Patriots (also known as American Whigs, Revolutionaries, Congress-Men or Rebels) were the colonists of the British Thirteen United Colonies who rebelled against British control during the American Revolution and in July 1776 declared the United States of America an independent nation. Their rebellion was based on the political philosophy of republicanism, as expressed by pamphleteers, such as Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Paine.

As a group, Patriots represented a wide array of social, economic, ethnic and racial backgrounds. They included lawyers like Alexander Hamilton; planters like Thomas Jefferson; merchants like Alexander McDougall; lawyers like John Adams; and plain farmers like Daniel Shays and Joseph Plumb Martin.

The critics of British rule called themselves Whigs after 1768, identifying with members of the British Whig party (including the Radical Whigs and Patriot Whigs), who favored similar colonial policies. The Oxford English Dictionary third definition of "Patriot" is "A person actively opposing enemy forces occupying his or her country; a member of a resistance movement, a freedom fighter. Originally used of those who opposed and fought the British in the American War of Independence." The earliest citation is a 1773 letter by Benjamin Franklin. In Britain at the time, "patriot" had a negative connotation, and was used, says Samuel Johnson to attack "a factious disturber of the government."

A patriot is someone who feels a strong support for his or her country. See Patriotism. Patriot or Patriots may also refer to:

The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America. They first rejected the authority of the Parliament of Great Britain to govern them from overseas without representation, and then expelled all royal officials. By 1774, each colony had established a Provincial Congress, or an equivalent governmental institution, to govern itself, but still within the empire. The British responded by sending combat troops to re-impose direct rule. Through representatives sent in 1775 to the Second Continental Congress, the states joined together at first to defend their respective self-governance and manage the armed conflict against the British known as the American Revolutionary War (also: American War of Independence, 1775–83). Ultimately, the states collectively determined that the British monarchy, by acts of tyranny, could no longer legitimately claim their allegiance. They then severed ties with the British Empire in July 1776, when the Congress issued the United States Declaration of Independence, rejecting the monarchy on behalf of the new sovereign nation separate and external to the British Empire. The war ended with effective American victory in October 1781, followed by formal British abandonment of any claims to the United States with the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

American(s) may refer to:

A revolution (from the Latin revolutio, "a turn around") is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time. Aristotle described two types of political revolution:

Revolutions have occurred through human history and vary widely in terms of methods, duration, and motivating ideology. Their results include major changes in culture, economy, and socio-political institutions.

Scholarly debates about what does and does not constitute a revolution center around several issues. Early studies of revolutions primarily analyzed events in European history from a psychological perspective, but more modern examinations include global events and incorporate perspectives from several social sciences, including sociology and political science. Several generations of scholarly thought on revolutions have generated many competing theories and contributed much to the current understanding of this complex phenomenon.

Copernicus named his 1543 treatise on the movements of planets around the sun De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of Celestial Bodies) and this has come to be the model type of a scientific revolution. However "Revolution" is attested by at least 1450 in the sense of representing abrupt change in a social order. Political usage of the term had been well established by 1688 in the description of the replacement of James II with William III. The process was termed "The Glorious Revolution". Apparently the sense of social change and the geometric sense as in "Surface of revolution" developed in various European languages from the Latin between the 14th and 17th centuries, the former developing as a metaphor from the latter. "Revolt" as an event designation appears after the process term and is given a related but distinct and later derivation.