There are many reasons and events that sparked the revolutionary movement. Many of the reasons were based on England's need for power and money. The colonists, who were being taxed and governed against their will decided it was time to break off from the mother country and form their own country with their own rules.

The main events that got the colonists fired up were all the new taxes being forced on them by the British crown to help pay for war reparations. The colonists, though fewer in number, were going to have to pick up 1/3 of England's bill. The colonists probably could have paid this dividend but felt it was unfair. England tried many different ways to tax the colonists but all were rejected. Two of the main ways England tried to get the colonists to pay were by making the Stamp Act, this was repealed due to the reaction of the colonists and the Declaratory was enforced.

The colonists were starting to form an individual nation with it's own identity. They did not like the idea that they were just part of Britain, but would rather be an individual, self-ruled nation. Most of the Patriots believed that a King should not be able to govern them and did not like the idea of a monarchy because it gave too much power to the king. They did not like the idea of being ruled by somebody across the globe that they didn't show loyalty to. With the mother country so far away a revolt would give them a few weeks or even months to prepare for the British red coats to arrive to get them back in line. With this in mind the Patriots first decided to convert the rest of the colonists and get them to turn away from the influence of the British.

If England had brought over more soldiers in the first place and not been so hard on the colonists by placing new taxes on them the colonists probably would have put off the revolt for a while. Even if England hadn't taxed them though it still wouldn't stop the colonists from wanting to break off and form their own nation. The colonies were far more diverse than England and the social make-up was a lot different than it was back in England. The colonies were just slowly becoming more and more different from England. The colonists weren't happy with how they were being governed and England didn't take the right steps towards resolving the problem in the interest of the colonists and therefore the revolution was their own doing.