History of the United States represented in it? Crying "No taxation without representation", the colonists refused to pay the taxes as tensions escalated in the late 1760s and early 1770s. The Boston Tea Party in 1773 was a direct action by activists in the town of Boston to protest against the new tax on tea. Parliament quickly responded the next year with the Coercive Acts, stripping Massachusetts of its historic right of self-government and putting it under army rule, which sparked outrage and resistance in all thirteen colonies. Patriot leaders from all 13 colonies convened the First Continental Congress to coordinate their resistance to the
Harbor Defenses of New York defending the colonies. One result was that delegates from nine colonies met to protest at what would later be known as Federal Hall in Manhattan as the Stamp Act Congress, protesting "taxation without representation". In November of that year a committee of the Sons of Liberty was established in New York. In April 1775 the American Revolution broke out full-scale at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts. In March 1776 Patriot forces captured Boston. Their commander, General George Washington, thought the evacuating British force would immediately attempt to capture New York and sent troops to the city, soon followed by himself.