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175Thematic ConnectionsAP%u00ae THEME: America in the World. Why did the colonists revolt?To administer the vast new American territory it gained in 1763, Britain had to reform its empire. Until that time, its colonies had been left largely free to manage their own affairs. Now, Parliament hoped to pay the costs of empire by taxing the colonies, while at the same time extending control over its new lands in the continental interior. Colonial radicals resisted these reforms. Calling themselves Patriots, they insisted on preserving local control over taxes. As Britain pressured local communities, colonists created intercolonial institutions and developed a broad critique of British rule that combined older, republican political principles with radical ideas of natural rights and the equality of all men. Their protests grew more strident, eventually resulting in open warfare with Great Britain and a declaration of independence.AP%u00ae THEME: Politics and Power. Why did Americans create republican governments?At the same time they fought a war against Great Britain, Patriot leaders in the newly independent states had to create new governments. They drafted constitutions for their states while maintaining a loose confederacy to bind them together. In 1787, reformers put forward a new plan of government in the form of a constitution that would bind the states into a single nation. At both the state and the national level, leaders sought to create republics: systems of government grounded in the sovereignty of the people.The new American republic emerged fitfully. Experiments in government took shape across an entire generation, and it took still longer to decide how much power the federal republic should wield over the states. Political culture was unformed and slow to develop. Political parties, for example, were an unexpected development. At first they were widely regarded as illegitimate, but by 1800 they had become essential to managing political conflict, heightening some forms of competition while blunting others. In the last half of the eighteenth century, American political culture was transformed as newly created governments gained the allegiance of their citizens.AP%u00ae THEME: Migration and Settlement. How did the United States secure and expand its borders?One uncontested value of the Revolutionary era was a commitment to economic opportunity. To achieve this goal, people migrated onto Indigenous homelands in large numbers, creating new pressures on the United States to meet the needs of its citizens. The federal government acted against westerners who tried to rebel or secede, fought wars against Native American nations to claim new territory, and turned back challenges from Britain and France to maintain its control over western lands. By 1820, the United States claimed territory all the way to the Pacific Ocean, far beyond the thirteen original states.Even as the borders of the United States expanded, its diversity inhibited the effort to define an American culture and identity. Native Americans still lived in their own clans and nations; Black Americans were developing a distinct African American culture; and white Americans were enmeshed in vigorous regional and ethnic communities. But by 1800, to be an American meant, for many members of the dominant white population, to be a republican, a Protestant, and an enterprising individual. The Granger Collection, New York.The Granger Collection, New York.Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr., 1985.66.502%u00a9 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Do not distribute.