250 years ago, as tensions rose in the colonies and exploded into violence and warfare, revolution was underway in Britain’s North American colonies. How did ordinary people respond to this unfolding of events, and how did they themselves seek to take the American Revolution in different directions? Despite their general lack of money, resources, and high social position, enslaved people, immigrants, and laboring people sought change for their conditions—and as they acted, they showed new ways to think about their society, their government, and conceptions of freedom. Their actions took place in a variety of spaces: in crowds and public spaces, but also in more intimate settings as they sought to reset relations between ordinary people and the more powerful.

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