EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT THE AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY WAR

Professor Benjamin Carp answers key questions about the colonies' 18th-century fight for independence

- CHARLOTTE HODGMAN

Q: What was the American Revolutionary War?

A: The American Revolutionary War, in a nutshell, started out as a political protest against the impositions of the British empire, such as taxation, and eventually turned violent when the American colonists took up arms. The first military clash took place on 19 April 1775 and the conflict officially ended with the Treaty of Paris in September 1783.

Q: Could war have been avoided if Britain had given its American colonies representation in parliament?

A: Representation for the colonies was not very realistic and not really what the Americans wanted, either. Any group of American representatives in parliament could have been easily outvoted, or their representatives could have been corrupted. Plus, it took three to four months for messages to get back and forth. What the Americans really wanted was to use their own colonial assemblies and make voluntary grants back to the British parliament, which would have been another way for Britain to get revenue from its American colonies. It's something that the British could have addressed through negotiations over taxation and governance.

The Stamp Act of 1765 was one of the catalysts for war - it required a certain kind of stamped paper to be used on a variety of documents in America, mostly relating to trade and legal documents, as well as newspapers and even dice. But the types of people that the Stamp Act hit were exactly the types of people you wouldn't have wanted to annoy: lawyers, overseas merchants and tavern owners, for example - people who were particularly effective at publicly airing their grievances.