Minutemen were members of the organized New England colonial militia companies trained in weaponry, tactics, and military strategies during the American Revolutionary War. They were known for being ready at a minute's notice, hence the name. Minutemen provided a highly mobile, rapidly deployed force that enabled the colonies to respond immediately to military threats. They were an evolution from the prior colonial rapid-response units.

The minutemen were among the first to fight in the American Revolution. Their teams constituted about a quarter of the entire militia. They were generally younger, more mobile, and provided with weapons and arms by the local governments. They were still part of the overall militia regimental organizations in the New England Colonies.

The term has also been applied to various later United States civilian paramilitary forces.

In the Massachusetts Bay Colony, all able-bodied men between the ages of 16 and 60 were required to participate in their local militia company. As early as 1645 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, some men were selected from the general ranks of "town-based training band" to be ready for rapid deployment. Men so selected were designated as minutemen. Their companies were organized by town, so it was very common for their counterpart militia company to contain relatives and friends. Some towns in Massachusetts had a long history of designating a portion of their militia as minutemen, with "minute companies" constituting special units within the militia system whose members underwent additional training and held themselves ready to respond at a minute's notice to emergencies, which gave rise to their name as Minutemen.

The immediate predecessor to the organized Minuteman concept colony-wide was the Picket Guard, a concept of a rapid responder that never came to fruition because the legislation in the Colony of Massachusetts House of Representatives was never passed because the war ended. Members of the minutemen, in contrast to the regular militia, were no more than 30 years old, and were chosen for their enthusiasm, political reliability, and strength. They were the first armed militia to arrive at or await a battle. Officers were elected by popular vote, as in the rest of the militia, and each unit drafted a formal written covenant to be signed upon enlistment.

The militia in the New England colonies were organized in regiments by county. The militia and minutemen companies still were organized by town and trained typically as an entire unit in each town two to four times a year with the Minutemen receiving extra training. From the end of the French and Indian War, this was normal during peacetime but, in the 1770s, as friction with The Crown increased and the possibility of war became apparent, the militia trained three to four times a week.

In response to these tensions, the Massachusetts Provincial legislators found that the colony's militia resources were short just before the American Revolutionary War, on October 26, 1774, after observing the British military buildup. They found that, "including the sick and absent, it amounted to about 17,000 men, far short of the number wanted, that the council recommended an immediate application to the New England governments to make up the deficiency", resolving to re-organize and increase the size of the militia:

The Massachusetts General Assembly was stymied by Governor Hutchinson from passing a bill. As a result, resisting legislators, including Samuel Adams being among the leaders, set up Committees of Correspondence in parallel with their fellow Patriots in Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island that recommended that the militia increase in size and reorganize and form special companies of minutemen, who should be equipped and prepared to march at the shortest notice. These minutemen were to comprise one-quarter of the whole militia, to be enlisted under the direction of the field-officers, and divide into companies, consisting of at least 50 men each. The privates were to choose their captains and subalterns, and these officers were to form the companies into battalions, and chose the field-officers to command the same. Hence the minute-men became a body distinct from the rest of the militia, and, by being more devoted to military exercises, they acquired skill in the use of arms. More attention than formerly was likewise bestowed on the training and drilling of militia.