The cultural and political groundwork for revolution was laid by the Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s, a religious revival that emphasized personal faith, challenged established church authority, and fostered a shared sense of American identity that crossed colonial boundaries. This emerging unity was soon tested by the French and Indian War (1754 to 1763), the North American theater of the Seven Years' War. Britain's victory over France gave it control of Canada and the territory east of the Mississippi but left it deeply in debt, prompting Parliament to impose new taxes on the colonies.
The Stamp Act of 1765, which required tax stamps on printed materials, provoked fierce colonial opposition under the rallying cry of "no taxation without representation" and was repealed the following year. Tensions nevertheless escalated. In December 1773, colonists disguised as Mohawk Indians dumped 342 chests of British East India Company tea into Boston Harbor in what became known as the Boston Tea Party, protesting the Tea Act. Britain responded with the punitive Intolerable Acts of 1774, which closed Boston Harbor and restricted self-governance. In response, delegates from twelve colonies convened the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia to coordinate resistance, agreeing to boycott British goods and petitioning King George III. The crisis turned to open conflict on April 19, 1775, when British troops marching to seize colonial weapons stores at Concord were met by colonial Minutemen at Lexington, firing "the shot heard round the world" that began the American Revolution.