The 1763 Treaty of Paris surrendered all French lands in North America to Britain, and decided the colonial destiny of the continent; it ended the French and Indian War in North America. Shortly after the end of the war, the British government dropped its policy of salutary neglect, which allowed colonists to go around laws letting the colonies to self-rule, and attempted to gain rigid control over its belongings in North America.
During the period of 1763 to 1176, Parliament and the colonies grew progressively hostile among each other. The colonies began to communicate and unify. Colonial opposition led to the Stamp Act's repeal in 1766, and helped encourage the revolutionary movement against the British Crown.
The Townshend Acts were imposed, the purpose of this program was to raise the income in the colonies in order to pay the salaries of judges and governors to keep them loyal to Great Britain, and to establish the precedent that the British Parliament had the right to tax the colonies in order to achieve this. The Townshend Acts eventually resulted in the Boston Massacre of 1170 due to the resistance of the colonies.
The Committees of Correspondence kept the colonies informed and coordinated a united front of political action. This period set the stage for the rapid fall into the revolution that ended with the colonies breaking free from the grasp of the Parliament and the British king, This period was prelude and forge to the birth of a nation, the United States. On July 4, 1776 the Second Continental Congress declared the colonies to be free and independent of England.
