From 1689 to 1776: Colonists as English Rights-Holders

American colonists began their resistance not as revolutionaries but as Britons claiming rights won in 1688. News of William's arrival in 1689 sparked uprisings in Boston, New York and Maryland against officials tied to James II, and Massachusetts colonists overthrew Governor Edmund Andros. Throughout the eighteenth century, colonial assemblies modeled themselves on Parliament and insisted on the principle, confirmed in 1689, that taxes required the consent of representatives.

When Parliament taxed the colonies directly after 1763, colonists argued that it was violating the very constitution 1688 had secured. This makes the American Revolution an unusual case: it began as a defense of an existing order and only gradually became a break with monarchy itself. Comparison with 1688 shows how much the American leaders borrowed, and how far they eventually went beyond it.