When war erupted in 1775, it seemed clear that Britain would win. It had a large, well-organized land army, and the Royal Navy was unmatched on the sea. Many of the British troops in the Revolutionary War were veterans who had fought in the French and Indian War.

At a meeting of the Second Continental Congress in the summer of 1776, Richard Henry Lee, a delegate from Virginia, proposed that the American colonies should declare their independence from Britain

As the colonies prepared themselves for war, new militias were formed throughout America, primarily to defend local communities from British aggression.

In 1772, Samuel Adams of Boston created the first Committee Of Correspondence, which was primarily an exchange of ideas in letters and pamphlets among members. Within a few years, this one committee led to dozens of similar discussion groups in towns throughout the colonies.

Parliament wasted little time invoking its right to “bind” the colonies under the Declaratory Act. The very next year, in 1767, it passed the Townshend Acts

During the period from 1763 to 1775, in the twelve years after the French and Indian War and before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, colonial distrust of Britain grew markedly, and the emerging united national identity in America became more prominent.

Unlike the previous wars between European powers in the 1700s, the French And Indian War was begun in North America—in the heartland of the Ohio Valley, where both France and Britain held claims to land and trading rights.