The laundry list of grievances in the Declaration notwithstanding, the American colonists were hardly an oppressed people in the 1770s. The Revolution came about primarily because the colonists started thinking of themselves as a nation apart from the UK, not because their lives were so miserable.
I think the First Continental Congress was a vastly underappreciated turning point in the conflict. It would have been the easiest thing in the world for the other colonies to leave Massachusetts holding the bag after the Boston Tea Party, but they didn’t, because, in spite of their cultural and economic differences, they saw the people of Massachusetts as fellow travelers.
Food for thought on July 4, 2018.