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Soon after the discovery of the new world, many Europeans left their countries to find new homes in West Indies and in America.
These people were called ' colonist ' . Some left Europe because of the religious troubles, others left because they disagreed with the government of their own countries.
Many of these men crossed the Atlantic to search for silver and gold or to start cotton and tobacco plantations.
from about 1607, thousands of British people settled in the eastern and southern parts of the present-day United State of America.
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As time went on, these colonists became more prosperous. Each British colony had its own government, but at this time, the European governments insisted their right to pass laws for their colonies.
During the seventeenth century in England, the government pass three Navigation Acts, which made certain rules about the colonial trade.
Some of the goods produced by the colonies were to be exported only to Britain or other Britain colonies, and other goods intended for the Colonies had to pass through English ports for taxation.
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Only British ships, and British colonial ships agreeing to certain rules, could be used. This increased the price of goods.
For some time the colonists in America evaded some of these laws. But during the second half of the eighteenth century, British levied several new taxes which the colonists felt they could not accept.
They refused to obey these laws, because nobody from America had taken part in making these laws.
How can we be asked to pay taxes by the British Parliament in which we have no representative to speak for us? they said.
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But George l l l , King of Britain , and some of his advisers insisted that they did have the right to tax the Americans.
Naturally, the Americans, who had left their homeland in search of freedom, refused to pay the taxes. They pleaded unsuccessfully with the British government to stop these taxes.
In 1775, the situation exploded into war, which lasted for eight years, At first, the British proved stronger than the Americans. But the Americans had an able leader in George Washington, and as the war continued, they gained the upper hand.
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In 1778 France entered the war , and French troops came to the aid of the Americans. Another advantage for the Americans was the great distance from Britain. It was difficult for the British government to transport and supply troops.
Matthew grew worse for the British, when other European nations, france, Spain and Holland, attacked the British navy at sea. Britain, fighting on several fronts at once , found it even more difficult to send troops to America.
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The war ended in 1783 in defeat for Britain; with the signing of the Treaty of Paris, Britain recognized America as an independent country. ( in the course of the war , on the fourth of July , 1776, the Americans had declared their country independent of Britain. This date, rather than a date in 1783, has since been celebrated by America as Independence Day.)
To sum up, the America victory was the result of good leadership, a better knowledge of the geography of the country, and help from France and other European countries.
Britain's defeat was caused not only by the great distance between the battlefield and the home country, but also by poor leadership and difficulty of fighting on several fronts at once.
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The American colonies successful struggle for independence was a revolution. it was the first time in modern times that a colony ruled from outside had rejected foreign rule and formed a nation of its own. Britain learned an important lesson from this.
From that time onwards, Britain had new attitude towards some of her colonies, such as Canada and , later, Australia, where her own people had settled. In their colonies, however, the British repeated the mistake of keeping colonial rule for too long a time.
This led to another revolution : the emergence of self-rule for the former Asian and African colonies.