Cause Of The American Revolution

The American Revolution (1775-1783) was a defining moment in the history of the United States of America. The war represented the birthplace of the now globally recognized economic and military superpower. The revolutionary war was contested between British colonialists against the residents in North America. Although, the majority of these residents were British, they had gradually disconnected from their mother country and felt that the colonial government which represented the wishes of the Queen of England had over-expressed their power and rule in the region. The war begun in in 1775 when colonial militia and British troops conflicted in Concord and Lexington (“Revolutionary War”). The full scale of the skirmishes, however, begun the

Between the years 1763 and 1775, the colonial government put in place a series of legislation that was initially meant to offer supplementary sources of incomes the British government through taxations. The decision to impose these new laws came as a result of the major losses Britain had incurred in its involvement in the Great War of the Empire (Westin, 11). Despite winning the war, the British public debt after the smoke of war had cleared reached approximately a hundred and forty-six million pounds in addition to an annual interest rate of up to four million pounds (Westin, 11). Also, the British had to protect the newly acquired territories during the war which meant stationing a large number of troops as a guard against a potential French revolution (Brooks). This meant that the government had to come up with creative ways of servicing these debts and it turned to its

The government then choose to reduce the rates on these duties but put in place measures that would ensure there are strictly enforced (Office of the Historian). The move was successful in increasing British revenue but also meant that the colonists had to pay increased taxes. Another implication of the war was a postwar recession that led to British Merchants demanding payment from the colonialist in sterling pounds for the imports they bought from Britain. In response, the government passed the Currency Act (1764) and later the Stamp Act (1775) which forbade the issuance of paper currency and required colonists to buy government stamps for all their legal documents and paper goods (Office of the Historian). The American colonialist had a negative reaction to the passage of these Acts based on the fact that they were against their mother country imposing internal duties on their businesses, secondly they were increasingly perceiving themselves as a separate entity from Britain, and lastly the taxes came at a difficult economic period for the colonialists (Keown,