Daughters of Liberty - This organization of colonial women supported the boycott of British goods by signing petitions of protest and promoting the manufacture of clothing and other goods in the home. Sarah Franklin Bache (1743-1808), daughter of Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), organized a chapter which made clothing and administered hospital shipments.

Declaration and Resolves (1774) - Adopted on October 14, 1774 by the delegates to the First Continental Congress (1774), it stated that colonists possessed all the rights of Englishmen, and that only colonial legislatures had the right to levy taxes on colonists, subject to the King's veto. This declaration was issued in reaction to the Coercive or Intolerable Acts (1774).

Declaration of Independence (1776) - This document was drafted by Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), John Adams (1735-1826), Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), Roger Sherman (1721-1793), and Robert R. Livingston (1746-1813) and signed by John Hancock (1737-1793) on July 4, 1776 at the Second Continental Congress. Most of the other 55 delegates, from all thirteen colonies, signed it on August 2, 1774. With elegance and clarity, the document described the natural rights of all people, listed the "injuries and usurpations" inflicted by the King and Parliament on the people of the American colonies, and declared that, due to the failure of the King and Parliament to promote the rights of its American subjects, the thirteen colonies officially declared themselves "free and independent states." In the eyes of Britain, this amounted to an act of treason, and all the signers of the document would have been in danger of a torturous execution if they had lost the war that backed up the assertions of the Declaration.

Declaratory Act (1766) - Simultaneous with the repeal of the Stamp Act (1765), Parliament passed the Declaratory Act, which asserted Parliament's complete authority over the colonies, "in all cases whatsoever."