"Rebellion Comes to the Champlain Valley" Topic

"After the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763 the yoke of British rule seemed increasingly heavy to the self-reliant and restive British colonists in North America. The colonists viewed the increased taxes, perceived limitations of rights, and trade duties levied by their absentee government as tyranny, while the British government considered growing colonial resistance a movement that required vigorous suppression. The leaders of the growing American rebellion grew more vocal in their advocacy of human rights and liberty. The colonies first unified to condemn the Stamp Act of 1765, but they reacted even more quickly to the passage of the Coercive ["Repressive" or "Intolerable"] Acts in 1774, which Parliament had instituted in response to the Boston Tea Party. As King George III informed Prime Minister Lord North in September 1774, "the die is now cast, the colonies must either submit or triumph….We must not retreat; by coolness and remitted pursuit of the measures that have been adopted I trust they will submit." The king's confident wish did not come true.

On the evening of April 18, 1775, the inevitable finally occurred when British troops marched out of Boston to seize patriot supplies in nearby Concord, Massachusetts. The next morning, shots were fired in neighboring Lexington, Massachusetts that left eight Americans dead on the town green. Further volleys were exchanged at Concord, and American militiamen hotly pursued the British force on its retreat to Boston. By nightfall of April 19, patriot militias had taken up arms in the call for resistance and encircled British-held Boston. The British attempt to discourage the "rude rabble without plan" with a display of force had instead led to open conflict…"
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