Grievance #3 of the Declaration of Independence
Why did the colonists start calling King George III a tyrant? It came down to one thing: representation.
In Grievance 3 of the Declaration of Independence, the colonists push back against British policies that blocked westward expansion and limited representation in colonial governments. Even when new districts were created, they weren’t allowed a voice.
For colonists, this wasn’t just about land, it was about power. More land should mean more representation. Without it, they believed their rights were being ignored.
Thomas Jefferson made it clear: without representation, the people were subject to the unchecked will of the king. That idea helped transform “Farmer George” into something else entirely, the Tyrant King.
This is Part 3 of our 27-part series breaking down every grievance that led to the American Revolution, building toward Independence Day.
0:00 When King George III read the third
0:02 grievance of the Declaration of
0:03 Independence, he probably couldn’t
0:05 believe it. Americans had the gall to
0:07 accuse him of being a tyrant. After all,
0:10 he was a known admirer of the English
0:12 Constitution. Heck, the people even
0:14 called him Farmer George with endearment
0:16 for his interest in agriculture and his
0:17 love of traditional English values. So,
0:20 how could Thomas Jefferson and the
0:21 Continental Congress call him a tyrant?
0:23 Well, after the Seven Years’ War, George
0:25 III banned settlement past the
0:27 Appalachian Mountains to prevent future
0:29 conflicts with Native Americans. The
0:31 measure angered Americans more than the
0:33 king expected. Farmer George may have
0:35 had all the land he wanted in England,
0:37 but farmers in the colonies believed
0:39 that they should access the land they
0:40 had defended in the war. But, it wasn’t
0:42 just the land they wanted. They also
0:44 wanted more representation.
0:46 Similar to our state legislatures today,
0:48 colonies were divided into districts.
0:50 Gaining more territory meant adding more
0:52 districts, and adding more districts
0:54 meant more representatives in the
0:55 colonial assembly. But, the king and his
0:57 ministers worried this expansion would
0:59 defy proclamation and lead to another
1:01 war. So, the king and his Secretary of
1:03 State, Lord Hillsborough, created a new
1:05 policy. While the colonies were welcome
1:06 to add more districts, any new districts
1:09 would not be represented in their
1:10 colonial legislatures.
1:12 "If there is no representation to gain
1:14 from expansion," they thought, "perhaps
1:16 colonists would be content with the
1:18 borders as they were." Unsurprisingly,
1:20 Thomas Jefferson and others were
1:22 outraged by these measures that seemed
1:24 to use a bunch of legal fine print to
1:26 limit American prosperity. "Our
1:28 ancestors," he reminded the king in
1:30 1774, "were farmers, not lawyers.
1:33 Without the glorious right of
1:35 representation, Americans would have to
1:36 submit themselves as the absolute slaves
1:39 of the king’s sovereign will," Jefferson
1:41 claimed. By 1776, Jefferson had given
1:44 Farmer George an entirely new title, the
1:47 tyrant king.
