American Revolution Dbq

When the mid-1700’s past, growing frustrations in the British North American Colonies grew due to taxes being set on essential parts of life that colonists could not get by. With no representation when these taxes were set, colonists, from yeoman farmers to aristocrats, revolted and started an uprising. The American Revolution is a historical event that is glorified in classrooms from young to old, but some historians argue that it wasn’t revolutionary at all. The American Revolution was revolutionary in nature to some, such as aristocratic white men, while it was not revolutionary in nature to many, such as black slaves. The American Revolution was revolutionary in nature to aristocratic white men who had been governed by a monarchical

Even though salutary neglect stopped some procedural laws from being followed, there were some, such as trade tax, that were impossible to avoid. Aristocratic white men, who were often owners of large pieces of land and a great number of slaves, were also affected by these taxes. The greatest frustration of the colonists was the Stamp Act, which put a tax on anything printed, from playing cards to legal documents. This tax was different because, unlike past taxes that had only affected traders, this tax was felt from poor coastal pirates to wealthy plantation owners. Aristocrats were frustrated by this because they did not get to discuss this tax before it was passed. This is one of many examples when the colonists were given no representation in the laws being passed on themselves. The end to these

When the British colonized North America, there was a large demand for labor. This labor came in two forms, indentured servitude and slavery. Indentured servitude was very popular at first but slavery soon became a huge market. With the importation of hundreds of slaves from Africa, it became the easiest and cheapest way to supply labor to plantations. But these slaves were seen as property, not people. As the colonists fought in the revolution, many blacks were recruited to fight on the front lines and promised freedom from slavery after the war. But once the colonists took control of the lan, this promise was rarely followed through. Some northern colonies (now states), made slavery illegal but the south continued it as a strong economic factor. Once fighting was over and British ships started to leave harbors to go back home, many black slaves ran for these ships and jumped into the water after them, sometimes drowning, just hoping they would be granted freedom on the other side of the Atlantic. After the war, even Spain offered freedom to blacks that made it into Florida, but few were successful. After this “revolutionary” fighting, black slavery continued and even grew in the south. After the Articles of Confederation had been ratified, uniting the states over a government known as federalism, the Constitutional Congress took place to discuss exactly how