Causes of the American Revolution

The “Sons of Liberty” was a group who led some of the protests and also organized networks to boycott British goods. In 1776 the Stamp Act was repealed. The king and the Parliament both agreed that the Stamp Act was a bad idea but still felt that the colonists needed to be taxed. The Parliament then put out the Declatory Act which asserts the right to tax Britain including all of its colonies. Since Parliament felt that the Colonists still needed to be taxed, the Townshend Revenue Act of 1767 conceived by Charles Townshend was passed.

This limited the colonists’ freedom and only spread more anger throughout the colonies. The laws were so regulated it was hard not to make an error. The one that brought out the most public opposition was the Stamp Act in 1765. The Sugar Act wasn’t covering the debt, and Parliament was forced to pass the Stamp Act. The Act stated they must use stamped paper for printing bills, legal documents, and playing cards.

Your neighbors, along with yourself are enraged by what you hear. Following this incident there is much propaganda in pamphlets passed out concerning colonial religion and political ideas. These things and others happened to the colonists and impart enthralled and provoked them to rebel and in effect brought about the American Revolution. From the information I have gathered in class and from my own personal reading, I have concurred that Parliament taxation was the parent irritation to the other annoyances. The Seven Years' War Showed the British officials that the Americans had no regard for the Navigation Acts and imperial authority.

After hundreds of years of salutary neglect, by enforcing the laws of Mercantilism on the colonies, Britain backed the colonists into a corner where they had no choice but to fight for their rights. After the French and Indian War, Britain committed many “missteps” regarding their control in the colonies. Even though the colonists were determined to be treated fairly by Britain, they were forced into rebelling because of Britain’s harsh policies towards the colonies including taxation, troop placement, and Mercantilism.

The stamp act placed a tax on all paper products in the colonies. The colonists were enraged stating that the King could not enforce taxes on them because they did not have any representation in parliament to speak for them. Colonists attacked and mobbed tax collectors until this act was repealed in seventeen sixty-six. After the stamp act came the Townshend acts of seventeen sixty-seven which imposed taxes upon tea, paint, paper, lead, and glass. Colonists reacted to the Townshend acts by boycotting all British goods until they repealed the act.

After months of protest and boycotting in the colonies, British Legislature finally chose to cancel the Stamp Act in March 1766. After the Stamp Act was voted out, most colonists continued to accept British rule with no . Then in 1773, the British Legislature presented the colonist with the Tea Act. This act was a bill intended to save the failing British East India Company. This was to be achieved by greatly lowering its tea tax and allowing it a domination on the American tea trade.

The Boston Tea Party led to the creation of the US and the revolutionary war. Before any taxes were put on tea, the colonists had to deal with the Quartering and Sugar Act. They didn’t like it since it included the British invading their homes and belongings. They were taxed on multiple things. The colonists decided it would be a good idea to just boycott British goods.

Ultimately, Britain lost control when they gave in to the colonists' boycotts and showed them that they had the power to run a country, and that Britain feared that power. Through Parliament's ruthless taxation without representation, restrictions upon what colonists had assumed were civil liberties and British military action, Britain and the colonists were thrown into a revolutionary war. The first time a Parliamentary imposed tax threatened the livelihood of the colonies was in 1733 with the Molasses Act, stemmed from the loss of profit for the British West Indies under the Navigation Act. However, this act was avoidable and rarely paid. Following the long and harrowing French and Indian War, Britain was deep in debt and George Grenville was appointed British Chancellor of the Exchequer.

John Adams once said, “[L]iberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker.” The affiliation between Britain and its American colonies experienced a steady decline in the time leading up to 1775. The British had more fault in the waning of the relationship because of their Parliamentary Acts, the significant figures, and the conflicts that they sparked that eventually led to the American Revolution. Before 1775, Parliament in Britain had created many new policies and acts that at times infuriated the colonists. The Tea Act of 1773 was passed by Parliament that allowed the British East India Company to export tea to America without having to pay navigation taxes that the colonists had to disburse.

Parliament also passed the Quebec Act, which arranged the land in Canada. Colonists took this as an attack on them as they lost land on the Ohio River, and it heightened the fear of losing their representative assemblies. The tensions, ultimately, would lead to the revolutionary war. Before Great Britain became more active in the colonies, they had been independent and established representative assemblies and a form of self-government. As the British tried to tax them to gain revenues, they were only angered by the lack of representation they had in the decision.