THE AMERICAN

REVOLUTION:for
Kids
By: Phillip Tran

 DEFINITIONS:
Colonist: the
people who lived
in the 13 colonies.
Britain: The
nation that
controlled the
Colonist.
King George the
3rd: The King of
Britain.
Taxes: Money that
you have to pay to
the government.
Stamp Act: The
law that King
George passed to
make the Colonist
pay more money .

Once upon a time, there was a place called the 13

Colonies, the people here were called the Colonist Now
the 13 colonies were under control. They were under
control by the place called Britain. Now see, the king of
Britain, King George the 3rd was a bully to the Colonist.
He made them pay him money, this was called taxes. Now
he wanted more then just taxes. Being the bully he was,
he used something called the Stamp Act, this means he
forced the Colonist had to pay more taxes for stamps on
their papers. Unfortunately, it got worse for the Colonist.
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 DEFINITIONS:
Privacy: When
you want to all
by yourself.
Quartering act:
The law that
was passed
that forced the
Colonist to take
in British
soldiers and
take care of
them.

A couple of years later, the bully King George the 3rd did another thing to
the Colonist to make it harder for them. He had passed another law for the
Colonist to follow. It was called the quartering act. The Colonist had to take
in the British soldiers and basically treat them like family. They had to feel
them, clean them, just like they gave birth to them. Now they Colonist felt
like they had no privacy. I mean they had British soldiers living with them,
how isn't that having privacy. Now the Colonist would want pay back, they
did something called Tar and Feathering. They would put sticky stuff
called tar and cover you in feathers. They would do this to tax collectors
who enforced this act. You might think that after this the bully King George
the 3rd would stop, but it got worse.
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Massacre: When a
lot of people are
killed in a very nasty
way .
Trial: When people
have an argument
on who is right and
who is wrong about
some things.
Tension: The feeling
of stressed emotions
being felt.

Now a couple of weeks later, with all of the laws being passed, tension started to build between the
Colonist and the British. They started to hate each other at this point so more tax collectors were starting
to get tar and feathered. It all came to a boiling point when the Boston Massacre happened. So what
happened was a bunch of really angry Colonist were yelling at a guard for the British. They then started
hitting him so what he did was call up some more soldiers like captain Preston to help out. Even after they
got there they still were starting to hell Fire at us if you dare Now what happened next was the Captain
said not to fire. One soldier was confused what to do and someone knocked him down. His gun
accidentally fired and then everyone else fired. 5 Colonist died because of this so they had a trial. Now
John Adams, one of the major revolutionaries defended them. He won the case because he had all the
evidence right and not biased evidence. The investigation they did helped them to get fair evidence. Now
with this, it built even more tension , so it was not the end yet.
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Tea act: The law that

