US Independence

By Benjamin Naimark-Rowse for Political Violence at a Glance. There is much more to the story of the campaign for independence of the United States than the 56 people who signed the Declaration of Independence. There was a decade of resistance campaigns before 1776 that involved common people who have not shared historical recognition. In this period, women were key leaders but then war brought military men to the forefront. In fact, some say independence was won in that decade and the war was Great Britain’s effort to retake the colonies by force. Colonists used what today are considered classic tools of nonviolent resistance struggles. Founding Father, John Adams wrote that, “A history of military operations…is not a history of the American Revolution.” American Revolutionaries led not one, but three nonviolent resistance campaigns in the decade before the Revolutionary War. These campaigns were coordinated. They were primarily nonviolent. They helped politicize American society. And they allowed colonists to replace colonial political institutions with parallel institutions of self-government that help form the foundation of the democracy that we rely on today.