<P> New England, especially Boston, was the center of revolutionary activity in the decade before 1775, with Massachusetts politicians Samuel Adams, John Adams, and John Hancock as leaders . New Englanders, like all Americans, were very proud of their political freedoms and local democracy, which they felt was increasingly threatened by the British imperial government . The main grievance was taxation, which colonists argued could only be imposed by their own legislatures, and not by the Parliament in London . Their political cry was, "No taxation without representation!" On December 16, 1773, when a ship was planning to land taxed tea in Boston, local activists calling themselves the Sons of Liberty, disguised themselves as Indians, raided the ship, and dumped all the tea into the harbor . This Boston Tea Party outraged British officials, and the King and Parliament decided to punish Massachusetts . </P> <P> Parliament passed the Intolerable Acts in 1774 that brought stiff punishment . It closed the port of Boston, the economic lifeblood of the Commonwealth, and ended self - government, putting the people under military rule . The patriots set up a shadow government, which the British Army attacked on April 18, 1775 at Concord . On the 19th, in the Battles of Lexington and Concord, where the famous "shot heard' round the world" was fired, British troops were forced back into the city by the local militias, under the control of the shadow government . The British army controlled only the city of Boston, and it was quickly brought under siege . The Continental Congress took control of the war, sending General George Washington to take charge . He forced the British to evacuate in March 1776 . After that, the main warfare moved south, but the British made repeated raids along the coast, and seized part of Rhode Island and Maine for a while . On the whole, the patriots controlled 99 percent of the New England population . </P> <P> New England's Dark Day struck on May 19, 1780 . While residents were apprehensive at the time, for lack of a clear cause for the darkness requiring candlelight in the middle of the day, it appears that forest fires, a fog, and cloud cover, all contributed . </P> <P> After independence, New England ceased to be a meaningful political unit, but remained a defined historical and cultural region consisting of its now - sovereign constituent states . By 1784, all of the states in the region had introduced the gradual abolition of slavery, with Vermont and Massachusetts introducing total abolition in 1777 and 1783, respectively . During the War of 1812, there was a limited amount of talk of secession from the Union, as New England merchants, just getting back on their feet, opposed the war with their greatest trading partner--Britain . Delegates from all over New England met in Hartford in the winter of 1814 - 15 . The gathering was called the Hartford Convention . The twenty - seven delegates met to discuss changes to the US Constitution that would protect the region from similar legislation and attempt to keep political power in the region . </P>

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