George Washington organized a nationalist independence movement that worked for years to achieve home rule for America. Americans rose up against the absolutist, tyrannical British monarchy known through Europe as having the worst record for civil rights abuses. Americans rose up against the British after years of being impoverished from the heaviest tax burden among the European nations and colonial empires. It was in the interest of many colonists to break from the mother country to get out of paying back their debts to British creditors.