The Olive Branch Petition was a document written by John Dickinson and adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 5, 1775, directed to the British King George.
The document, written on behalf of the colonists in America, was an attempt to avoid going to war with Britain during the American Revolution.
It explains why the colonists had been rebelling to the British government: they hadn't felt rewarded nor recognized after having won the French and Indian War (1754–63), instead, the government had enacted new laws and taxes waged on them that didn't benefit them. Despite all these events, the colonists wanted to reassurance their loyalty to the crown and assert their rights as British citizens, in order to prevent a war between both parties.
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