2025 test · Question 77 of 128
Name one reason why the Americans declared independence from Britain.
Answers from the USCIS list
Give one of these answers. Words in light (parentheses) are optional.
- High taxes
- Taxation without representation
- British soldiers stayed in Americans’ houses optional: (boarding, quartering)
- They did not have self-government
- Boston Massacre
- Boston Tea Party optional: (Tea Act)
- Stamp Act
- Sugar Act
- Townshend Acts
- Intolerable optional: (Coercive) Acts
Our explanation
Britain raised taxes on the colonies, but colonists had no representatives to vote on them. They said this “taxation without representation” was unfair. Britain also passed laws to punish them. The colonists wanted self-government: to rule themselves.
Remember it
Easiest answer: “High taxes.” Or think Boston: Boston Massacre, Boston Tea Party.
Source
USCIS 2025 Study Guide (M-1175) pp. 47–48. Quote: “The reason the colonists fought the British was because they did not have self-government.” … “it was not fair to have taxation without representation.”
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