In the 1760s, Britain became embroiled in a war with France and its Native American allies over settlements in the Ohio River valley on the west side of the Allegheny Mountains. Britain ultimately won and essentially kicked the French out of North America.
But the war was expensive and Britain imposed a series of taxes and tariffs on the 13 colonies.
The colonists thought of themselves as loyal British subjects. But they were angered by the new taxes and resented Britain’s interference in their daily life.
The backlash united merchants, lawyers, and ordinary citizens across the colonies in discussions about their rights as British citizens.
Instead of just complaining about the taxes and tariffs, they framed their complaint as an attack on their rights as Englishmen —No Taxation without representation.
Over more than 10 years, the colonists never gave up and—thanks to British overreactions—public opinion moved from resistance to widespread cries for Independence. What had been 13 separate colonies now felt like a single nation.
And led by Patriots like Sam Adams, they used all available media to get the word out. Adams alone flooded Boston newspapers with letters, and essays under 30 pseudonyms, creating the illusion of widespread consensus.
On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress issued what amounted to a global press release — the Declaration of Independence. It was promptly published, delivered on horseback and by ship, read aloud before troops in the Continental Army, published in newspapers from Vermont to Georgia, and dispatched to Europe where many newspapers reprinted in its entirety. But the war would grind on for seven more years.
In a sense, the revolution continued. The Declaration's language about "unalienable Rights" and the "pursuit of Happiness" became a rallying cry for various groups seeking to expand the concepts of freedom and equality to include those who were still excluded in 1776.
The Revolution from which these movements sprang continues.
And much of this happened before PR had a name,
