Primary Causes Behind The American Revolution

The American Revolution also commonly referred to as the War of Independence”, emerged during the 1700s following increased tensions, thus between the 13 American colonies patriots and the British Crown and only halted after America became a sovereign nation. This paper provides insights into some of the primary causes behind the American Revolution by analyzing the basis as well as the outlook of a shared political ideology, major complains with regard to British governance and denial of voting rights and the American citizens’ participation in rebellions against British rule.

The political ideologies of revolting the British Crown largely came from European enlightenment which stem from somewhat a different American philosophy. One of

Circulation of Locke’s publications in the colonies led to the prevalence political ideologies on the “right to rebellion”, because of natural rule of law, as his enlightenment philosophy appealed to the colonies in its questioning of absolute power (Offutt, 84). Following the popularization of Locke’s political ideology of liberty, liberty became the talk that filled colonies leading to the establishment of pamphlets with titles such as “Sweets of liberty” and Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, which sensitized Americans on the need to resist an oppressive authority (Forner, 196).

As a result, the colonies developed a “real Whig” political ideology that greatly exposed the British Crown terming it as an enemy liberty, stressing on the need for consent in taxation while stressing on the grave dangers of standing armies belonging to the British government. According to Eric Forner, the events of the 1790s to a great extent demonstrated that most of the ordinary Americans shared the ideology that they had a right to actively engaging in politics, contest government policies, as well as express their opinions freely (Forner,

The colonies feared the British as a result of the military being permanently stationed. Most colonies viewed it as an oppression as the British government was using the threat of violence in order to oppress and suppress the colonies to make them obedient. The “Boston Massacre” where five Americans were killed portrayed the imminent horrors of England’s standing army as well as its murderous intentions (Forner, 192). The Quartering Acts which forced Americans to not only feed but also house British soldiers also aggravated the tensions between Britain and the colonies. In addition, the Concord and Lexington Battles which was the result of British government trying to suppress the colonies by taking away their weapons also powered the revolution as many Americans were