The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in colonial North America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolutionary War, gaining independence from the British Crown and establishing the United States of America, the first modern constitutional liberal democracy.
American colonists objected to being taxed by the British Parliament, a body in which they had no direct representation. Before the 1760s, Britain's American colonies had enjoyed a high level of autonomy in their internal affairs, which were locally governed by colonial legislatures. The passage of the Stamp Act of 1765 imposed internal taxes on the colonies, which led to colonial protest, and the meeting of representatives of several colonies in the Stamp Act Congress. Tensions relaxed with the British repeal of the Stamp Act, but flared again with the passage of the Townshend Acts in 1767. The British government deployed troops to Boston in 1768 to quell unrest, leading to the Boston Massacre in 1770.