Agrarian Independence: Northern Land Rioters After The Revolution By Robert Eldon Brown

The author that I agree with in this case would be Robert Eldon Brown, a history professor at Michigan State University. Author of “The Nature of the American Revolution.” Brown agrees that the American Revolution was a conservative movement by arguing that the revolution was fought in order to preserve an already existing democratic social order. While I do think Alan Taylor’s essay “Agrarian Independence: Northern Land Rioters after the Revolution” holds some ground, I find Brown’s thesis makes more sense and backs up his ideas with better arguments. Also taking into consideration that more historians seem to have the same argument Brown does. Of course Taylor’s theory could gain more traction, I still find Brown has a more compelling argument.

Of these movements that latter was fundamental; it began before the contest for home rule. What Becker meant is that the “revolution” was already brewing in the minds of the colonists when they began to realize that their already democratic social order could be destroyed by British rule. The key there is “democratic.” The colonists’ already had a democratic way of life, most think the colonists were trying to achieve one for the first time by distancing themselves from the British crown, but as evidence suggests and Brown states: “British imperial policies, designed to benefit the Mother Country, had long been ineffective because they could not be enforced, and one of the many reasons for the failure of enforcement was the action of democratic assemblies in the colonies.” Of course the fight for home rule was another important factor during the revolution, the revolution would simply not have happened had the colonists not realized their way of life could be