Causes of the American Revolution
Chloe Chips 1763-1776
American Revolution
The American revolution is a series of events that changed how we live today, and how America is today. some of the social outlooks of the American revolution was that it mainly effected the middle class people. Because the lower class didn't really effected them because they couldn't even buy the things that were being taxed. Also, the higher class people could easily pay for the taxes, and didn't really effect them. some of British policies that led to the American revolution were the taxing. I think the colonists were just justified by the declaring of independence from England because why else would they act they way they did.
Navigation Acts
The Navigation Acts was "efforts to put the theory of mercantilism into actual practice." When the colonists would trade there were two rules they had to follow in order to trade. One of the rules was that certain items like tobacco, sugar and indigo, could only be shipped in the empire. Another rule they had to follow was if you wanted to ship something out of the empire you had to first send it to England before hand. Their was a "Sugar Act" in this time. This meant that English put a tax on sugar. The colonists were not happy about this, because it meant they had to buy more costly sugar from the British West Indies. The most significant impact from the Navigation Acts was that manufacturing was changing within the colonists so it was increasing irritation against the mother country.
The Proclamation of 1763
The Proclamation of 1763 started right after the war French and Indian War. Even after that the British soldiers wanted to stay in Ohio River Valley to keep thing in order. Most of the American Indians did not want the soldiers there, on there land. Because of this the American Indians were so upset, one chief took it in his hands to change this, his name was Ottawa. He led the Indians in war called "Pontiac's Rebellion." In the end of that war British won the war, but the tension was still there and remained. King George III wrote the proclamation, in mind of trying to release even more tension. The response from the colonists was not very good. They felt very controlled and didn't let them settle on the land they wanted too.
The Stamp Act
The Stamp Act was when the Parliament made a law which made any colonist that had any type of paper or that they bought had to get stamped. When the paper product got stamped they would get charged for that product. The Stamp Act was created so that English could pay off all of their debts and to get more money from the colonists. Samuel Adams and the Committees of Correspondense were not in favor of this idea. Because of this they decided to protest and boycott the idea. Also Samuel Adams was need of some more people to protest so he decided to make a group called "Sons of Liberty." This group was just created to help Samuel Adams protest the Stamp Act. At the Stamp Act Congress they discussed what they were taxing and in general how the taxes were working.
Quartering Act
The Quartering Act was basically Britain trying to solve an issue from the Stamp Act. What they did to try and stop the protesting and other things that was happening within the social and political problems, was they sent more troops to the colonies to try and keep them in order. This did not work, most of the colonists were not a fan of what they soldiers got to do. For example, they could go into any of the hoses without permission, this was called "writs of assistance." the writs assistance was a written order issued by a court telling a law enforcement official,like a sheriff or a tax collector, to do a certain thing that was asked. Another thing the colonists did not like was that the families had to pay for everything for the soldiers. That put a lot of families in debt or they lost a lot money.
Townshend Acts
The Townshend Acts was just another act where they put more taxes on other item. Some of those items were imported tea, glass, paper and other items. They did this because since the quartering act was so costly military wise, they needed to get more money somehow. There was a group that was not a fan of this new taxing, they were a group of women called the daughter of liberty. To try and not get taxed, they would make their own clothing instead of buying government cloth and to help the boycott. The Townshend Act was repelled in 1770. Even tough the taxes were suppose to be gone they still taxed was tea. Samuel Adams led a group called, Son of Liberty. They responded not to greatly, by attacking the homes of British officials and colonial tax collectors. Because of that even more British troops were sent to protect officials.
Boston Massacre
This was a event that was pretty much fighting fire with fire. So it just keep on escalating, form when Britain sent more troops to other colonies and soldiers staying in peoples homes. one day a group of colonists and soldiers started to argue, it grew bigger with throwing snowballs and yelling more. More soldiers showed up along with more colonists. Shots were fired out of surprise. One man went down right away, Samuel Gray. Then four more went down too. After that this event was branded by the name Boston Massacre. Samuel Adams responded to this massacre by using the incident as a propaganda. Samuel Adams has a cousin named John Adams that chose to represent the soldiers in this event.
Tea Act & Boston Tea Party
This Tea Act took place in 1773 when the Parliament made the Tea Act. This made British East India Company the only tea company that could sell tea to the colonies. With this the tea was a lot cheaper but the colonists were still very upset. They were upset because they didn't like that they were being forced to pay taxes, and they didn't have a say on it. Again the Daughters of Liberty helped with the boycotting this idea wanting to make their own tea. On December 16, 1773, the brave Sons of Liberty, pretended to be American Indians a and boarded the tea ship and dumped 342 barrels of tea into the Boston harbor. They were trying to protest, so it was called the Boston Tea Party. Which is lot of tea to go waste, but they wanted to make a point.
Coercive Act (Intolerable Acts)
The Coercive Act was a result of the British government really mad,. The British Prime Minister Lord North made the parliament to make laws that try and make the colonists to keep paying for tea and keep them from planning other attacks, like the Boston Tea Party. This was called the Coercive Act but then changed to the Intolerable Acts because the colonist could not tolerant it. The Coercive Act had four laws, they were Stopped all trade between Boston and Britain. Did not allow town meetings, gave Britain control of the colony, and strengthened the Quartering Act. This greatly impacted other colonies because the port was shut down, and stirred revolutionary spirit.