American Revolution
What are the decisive events and arguments
that produced the American
Revolution? "It was the best of times, it was
the worst of times (Charles
Dickens)." This best describes the Americas
in the 1700’s. The
settler’s went through the best of times from obtaining
religious freedom, to
becoming prosperous merchants, and finally to
establishing a more democratic
government. However, it was the worst of times
in the sense that the settlers in
the America’s were taken advantage of my
their mother country, England. The
hatred of being under another’s control
was one of the main reason’s that
led to the American Revolution. In the
1600’s, England began to colonize
America. King James I had urged those
against the Church of England, such as the
Puritans, to settle in
America. Many settlers came to America to obtain
religious freedom. Merchants
settle din America to profit off the land since
land was free or cheap at the
time. Settling in America gave people hopes and
dreams that they can do
something with their lives. Even indentured servants had
the hope of someday
owning land as soon as they were done with their service. It
was unlikely but
they had hope. The Atlantic Ocean made communications hard
between England
and the colonies. Because of the difficulties in communication,
the colonists
developed an independent spirit. Harvard College allowed most
Americans
to read protests against British injustice printed in papers,
pamphlets, and
books. The college provided education and writings of Greek
philosophers such
at John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau. The ideas of these
Greek
philosophers that men were created equal dwelled in these colonists
mind.
England expected the American Colonies to serve it’s economic
interests, and
it regulated colonial trade. In general, the colonists
accepted British
regulations. For example, they agreed not to manufacture
goods that would
compete with British products. Things began to change in the
1700’s. England
had largely neglected the administration of the American
Colonies while it
fought France in a series of wars during the 1700’s. But
after the French and
Indian War ended, the British government sought to
tighten it’s control over
the colonies in fear that the colonies have gotten
too powerful. The treaty of
1763 ending this war made England master of
Canada and of the land between the
Appalachian Mountains and the
Mississippi River. The chief motive had been
nation advantage: but as one of
the results the 13 colonies might now live in
peace. George Grenville,
Britain’s prime minister in 1763, did not concede
that the colonists had any
political rights. He now sough ways to make the
colonies most profitable to
England at the least expense. Settlers were pouring
into the Ohio Valley, and
land speculators were busy with schemes for opening
the country won at so
great a sacrifice from the French. Such activity excited
the worst fears of
the Indians. That year, a great chieftain, Pontiac united the
tribes and led
them in a series of destructive raids on the advancing frontier.
Britain
feared a long and bloody Indian war, which it could not afford. To quiet
the
Indians, England issued the Proclamation of 1763. This decree
prohibited
settlers from buying lands beyond a line that ran through the
sources of the
rivers flowing into the Atlantic. England, it seemed, meant to
favor the Indians
and the fur traders. It would do so at the expense of the
pioneer, the land
speculator, and the colony whose charter gave it a claim to
a section of the
interior extending westward to the Mississippi River. But
the settlements east
of the "Proclamation Line" were not to be neglected. For
their defense
England decided to station a large army on the frontier.
England decreed that
the colonies should contribute toward the expense of
this protection by paying
taxes imposed by Parliament. The Americans having
been accustomed to
self-government, strongly resisted the new laws,
especially tax laws. The Sugar
Act placed a three-penny tax on each
gallon of molasses entering the colonies
from ports outside the British
Empire. Several Northern colonies had thriving
run industries that depended
on imported molasses. Run producers angrily
protested that tax would eat up
their profits. The Quartering Act ordered the
colonies to supply the soldiers
with living quarters, fuel, candles, and cider
or beer. The Stamp Act levied
a direct tax on all newspapers printed in the
colonies and on most commercial
and legal documents used in business. The Stamp
Act resulted in riots.
The objections of the Stamp Act Congress stemmed from the
colonists’ belief
that the right of taxation belonged only to the people and
their elected
representatives. The delegates argued that Parliament had no power
to tax the
colonies because the colonies had no representative in Parliament.
