to demand equal rights.