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What would you do if you were being taxed a lot of money from the powerful government and your opinion meant nothing to them? Well this is the situation the American colonists faced before the American Revolutionary war. The French and Indian war in the 1760s. The British government needed money to pay for the war, so King George III passed the laws to tax all the colonists. The colonists became very mad and then began the American War. Two British actions that the colonist thought were unfair were the high taxes without colonist representation in the British parliament and the quartering of the British soldiers in colonial buildings. The two ations the colonists took to resist the British was The Boston Tea Party and boycotting British goods.
Since the founding of the Thirteen Colonies, the colonists enjoyed a degree of autonomy and self sufficiency from the mother country, England. The colonies had colonial assemblies, which were more democratic than England’s and were independent governments. British mercantilist laws were not strictly enforced due to the policy commonly referred to as salutary neglect. However, as the British increasingly ignore the problems the colonies faced, the colonies began to look for a common government to lead them. This eventually led to three distinct efforts at intercolonial cooperation and union: The New England Confederation, Penn’s Plan of Union, and The Albany Plan of Union. Therefore, although there were unsuccessful attempts to unite the colonies, there was a strong desire for a common government.
When we hear about the Revolutionary War, one of the most popular phrases to be tied to it is “no taxation without representation,” and was coined from the fact that the colonies were being directly taxed without democratic representation. The fact that the American people did not have representation in Parliament while being taxed was virtually universally disapproved and was an extremely big factor in driving the American people to protect their democratic ideals through war in the years prior to the revolution.
American Colonies: Contrasting the New England and Southern Colonists The New England and Southern Colonies were both settled largely by the English. By 1700, the regions had evolved into two distinct societies. The southern colonies have characteristics that are the antithesis of the New England colonies attributes. New England was colonized for Freedom of Worship and freedom of political thought.
The American colonists’ disagreements with British policymakers lead to the colonist’s belief that the policies imposed on them violated of their constitutional rights and their colonial charters. These policies that were imposed on the colonist came with outcome like established new boundaries, new internal and external taxes, unnecessary and cruel punishment, and taxation without representation. British policymakers enforcing Acts of Parliament, or policies, that ultimately lead in the colonist civil unrest, outbreak of hostilities, and the colonist prepared to declare their independence.
Between the settlement of Jamestown in 1607 and the Treaty of Paris in 1763, the most important change that occurred in the colonies was the emergence of society quite different from that in England. Changes in religion, economics, politics and social structure illustrate this Americanization of the transplanted Europeans.
Evaluate the relative importance of three of the following as factors prompting Americans to rebel in 1776.
In the essay written by Gary Nash, he argues that the reason for the American Revolution was not caused by the defense of constitutional rights and liberties, but that of “material conditions of life in America” were not very favorable and that social and economic factors should be considered as the driving factor that pushed many colonists to revolt. The popular ideology which can be defined as resonating “most strongly within the middle and lower strata of society and went far beyond constitutional rights to a discussion of the proper distribution of wealth and power in the social system” had a dynamic role in the decisions of many people to revolt. The masses ideas were not of constitutional rights, but the equal distribution of wealth in the colonies that many felt that the wealth was concentrated in a small percentage of the population in the colonies. The Whig ideology that was long established in English society had a main appeal towards the upper class citizens and “had little to say about changing social and economic conditions in America or the need for change in the future.” The popular ideologies consisted of new ways of changing the distribution of wealth. Nash in his essay continued to give good evidence to prove his point that the American Revolution was not caused by the defense of constitutional rights and liberties, but by improper distribution of wealth. During the pre-American Revolutionary times, the “top five percent of Boston’s taxpayers controlled 49 ...
The demand for no taxation without representation was the primary force motivating the American revolutionary movement, and for many it became a symbol for democracy. Throughout the late 18th century, the British colony of America was oppressed by Parliament from "across the pond". This oppression included unequal rights compared to English citizens that lived on the mainland, unneeded taxation, and no representation in Parliament, which resulted in many laws that were unfavorable to the American colonists. It was this "taxation without representation" that was a powerful catalyst in firing up the American revolutionary movement. America was "all grown up", and no longer needed to be monitored on by Britain.
Throughout the course of history, the majority of people have always been shown to eventually and always, die. This was especially shown when the people were colonizing for the English and were trying to colonize the Americas. Many colonists escaped Europe by means of transportation to escape a harsh life, and in hopes of finding a new land where they would not be kept down by something they all called a glass ceiling. The colonists wanted to choose for themselves and wanted a place where they could freely practice their religion and their cultures. In addition, they wanted to establish a stable colony and also wanted a stable trade to the mainland of Europe. Unfortunately, the Americas were not as hospitable as everyone thought it to be.
When settlers from England came to America, they envisioned a Utopia, where they would have a say in what the government can and cannot do. Before they could live in such a society they would have to take many small steps to break the hold England had on them. The settlers of America had to end a monarchy and start their own, unique, form of government. They also had to find a way that they would have some kind of decision making power. The most important change that the colonies in America had to make was to become a society quite different from that in England.
The problem for many American colonists was not that taxes were high (the taxes were actually quite low, particularly compared with those paid by ordinary citizens of Britain), but that the colonies were not consulted about the new taxes, as they had no representation in Parliament. The colonists did not have any voting rights with regards to the taxes and so in order to avoid having to pay the taxes imposed on them the colonist’s boycotted British goods. This eventually led to the Boston Tea Party and other boycotts.
Have you ever been forced to do something, even though you know it is unfair? This is exactly what happened to the colonists. I believe that the British were the main cause of the Revolutionary War. They are because they forced taxes upon the colonists. The taxes are unfair because the British fought a war “for them” but the colonists didn’t get any of the land that was conquered.
The views the colonists had changed drastically during the two decades before the American Revolutionary War. The colonists tried many things before going straight to a revolution. When Parliament did not listen to the colonists complaints this led to tensions. During Martin Luther King Junior’s march on Washington he spoke about many laws and ancient traditions that were causing tensions between Blacks and Whites in America, and this is exactly what the colonists tried to do with Parliament. The colonist decided that the British Parliament was not representing the colonies very well because they were not affected by the laws passed on the colonies, were infringing on the colonies natural rights, and were making new rights that were not part
The economic elements of post-revolutionary America proved to be quarrelsome. The economic issues tended to be mostly between debtors and creditors, resulting from the lack of specie, silver, and gold currency. “Stay laws” and “Tender laws” were created to help farmers recover from debt, by allowing them to pay with goods rather than hard currency, and protected their farms from foreclosure. Merchants, clearly, generally opposed these policies. The spokesmen of the debtors suggested that the government had an obligation to use paper money to ease the currency shortage, but by increasing the money supply inflation was encouraged as well. As long as the government didn’t flood the market with paper currency, ultimately decreasing the value, debtors
The British started to do direct taxation on the American colonies to pay off debt from the Seven Years’ War. This allowed the Parliament to earn money from the American colonies to pay off war debt and take control of trade, which profited the British. As for the colonists, this was found to be unreasonable due to the fact that the British were taxing the colonists because the British extra-curricular activities, such as the Seven Years’ War. This very much upset the colonists, but made the Parliament feel more at ease to gain money to pay off debt and make profit from colonial