Up to the mid 1700's the colonists were heavily tied to Britain through trade and politics. However between the years of 1750 and 1776 the colonists had developed a major sense of their own identity and unity. The three major things that helped them develop that new sense of identity and unity were: Religion, Economics, and Politics.
Religion didn't play a big role in uniting the colonists against Britain; it instead played a big role in uniting the colonists with each other by giving them a common belief in God which everyone could relate to. It did this through the Great Awakening. This spread the word of God throughout the colonies and united people in the way of giving something to everybody that they could all relate to: a belief in God and his teachings. Two men that were known for playing a big part in the Great Awakening were Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield. One thing that helped to unite the colonists against Britain was economic issues.
One way, economically, the colonists developed their own sense of identity and unity was through the hardships of the Navigation Acts. These Acts created many problems for all of the colonies. This united the colonists by creating a common problem which everybody could relate to. Therefore they all had a common goal and worked together to accomplish it. You can see how intense they were about joining up to battle against Britain by looking at the grotesque picture in Document A. In addition in 1774 Parliament passed a series of laws called the coercive acts. These were an attempt to isolate Boston from the rest of America, but instead other colonists united and sent supplies and food to Boston to help them out as seen in Document G. The only way they could hope to unite and win against the British was through leadership and organization in their political system.
One major political peeve the colonists had against Britain was taxation without representation.