Background information

Patrick Henry’s “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” speech was made in the context of the deteriorating relations between the American Colonies and Great Britain. Below, you have some of the important events of that period explained in more detail for a better understanding of the speech.

Taxation without representation

Tensions between Britain and the Thirteen American Colonies arose in the late 1760s over different taxation measures Britain was imposing on the colonies. One of the main complaints of the colonies was that they received no representation in the British Parliament in exchange for all the taxes they were required to pay. 

Colonial resistance resulted in violence in Boston in 1770 when a group of British soldiers who were enforcing Britain’s tax laws killed three p...