Before the actual fighting occurred in 1775, American colonists responded to British imperial policies using a number of active, but nonviolent...

First, many colonists were protesters without even knowing it--the Proclamation Line of 1763 set the Appalachian Mountains as the westernmost boundary for English settlement in the New World, as the area west of it was supposed to be native lands.  Many colonists had already went west of it before 1763 and had no intention of moving back--thus making them on the wrong side of English rule.  The Tea Act of 1773 was passed to give the East India Company a monopoly on the American tea trade.  Actually, even with the tax, English tea was still cheaper than all others.  The colonists made it a point not to use this tea and smuggled other imported teas from the Dutch and Spanish and in Boston they famously threw the tea in the harbor during the Boston tea party.  The Townshend Duties put taxes on lead, paint, and glass, but many colonists got around this by smuggling, even though smuggling often meant doing business with nations that Britain was at war against.  There was also a push to make the colonies more self-sufficient as the Daughters of Liberty created more American clothes by hand so that colonists would not be entirely dependent on British exports.  This boycott hurt English merchants and forced Parliament's hand to find other methods of revenue collection.