Summary:
Describes causes of the American revolutionary war. Discusses the American colonist's growing sense of autonomy and personal liberty and how those feelings conflicted with existing British colonial policies.
The American Revolution, also known as the Revolutionary war, was a significant event that changed the whole world. Although the Revolutionary War lasted only for eight years, the American Revolution started developing years before the first shots at the battle of Lexington and Concord were fired. Some of the main factors that led to the rebellion were the restriction of the American colonists' civil liberties and the political and religious ideals that Britain forced on the colonies, along with the parliamentary taxation and the vicious British military measures.
For England, the purpose of having a colony was to provide for its mother country according to mercantilism because of this the American colonies were restricted economically. In 1763, after England won the French/Indian War but they were in serious debt. The high cost of the war forced England to take a firmer hold on its North American colonies, the American colonists could no longer trade secretly with other countries. Since the French/Indian war was fought on American soil for the protection of the American people, Britain thought that the colonists should help pay off some of the debt acquired during the war. But the Americans were outraged. Colonists were angry and violent once the Stamp Act was passed in 1765; this was the first time the colonists were taxed for the sole purpose of making money. All the new taxation was a major cause of the American Revolution not just because it affected its economy but the American colonists way of life as well.
In the beginning England had a hard time controlling the colonies falling into a pattern of salutary neglect. England being 3,000 miles away from North America and the fastest boat trip being six weeks long it was hard for England to have power over the colonies. When the colonists first landed on American soil after a hard journey they had a new appreciation for themselves and for this new found land. These colonists, then, established new societies based on whatever personal religious or political values they had, as they did not have anyone telling them what they had to do. These values only grew stronger as the years moved on and as there independence grew. Unlike their mother country the colonists enjoyed relative religious freedom, the independence of the press, public town meetings, and many other aspects of their lives.
Some other factors that led to the revolutionary war was te restrictions of the colonist civil liberties and Britain's military measures against the colonists. The Boston Massacre was a final straw for the political radicals in Boston. The Boston Massacre, was really not a massacre in the sense that a lot of people were massacred as only five people were killed, it was a massacre in the sense that the colonists were no longer going to tolerate the British government's power. The intolerable acts targeted mostly targeted at Massachusetts after the Boston Tea party severely limited the colonists rights and made their lives much more difficult. Soon afterward the First Continental Congress was formed and in April of 1775 the American Revolution had begun.
The causes of the Revolutionary War were deeply rooted in the colonist's sense of autonomy and personal liberty. This sense of individual freedom, along with the English policy of taxation without representation, the eventual restriction of the colonist's civil liberties, and the violent British military actions, led to what is now known as the American Revolution
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