All people are born with natural rights.
John Locke was an Enlightenment thinker and presented ideas about government that highlighted the importance of the individual in relationship to the government.
Natural rights was a concept that every person was born with rights provided by God. Locke argued that the job of the government was to protect the natural rights of individuals. If the government violated these rights, then individuals had the right to overthrow or change the government through social contract. Colonists believed their natural rights were being violated by the English government through taxation and refusal to allow the colonists to have a representative. As a result, Locke's views were used to justify the colonists declaring independence.