A long time ago, America wasn’t its own country. It was made up of 13 colonies that were controlled by Great Britain. The King of England (King George III) made a lot of rules and taxed the colonists without letting them vote or have a say in how they were governed. The taxes made many colonists angry. The colonists wanted, “No taxation without representation!” In other words: If we can’t vote about the taxes, we shouldn’t have to pay them. The colonies sent Benjamin Franklin to Britain to negotiate and get the taxes lowered or cancelled. In the end, the King said, “No way! We are protecting you from France and Spain who want to take over! We have to pay for the war somehow.”  When Benjamin Franklin found out that the king refused to change things, protests against British taxes were held all over the colonies. The most famous protest was the Boston Tea Party. The British said, the fight is on.

King George sent troops to get the feisty colonists under control. There were new rules made against the colonists and it was the soldiers’ jobs to enforce them. The king thought that the new rules would fix things but they didn’t. There were not any hotels for the soldiers to stay in so King George told the soldiers if they needed a place to stay they could take over someone’s house. Another rule said if food was needed, they could take food without paying for it. Protests, writings and meetings about independence were made illegal and anyone who participated was considered a traitor. People were encouraged to show their allegiance to the king by turning in the traitors. The soldiers were told they could do anything they needed to do to control the traitors. Revolutionaries were arrested and put in prison, and some were even killed.

In 1775, the first real shots in the War for Independence were fired at Bunker Hill near Boston, Massachusetts. After a year of fighting, the Continental Congress was formed. They decided to let the world know, “We’re over this!” They picked Thomas Jefferson, John Adams,  Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston and Benjamin Franklin, to write a powerful letter called the Declaration of Independence. They published the finished document on July 4th, 1776, which is now a holiday called Independence Day. In 1777, an important man named John Adams decided that every American should get together on July 4th and hold parades, picnics and parties to celebrate. That year was the first 4th of July that fireworks lit up the skies in the new nation.