after the french and indian war, the colonists began to think that they were not getting their "rights as freeborn englishman". this meant they wanted to be treated fairly by the english government. this was mainly caused by new taxes the british made the colonies pay to pay for the war. americans called this "no taxation without representation", meaning that the colonists should not have to pay taxes unless they had votes in the british parliament. each tax was disliked, and replaced by another which led to more unity between the colonies. in 1770, colonists in boston known as the sons of liberty got in a fight with british soldiers. this became known as the boston massacre. after the tea act, the sons of liberty dumped hundreds of boxes of tea in the sea. this was known as the boston tea party (1773). this led to the british army taking over boston. after that, leaders of the 13 colonies formed a group called the continental congress ( 1774 ). many people were members of the continental congress, but some of the more important ones were benjamin franklin, john adams, thomas jefferson, john hancock, roger sherman and john jay.