The third and final reason for the colonists rebelling in opposition to the British was the social actions of the colonists and British. These actions were astonishing to most people in their severity, but nonetheless, they were brought on by previous British actions. The first action which seriously affected the colonies was the Boston Massacre. The Boston Massacre was when some colonists got in a fight with a British sentry, after a while, back up arrived for the sentry and the colonists began throwing things like ice and snow. The British soldiers were aggravated enough and one of them took a shot, leading the others to as well. Five people had died and one was wounded, but the gun shots were uncalled for though many of the colonists, they thought that citizens should not be killed over throwing snowballs.
Later the event was publicized as a tragedy and got many people angry at the general who was leading the soldiers, who made it so that once again, a government official’s decision got the colonists closer to the revolutionary war. The other two reasons for the British government failing to control the colonies was that some of the states had their own sorts of governments already. In Massachusetts the Mayflower Compact was established for the people of that colony, with representatives and a judicial court room. Meanwhile, a similar thing was going on in Virginia where the House of Burgesses was established. These were both law making bodies for those states only, but these were so similar to parliament that it stunned some people. Many thought that they were brought together by a famous quote and political cartoon by Benjamin Franklin which said: “Join or Die” meaning if the colonies did not come together then they would fall to the British. These two governments show that the poor governing of the British could not stop the colonists from coming together and easily making plans to get rid of them or just establish their own government which could definitely lead to revolution if they were pushed far enough.
In conclusion, the British lost the colonies because of poor governmental decisions which affected political, economic, and social aspects of the colonies. Not being able to control the changes in the people of the colonies was their ultimate downfall because of their distance from Britain and because of their poor governing skills.
