Causes of the American Revolution
1763-1776
What is the American Revolution?
The American Revolution arose when tensions between the 13 American colonies and the colonial government. The enlightenment and the great awakening were some social cause of the American Revolution. The American people were very independent and didn't want the English to tell them what to do. The British government made the American colonies pay taxes on goods after the French and Indian War. The British tried to collect taxes from the angry colonists. I don't really think that the colonists were justified in declaring independence from England because the British had more power than the colonists.
Navigation Acts
The purpose of the Navigation Acts were efforts to put the theory of merchantilism into actual practice. When the colonists threaded goods they had two major rules. One rule was that certain items such as sugar, tobacco, and indigo were to be shipped only within the empire. The second rule was that tobacco production was illegal in England. The sugar act was a major event in the Navigation Acts. A duty was placed on the importation of sugar from the french West Indies, forcing the American rum distillers to buy more costly sugar from the British West Indies. The most significant impact on the Navigation Acts was colonial manufacturing and increasing resentment against the mother country.
The Proclamation of 1763
The Proclamation of 1763 was when King George III made an effort to avoid more conflict and tension with American Indians. The Proclamation was created after the French and Indian war. The colonists were angry because they wanted to settle on the land and they did not want British soldiers to live among them.
The Stamp Act
The Stamp Act was when the British taxed anything on printed paper. The Stamp Act was created to raise money to pay off dept after the French and Indian war. Samuel Adams and the committees of correspondence protested the stamp act by using the method boycotting, where people refused to buy certain goods in protest. Samuel Adams created the Sons of Liberty, which were groups of men that protested British polices and sometimes used violence. The stamp act congress was when nine colonies met in New York to discuss taxes.
Quartering Act
Britain sent even more troops to keep order in the colonies while the protests of the stamp act was going on. When more troops arrived, colonists had to house and feed the British soldiers. The two major issues that colonists had with the quartering act was first the colonists did not like having a standing army of soldiers with blank search warrants, or writs of assistance. The writs of assistance was when they lost the colonists rights over their land. The second issue was that the colonists had to house and supply the soldiers were costly.
Townshend Acts
Tea, glass, paper and other items to pay for rising military costs due to the quartering act were some items that were taxed during the Townshend acts. The Daughters of Liberty made their own cloth instead of buying British cloth during the townshend acts. The British government continued to tax tea after the townshend acts were repealed in 1770 because the British wanted to show that they still had the power to tax. The Sons of Liberty used violence and attacked the homes of British officials and colonial tax collectors during the taxation of the colonies.
Boston Massacre
On March 5, 1770 tension exploded when a crowd gathered around an angry colonist arguing with a British soldier. Samuel Adams used the incident as propaganda, one sided information used to influence public opinion during the Boston Massacre. After the Boston Massacre, John Adams, chose to represent the soldiers in this infamous trial to demonstrate that colonists value the right to a trial by jury for all citizens.
Tea Act & Boston Tea Party
The tea act was when the British India company (BEIC) the only company allowed to sell tea to the colonies, which made this a monopoly over tea. Even thought tea had lowered its price the colonists were still unhappy because they were forced to pay import taxes to Britain. The Son of Liberty disguised as American Indians, illegally boarded the ships and dumped alot of tea overboard.
Coercive Act (Intolerable Act)
The colonists called the Coercive Acts the Intolerable Acts because they were so harsh. The four laws that enforced the Coercive were (1) stopped all trade between Boston and Britain (2) did not allow town meetings (3) gave Britain control of the colony (4) strengthened the quartering act. Other colonies thought that the Intolerable acts stirred revolutionary spirit throughout the colonies.