Colonial Unity and the Revolution

Building up to the Revolution, the British colonists in America were becoming less a mixture of different fugitives and becoming more and more a single group of American rebels against the English crown. While England was involved in its own European wars, the british colonies had to find new entities to trade with, or else they would discontinue any revenue. This led to American trade with the French West Indies and other European controlled Carribean regions. Starting with the Molasses Act, the british crown tried desperately to restrict the american colonies to only British trade. This act only enraged the colonists into smuggling and illegally trading with the French. After this came the french and Indian War, which united the colonists against the french. Once the Americans had won the war, the british passed the Proclomation of 1763, which stopped the colonists from claiming the land that they had just fought for. Even more infuriating were the taxes, such as the Sugar Act, the Tea tax, and the Stamp Acts. The Tea tax led to the most tangible results, including the Boston Tea Party, the placing of British troops in Boston, and after that, the Boston Massacre.
Also, leaders in the colonies began to rise to the occasion and spread a common feeling of disloyalty in the British crown. One of these leaders in Boston, Samuel Adams, created local commitees throughout the area, so as to arouse rebellion. Even further down the road was the Continental Congress in 1774, which virtually destroyed state barriers with the meeting of 55 distinguished men, and the Association, which made an agreement to completely boycott British goods. All of this adds up to the American sentiment that working with the english crown was not in their best interests anymore, and a united people against their oppresion was maturing.