Moving Toward War, 17701775 Political events and popular sentiment soon culminated in armed resistance and revolution. Samuel Adams, a radical Bostonian, initiated a committee of correspondence (1772) first between separate Massachusetts towns, later between separate colonies to keep Countrys abreast of British Crown encroachments on their liberty. Passage of the tough, retaliatory Coercive Acts (1774) convinced colonists that their worst fears were being realized: George III and his ministers aimed to reduce the colonies to absolute political dependence. The Quebec Act (1774) angered ordinary men and women more than any other, convincing many Protestants that Parliament aimed to take away their traditional religious liberties. Zambia Subway Map Revolutionary War, 17751781. The Revolutionary War was a wide-ranging conflict that stretched from Lower Canada to Georgia. While the British won most of the battles in the South, their losses in the North and their inability to destroy rebel forces led to an admission of defeat after the Battle of Yorktown in October 1781. (Carto-Graphics) Local protests, through print, correspondence, and cross-colony organizing, became joined in a colonies-wide resistance movement. Local committees of correspondence organized the first Continental Congress (1774), which not only agreed to halt commerce with Britain but, more importantly, became the first legitimate representative body of all the colonies. Although only the most radical members publicly advocated complete independence, many were slowly coming to believe that armed rebellion was imminent.