Their
argument was simply, "no taxation without representation."
Parliament
abolished the Stamp Act in 1766, but passed the Declaratory Act.
The
Declaratory Act stated that the king and Parliament had full
legislative
authority over the colonies in all matters. The Exchequer Charles
Townshend soon
developed a new plan for raising money from the colonies in
and indirect way.
The Townshend Acts placed duties on glass, lead, paint,
paper, and tea imported
into the colonies. Another act set up a customs
agency in Boston to collect them
efficiently. The colonists accepted
Britain’s right to regulate their trade,
but they argued that the Townshend
duties were taxes in disguise. To protest the
duties, Americans stopped
buying British goods. To avoid paying the Townshend
duty on tea, colonial
merchants smuggled in tea from the Netherlands.
Britain’s East India
Company had been the chief source of tea for the
colonies. The smuggling hurt
the company financially, and it asked Parliament
for help. Parliament passed
the tea Act, which enabled the East India Company to
sell its tea below the
price of smuggled tea. This led to the Boston Tea Party.
England
responded to the Boston Tea Party by passing several laws that became
know as
the Intolerable Acts. One law closed Boston Harbor until Bostonians paid
for
the destroyed tea. Another law restricted the activities of
the
Massachusetts legislature and gave added powers to the post of
governor of
Massachusetts. Those powers in effect made him dictator. The
third measure
provide d that British officials accused of committing crimes
in a colony might
be taken to England for trial. The fourth act allowed the
governor of
Massachusetts to quarter soldiers at Boston in taverns and
unoccupied buildings.
The last Intolerable act extended the boundaries of
the province of Quebec to
the Ohio River and gave the Roman Catholics in the
province both religious
liberty and the double protection of French and
English law. Several committees
called for a convention of delegates from the
colonies to organize resistance to
the Intolerable Acts. The convention was
later to be called the Continental
Congress. The First continental
Congress met in Philadelphia from September 5 to
October 26, 1774 to
protest the Intolerable Acts. The Congress voted to cut off
colonial trade
with England unless Parliament abolished the Intolerable Acts. It
also
approved resolutions advising the colonies to begin trainin the citizens
for
war. None of the delegates to the First Continental Congress called
for
independence from England. Instead, the delegated hoped that the colonies
would
regain the rights which Parliament had taken away. The congress agreed
to hold
another Continental Congress in may 1775 if England did not change
its policies
before that time. The defects of British rule was the main
contribution of the
American Revolution. For a long time England had let
the colonies drift along
with little restraint. There was no central colonial
office which weas supposed
to supervise them; executive authority in England
was divided among several
ministers and commissions that did not act quickly
or in unison. The Board of
Trade, which knew more about the colnies than
any other body, did not have the
power either to ecide things or to enforce
decrees. English politics were filled
with corruption, and agents sent to
Anmerica were often brive-taking politicians
too incompetent for good
positions at home. Relations between the colonists and
England steadily
worsened from 1763-1775. This was the time when Parliament
passed a number of
laws to increase Great Britain’s income from the colonies.
The colonists
reacted angrily. They lived far from Britain and had grown
increasingly
self-reliant. Many Americans believed that the new British
policies
threatened their freedom. In late 1774, England’s King George III
declared,
"The die is now cast, the colonies must either submit or triumph."
A
few months later, the Revolutionary War broke
out.
Bibliography
American Revolution. World Book Encyclopedia.
World Book Inc. Chicago:
Illinois. 1997. Pg. 270-274. American
Revolution. Comptons Interactive
Encyclopedia. 1994 Bailyn, Bernard. The
Ideological Origins of the American
Revolution. The Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press. Cambridge:
Massachusetts. 1967. Goldfield,
David etal. The American Journey: A history of
the Untied States. Prentice
hall. Upper Saddle River: New Jersey. 1998. Pg.
130-153.