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Causes
The main causes of the Revolution were Parliament’s new taxes and other legislation, the colonists’ lack of representation in Parliament, and the spread of Enlightenment ideas.
It’s not necessary to remember every single act passed but be familiar with at least four or five of them for the test. Significant legislation included:
Navigation Acts: The first of the many Navigation Acts was passed in 1651, but they had never been strictly enforced. The acts restricted colonial trade by requiring all imports to pass through an English port and prohibited the colonies from exporting certain items to anyone other than England or its colonies. After the French and Indian War, Britain tightened up its enforcement of the acts and cracked down on smuggling.
Proclamation of 1763: In an attempt to reduce conflicts between colonists and Native Americans, colonists were forbidden to settle west of the Appalachian Mountains. Many colonists defied the Proclamation in hopes of access to Western land.
Quartering Act (1765): This legislation required colonists to “quarter” (provide living quarters for) Redcoats (British soldiers) stationed in the colonies, by providing barracks and housing them in inns or pubs or, in some cases, in their own barns or sheds. The colonists argued that, since it was peacetime, soldiers shouldn’t have been stationed in the colonies in the first place.
Stamp Act (1765): This placed a tax on printed items, such as newspapers, playing cards, and legal documents (not stamps). The taxed papers would be stamped to show that the tax had been paid—hence the name. In response, colonists held a Stamp Act Congress where they signed a petition protesting the tax, arguing that they did not have a representative in Parliament. Parliament repealed the tax but then issued the Declaratory Act, which asserted its right to pass whatever laws it deemed necessary with regard to the colonies.
Townshend Acts (1767): These laws taxed lead, paint, paper, glass, and tea and resulted in boycotts by a colonial women’s group, the Daughters of Liberty.
Tea Act (1773): This legislation gave the British East India Company permission to sell its tea without paying any taxes on it, which made it much cheaper than the tea that colonial merchants smuggled. In response, the colonists dressed as Native Americans and dumped 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor (the famous Boston Tea Party).
Coercive/Intolerable Acts (1774): This series of acts was designed to punish Boston for the Boston Tea Party; British Parliament closed Boston’s port and shut down all democratic institutions in Massachusetts (such as town meetings). The colonists nicknamed the acts “the Intolerable Acts.”
Throughout the 1760s and 1770s, the colonists protested British actions by arguing that since they had no representative in Parliament, then they should not be subjected to laws passed or taxes levied by Parliament. The British replied that the colonists had “virtual” representation—members of Parliament voted for what was in the best interests of the empire as a whole, not a certain geographic area.
Political ideas of the Enlightenment, a European philosophical movement, also contributed to colonists’ arguments. Both Thomas Hobbes and John Locke had written about governments as being part of a social contract. This meant that people submitted to their government in return for some sort of protection. Specifically, John Locke wrote that governments were required to protect people’s natural rights—rights that everyone had, and no one could take away. These included life, liberty, and property. If the government did not protect these natural rights, then the social contract was broken, and the people had the right to overthrow the government. These ideas helped the colonists justify their rebellion against the British government.
Thomas Paine, an American philosopher influenced by Enlightenment ideas, released a pamphlet called Common Sense in January 1776. The pamphlet set forth the idea that the colonists should quit trying to protest their unfair treatment at the hands of Great Britain and instead break free and create their own democratic republic. It was widely read—120,000 copies were in circulation by April—and it convinced many colonists to support independence from England.
The Course of the War
Though the Declaration of Independence wasn’t written until 1776, British and colonial troops began fighting in 1775. The first military action of the war occurred at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts when the British tried to capture colonial arsenals. The next battle you’ll need to know about was the turning point, the Battle of Saratoga in 1777. After the American troops won this battle, the French signed a treaty of alliance with the United States. The final battle was the 1781 Battle of Yorktown, where British General Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington.
During the war, both American and British troops had advantages and disadvantages. For the American troops, they were at an advantage with their help from the French, fighting on home turf, the motivation of freedom, and their only goal being to wear down the British until they got tired of the expenses of war. Americans were at a disadvantage because they had no navy and very little money, and they had to create and sustain an army (made up of untrained citizens) from scratch. For the British troops, they were at an advantage because they had an extremely powerful, trained army and navy, better weapons and supplies, and the support of Native Americans and colonial Loyalists. They were at a disadvantage due to campagining thousands of miles from home, using two-thirds of their army and one-half of their navy, having costly military committments elsewhere, and the French intervention on behalf of Americans starting in 1778.
Effects
The American Revolution ended with yet another Treaty of Paris in 1783. The treaty recognized American independence, asserted that Congress would request that Loyalists’ property that had been confiscated during the war be returned, and set the western boundary of the United States at the Mississippi River. The northern and southern boundaries were still ambiguous, which would cause problems later on.
