Quite simply, Britain betrayed the settlers in her colonies, from Ireland onward. The American plaint, "Taxation without representation," reflected that all too succinctly. Where were the colonies' representatives in Parliament or the House of Lords? What voice did they have?
The colonists identified as English but must have seen they were definitely second-class citizens. Or maybe third.
As I note in my book Quaking Dover, the Massachusetts Bay colony's Calvinist intransigence had been at odds with the Crown from its inception. The first shot heard 'round the world could have erupted at any point.
My pivotal question is just what turned the Loyalists in Virginia so far as to reject the monarchy as well and then join in taking up arms in the revolutionary cause by 1776?
The other colonies moved somewhere in between.
Not that all of this falls much within the scope of my little 400-year history volume as I try to keep a focus.
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