The birth of the United States was a long and laborious process, costing thousands of lives and testing the human will to survive and dominate. Revolutionists, although their zeal waxed and waned over time, eventually perceived any attempts by Britain to govern the colonies as unfair. Attempts by England to retain control of their colonies became magnified, and were used as an inspiration toward rebellion. Britain's motives were considered to be increasingly untrustworthy. "By 1775 many colonists were convinced, as one town meeting stated, that the British government had 'a design to take away our liberties and properties and enslave us forever'"(Millet p. 49-50). This seems fairly strong language directed toward Britain, while Americans were simultaneously enslaving black servants. America's break from England may have been inevitable. England's actions were construed in a manner that would agitate and increase the nationalistic spirit required for rebellion, and create such nationalism that an initially rag-tag army was able to finally defeat the British due to the sheer determination to be independent.

             What we now call the beginning of the revolution was considered by the British to be only a rebellion at that time. But, prior to the start of the war, certain numbers of colonists had been consistently stirring the pot against Britain, and setting the stage for resistance even a full decade before the first shot was fired in Lexington on Concord in 1775. When Thomas Paine's widely circulated publication of Common Sense, extremely biased against Great Britain, "excoriated monarchy in principle and George III in person and declared that 'the weeping voice of nature cries, 'Tis time to part;' .it found a receptive audience" (Millett p.63). The colonists were exposed to this style of "independence" propaganda for many years prior to the outbreak of war.

             America's "mother" country, from the beginning, effectively regulated the trade of goods to and from America, as well as restricting goods that could be manufactured within America.