The United States is stable, militarily experienced, and the heart of the world’s democracy, but it was not always this way. This two hundred-forty year old nation has had its share of death and despair from nearly all races that step foot on it. One of the many atrocities America has faced is that of war. Two major wars have been fought on this land, but one revolution had the power to transform a group of thirteen unruly colonies to one united country able to conquer the world’s greatest empire. The Revolutionary War began as tensions grew between England and her North American colonies over who should have the power to tax and govern. After many petitions and pleas, the colonies were ready to rebel and start a nation without their mother …show more content…
It starts in seventeen fifty-four with the publishing of colonial author and inventor, Benjamin Franklin’s “Join or Die” cartoon in the Pennsylvania Gazette. The publication is in response to the exposition of the French and Indian War which will have a major impact on the revolution. His caricature of a snake severed into eight separate pieces above the label, “Join or Die,” symbolizes the colonists need to unite with one another before they all “die.” After the English win this war, mainland Britain is in a financial crisis which they impose on their colonies in the form of taxes. These taxes include, but are not limited to, the Stamp Act which taxes newspapers, pamphlets, and other large documents, Townshend Act which taxes tea, paint, and other imported items, and a group of taxes called the Intolerable Acts which stricken the colonists power to rule themselves. After years of providing reconciliation and amnesty to the monarch, the colonists make a major leap to revolution. The rebels form an army of colonial minutemen who are armed countrymen willing to fight at a minute’s notice. This comes in handy when colonist Paul Revere has a midnight ride to gather the minutemen when he receives a warning of British redcoats (military men.) The war begins in seventeen seventy-five with the famous shot heard around the world that takes place in Concord, Massachusetts. In January of the following year, Thomas Paine, a colonial journalist, convinces the colonies that independence is both necessary and possible in his publication of, “Common Sense,” a short pamphlet reiterating Benjamin Franklin’s proposal to unite, but with a different purpose of actually succeeding from England. At the time this is written, although the war has started, many colonists remain to identify with their motherland while others want to succeed entirely. As they begin to read the document, many begin to