Revolutionary War Dbq

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The American Revolutionary war, a war thought to have been fought to free a land from its oppressors, but was it fought for other reasons? The 1700’s were rife with disagreements between colony and mother country, most prominently disagreed upon were the legal actions the mother country were enacting in the colonies. The laws and decrees England made for the colonies were not outrageous by any means, the taxes in the colonies were lower than those in England and the colonies even had religious freedom to an extent. The disagreement first festered within the people beat down by the laws and those making profit off of breaking England's laws, as England lowered the taxes smuggling and other illegal means of making money became less and less …show more content…

The leaders and voices of the Revolution all had something to gain from speaking out against England, most of the leaders prospered after the war had ended. These leaders spoke to the masses, telling what they wanted to hear most, giving them reason to rebel or giving them reason to stay with the king. The exaggerations and claims made by the colony leaders caused uproar in the people that the leaders of the colonies and the leaders of England didn’t expect, as said by Gary Nash, “Both loyal supporters of English authority and well-established colonial protest leaders underestimated the self-activating capacity of ordinary colonists” (Major Problem in American History, 123 ). The intense desire for their ideals to become true lead them to become more volatile than anyone could have imagined, it was as though a bomb had been lit by thoughts of prosperity and betterment of oneself. The leaders of the Revolution used exaggerated claims to fuel the growing fire of rebellion. Examples of such exaggerations were the “Boston Massacre,” where only five people were killed under self defense, the definition of massacre being to kill a large number of people, which didn’t occur. Another incident caused by greed was the Gaspee Affair, a British boat that ran ashore is Rhode Island and was burned by colonists, the colonists of Rhode Island wanted the men responsible for the burning of Gaspee to be free of any charges, so they claimed they were innocent even when shown evidence. The Gaspee Affair reflected the sense of loyalty the colonists had for people that broke laws, that sense of loyalty for people breaking laws was all created from the wealth brought from smuggling, the wealth brought by some of the leaders of the Revolution. Greed had woven itself into

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