How Did Taxation Lead To The American Revolution

The chapters of our textbook, America: A Narrative History, written by George Brown Tindall and David Emory Shi, takes us on a historical yet comparative journey of the road to war and what caused the American Revolution, an insight into the war itself, and a perception to what life was like in America after the war was over. The essays of the book, America Compared: American History in International Perspective, collected by Carl J. Guarneri gives us a global context and a comparison between the North and South Americas in the dividing issues of labor, slavery, taxes, politics, economy, liberty, and equality.

The American Revolution was a war fought by American colonies to gain independence from the British control. The American Revolution was caused by a series of events. It all started with the French and Indian War in 1754. At the end of the war, King George III issued the proclamation of 1763 which prohibited colonists to settle beyond the Appalachian Mountains, many colonists took great offense at this order. The war between Britain and France caused Britain to be deeply in debt and demanded tax from the colonies. They put taxes on things such as paper, sugar, and even tea, which angered the colonist because they were not will to pay tax without representation in the government. These events ultimately caused the colonist to revolt against the British monarchy and declare its independence. A revolution is a radical change in society and its social structure. The American Revolution was revolutionary because it transformed America politically and socially; however, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness weren’t necessarily improved for the all people in this revolution.

In result, economic changes would come to the colonies. Parliament met in 1763 and came to the conclusion that they were not receiving the profit they needed from the colonies (Document F). As a result, many taxes were passed by British Parliament upon the colonies, including the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act (Document H) and the Tea Act. The American colonies were not happy, to say the least. Americans protested, saying that these taxes were unnecessary and unfair. Arguably, these taxes were only placed by Britain to “milk” the colonies for profit. Ben Franklin responded to the Stamp Act, writing a letter to John Hughs to discuss efforts to get it repealed (Document G). . In a way, the series of taxes applied by Parliament would spark a fire within the colonists and begin the American Revolution, where Americans finally say enough is enough. The time had come for political and ideological change, where the colonies would break from their motherland, Great Britain.

The British government was not looking for the best of the people. They were only thinking about what they wanted; the government was not interested in what the people wanted so they decided to make decisions on their own, which resulted in changes that form the United States today. Because of this, they were justified in rebelling and declaring independence.

The first event that occurred was the Enlightenment. It occurred through the years of around 1650 to about 1700. The enlightenment opened up the eyes and the minds of the people living in the British colonies in America. The enlightenment changed the way people were thinking and gave them a sense of freedom and individualism, in this case, individualizing them selves from their British rulers. There was not much revolutionary action but the impact that John Locke’s enlightenment ideas had on people started unraveling events, one after the other to eventually lead to the revolution. His enlightenment ideas were that people had Natural rights. This meant that every person has natural rights that don’t need to be given to them by a government

The continental congress led the king to heavily taxing items. The reaction to the colonist was beyond angry. When the king started to tax the items, the people wanted to rebel. This led to the declaration of independence.

The Tea Act of 1773 reinstated the issue of Britain’s right to tax the colonies. The Parliament and the colonies disagreed on a system of government in which the colonies would share the same rights and control as Parliament over their colonial affairs. Between 1773 and 1776, enormous amounts of tension between the center and the peripheries regarding the right to control the colonies led to the disintegration of the empire.

The British were in massive debt following the French and Indian war, therefore they placed taxes on the colonists in order to regenerate some of that money lost. The Sugar Act of 1764 taxed the sale of molasses in hopes to gain some lost money, but this act led the people of Boston to boycott the molasses industry. The Stamp Act of 1765 shortly followed, making colonists buy a stamp with every paper product. The rage the colonists felt over the passing of this act, led the colonies to begin to unify as they together boycotted the trade industry. The Townshend Duties of 1767 imposed taxes on glass, lead, paint, paper and tea, but this only led to the colonist to again boycott the trade of those items and start newspaper attack. The Tea Act which took place in 1773, and was one of the last attempts from the British to control the amount of money it was making on the colonies. The Boston Tea Party occurred soon after this act started being enforced, resulting in hundreds of cases of tea being dumped into the Boston Harbour. The British kept on attempting to pass taxes in the American colonies but every new tax they passed fueled the revolutionary flame within the angered

Separately, these acts did not cause the American revolution but together the acts created tension between the American colonists and England. The Stamp act started to build the tension between the colonists and England because it was the first tax directly imposed onto the colonists. They saw this as unfair because during the French and Indian war the colonist were ignored and then suddenly they were expected to pay off Britain’s war debt. The Stamp Act led to the Declaratory Act which led to many other laws given by King George the III and Parliament because of the backlash received from the colonists. The Boston tea party was an effect of the Tea Act enacted on the American colonists. This incident also sparked more colonial rebellions and

The French and Indian War impacted the American Revolution in many ways. Britain incurred a large debt from the cost of the war and the taxes that they imposed on the colonists created feelings of anger and rebellion that led to the revolution. As a result of the French and Indian war, the British were not at full strength which allowed the actions of the colonists to be more effective. Because of the outcome of the war, France was willing to help the colonists. Without the much needed help from the French the colonist may have never won the war.

The colonist didn’t like the laws the British made so they did many disastrous things the British didn’t like so as things kept getting worse it led to the American Revolution.

After the French and Indian War, the British government needed money to pay for the cost of protecting the colonists from the French and Indians. The British government approved several taxes including the Stamp and Tea Acts to help pay for the costs of the war. The colonists were expected to pay these taxes.

During the first years of the English settlements of North America the people who immigrated from England they formed colonies that with the support of the British government. The colonist didn 't pay a lot of taxes on their trading benefits to the government. Through the years, the King and the parliament started raising taxes on almost everything that the colonist was producing in the colonies. The colonists weren 't happy with the new taxation that the king was charging to the colonies, and it led the colonist to protest at British empire. There are several reasons why the colonists revolted against the British government. The settlers felt that the British government were treating them unfairly, and their rights were violated. The conflict between the British Government and settler helped to gather political ideas to break away from the British Government and declare their own independent nation.

The mid 1600s onwards was a time of great disparity between the colonies and Great Britain with an overriding theme of conflict. At the time, a message took at least six weeks to sail across the Atlantic to and from the colonies and England, and the colonists were pretty dependent on English goods for survival. Beginning in the mid 1600s the colonists endured changes such as the Great Awakening religious movement and the Enlightenment intellectual movement. Both of these movements along with with Benign neglect from Great Britain in which the English turned a blind eye to smuggling and bribery among the colonists and created an unsettled society that would eventually rebel. At the end of the French and Indian War however, the colonists were

Patrick Henry proclaimed that he was not a Virginian, but rather an American. What unified the colonists and what divided them at the time of the revolution.