King George passed
that made Colonist
have to buy British
taxed tea only.
Boston Tea Party:
When the Colonist
dumped all of the
British tea into
Boston Harbor.
Intolerable act: The
law that King
George passed to
make sure that
Boston didnt have
any power to do
anything.
Independence:
To do
A couple of days after the Boston Massacre, the British leader King George
the 3rd
what
ever
passed another law to make them pay more money. He called this the tea
act,
theyou
teawant.
act made them only buy British tea, which was really taxed. This means that they had
to pay even more taxes just to get some tea for themselves. Now on top of al the
other things, they had to pay taxes for tea. Now the Colonist were very angry but they
decided to actually do something about it. They decided to fight back this tea tax by
dumping all of the British tea into Boston harbor. They called this the Boston Tea
Party. Now this made King George the 3rd go nuts. What he did was take away
Bostons chance to do anything .This was called the Intolerable act. This lead Ben
Franklin to make a drawing banner with the saying Join or Die. He meant if we, the
13 Colonist dont band together then we wont have independence from the British.
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Concord: A town in
Massachusetts that
at time had weapons
stored over there.
Lexington: The town
in between Concord
where the first shots
of the revolutionary
war happened.
Revolutionary war:
The war where 13
colonies fought for
independence with
the British.
A few weeks later, the British found our that the Colonist had been hiding weapons that
they had at a town called Concord. Since they did, the British wanted to break all of
them, so they started walking from Boston to the town called Concord. There was a
town in between called Lexington. So the Colonist soon found out that the British were
after their weapons, so they hid it somewhere else and went to Lexington to fight the
British. So at Lexington, the Colonist waited for the British to get there. When the
British got there, they had waited, staring at each other. Now there are a lot of stories
on who fired first, but when that happened, everyone shot at each other. A couple of
people died there. From then on, the revolutionary war began between the British and
the Colonist.
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Thomas Paine:
The man who
wrote Common
Sense.
Common Sense:
The book that
the man Thomas
Paine wrote, it
was about
Britains cruelty
and the freedom
of America.
Loyalists: The
people in the 13
colonies who
wanted to stay
In 1776, there was a man, his name was Thomas Paine. He had recently immigrated to the
dependent on
13 colonies, he had it funded by Benjamin Franklin who had said he was a bright young
man. He previously had only caused trouble in his life, as he was a taxBritain.
collector. He would
argue about anything inside the market place, causing trouble. Now in America, Thomas
Paine tried his hand at writing. The book he had published was called Common Sense.
Now in his experience of Britain, and its cruelty, his book was a product of that experience.
That means he ranted on Britain and talk about freedom and independence of America. The
Colonist just ate this book up, he sold 120,000 the first 3 weeks, millions over the course of
the years. Now not everyone agreed with what this book said. The loyalists shunned this
book and called Paine a traitor for writing the book.
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Thomas Jefferson:
One of the founding
fathers of America
who was there
when the
Constitution was
written
D.O.I: Short for the
declaration of
independence, it
was written to
declare the 13
colonies
independence.
All Men are Created
Equal: The first line
in the constitution
that means that all
men are equal to
each other.
Constitution: The
After Common Sense was published, this inspired the Colonists to further
thethat
document
revolution. They decided to create the American constitution. Nowgives
to dothe
this,
they
American
gathered 2 of the most wealthy and powerful men in the colonies, citizens
representing
two
their rights.
each for one colony. Now to help, people such as Thomas Jefferson helped out with
making the D.OI and Constitution. Now the D.OI started off on the lines All Men are
Created Equal. Now when this was written, it was written only by rich white men. So
essentially they only wanted people like them to benefit from it. People who benefitted
from it were usually the rich, as it gave them their power over money back. The poor
most likely didnt benefit much from this. Now with all this rallying, the Colonists didnt
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know about their uphill battle.

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Treaty of Paris: The

treaty that the
Colonist made with
the British that got
them more land that
belonged to the
Native Americans.
Alliance: When 2
people work together
to do something.
Yorktown: A town in
the south that had a
battle in the
revolutionary war.
Surrender: When
someone gives up
Now soon after the D.O.I was signed, the Colonists and the British
had asomeone.
full out war. Now
against
the Colonists would always tease the British by calling them Red Coats. The Leader of the
Continental army: The
Colonies' army was none other then our first president, George Washington. Now even with
Colonist
army.
George Washington being really smart and all, the first few fights
with the
British were

The
End

tough for them. The turning point of the war was when George Washington crossed the
Delaware and surprised the British, making them surrender. Now from here on out, the
Colonists Continental army started winning. This is when the people of France made an
alliance with the Colonists. Now after the last battle, thanks to Frances help at the battle
of Yorktown, they surrendered the war. Now some thing called the Treaty of Paris was
made. It gave the Colonists way more land. Now
this seems good but the land they Pg:
took8
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were the Native Americans land. After, they natives had no home to go to.

About the Author

Phillip Tran lives in
Boston,
Massachusetts. He
is 15 years old. The
previous books that
he have written are
books such as
Conflicts of the
new world. and
other things in that
category. His future
projects are going
to involve things
revolving around
the American
Revolution and

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