The American Revolution: The Causes Of The American Revolution

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The term ‘revolutionary’ has been defined as something ‘involving or causing a complete or dramatic change’. The American Revolution did just that, with the colonises demanding economic, social and political change. Never before had all the colonies risen up against the British colonial rule, demanding change.

The Revolution was primarily based on economic terms; between 1763 and 1775 the colonies were no longer proud to be under British rule. Instead, the colonies had seen the British Empire as exploitive and unconstitutional, this was primarily due to the taxes passed on America. The beginning of the revolution can be dated back to the Navigation Acts of 1751, which instigated resentment amongst the colonists as the British dictated that …show more content…

In 1776 Thomas Paine wrote ‘there is something very absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island’. This Enlightenment thinking is what made the Revolution revolutionary. Colonists rejected the ideas of imperial monarchy and made a bold statement in deciding to have a non-monarchical government. In the 1680s John Locke’s writings of a social contract, showed the colonists that the British lacked the legitimacy to impose taxes on them, in his writings Locke wrote that if the people are dissatisfied with the government then they have a right to rebel – this is what the Americans did in 1775. By the time the fighting had started most of the colonists were already self-governing and saw themselves as a different entity to Britain. This can be seen in the term ‘Patriots’, which was used for the colonists who rejected the Acts passed by Britain.

Jonathon Israel referred to the Enlightenment period as a ‘revolution of the mind’, but the Revolution itself can also be seen in this light. The revolution was based on the ideas of liberty and equality. As the declaration of independence states ‘we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal’, this idea was revolutionary, as Americans viewed themselves as equal to each other. However, these ideas were too idealistic for the time, as slaves, women and men without property were not considered to be

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