Causes Of The Great Awakening And The American Revolution

In the eighteenth century, a series of events brewed by Britain, who was increasingly exercising its power over the colonies, were driving a wedge between England and the American colonies, who had a growing dissatisfaction with their lack of independence. The Parliament passing more acts that the colonists perceived as unfair or unnecessarily overprotective, combined with the stirring ideas of the Great Awakening and the colonial desire to govern themselves, fueled the beginnings of the Revolutionary War. Britain's heavy assertion of authority and the colonies' intense craving for autonomy brought about the independence movement and the American Revolution.

Following a period of salutary neglect in which the colonies could freely ignore the

Navigation Laws and trade with other countries, this was ended abruptly by a sequence of strict Parliamentary acts. One in particular that evoked a large amount of violence, rage, and protest was the Stamp Act. This law placed a tax on all paper products, supposedly for their "protection." The colonists didn't need nor want this so-called protection, and in reality, this was an example of Britain controlling the colonies to help itself, and so tension began to form that would lead the colonists to wanting to demand separation from England. The colonists were outraged and responded harshly with actions such as petitions, boycotts, and violence. Organizations amongst the colonists started to develop as they were struck with the need to pursue their own self-government, such as the Sons of Liberty. They were a group of people that tarred and feathered tax collectors to oppose the Stamp Act, but what they really stood against was taxation without representation. As the colonies started to feel that they deserved more political influence over their own societies, groups like the Sons of Liberty appeared, sparking more morale throughout the people, which would give them the motivation to fight for independence.
Later into this progression, after several upsetting laws had been passed, repealed, protested, and everything in between, there was the Intolerable Acts; this legal decision essentially stripped Boston entirely of its rights to everything from trade to religious freedom as a punishment for the Boston Tea Party. To the colonists, it exceeded a rational amount of discipline and tread into downright cruelty. They reacted with more boycotting, but more importantly, with the arrangement of the First Continental Congress. Although not the first of state congresses that had existed at the time, it was the most significant in the sense that it united the colonies against a common enemy and proved to them that they didn’t need England to run themselves. All of these circumstances- Britain bringing down an iron fist on the colonies and the colonies assembling to fight back- provoked mindsets that would result in the Revolutionary War.
The Revolution drew nearer with each act passed and each outcry from the colonies. They were already under the influence of the Great Awakening, which was igniting more enthusiasm and passion in the colonists that contributed to revolutionary thinking. With all of the new perspectives and ideas in the making, it was only natural that independence would be among them. As the colonies grew more and more eager to be self-sufficient and self-governing, England continued to exert its control over the colonies to a suffocating degree. Both of their needs collided, and the outcome was the independence movement and the American Revolution.