Causes of the American Revolution

The American Revolution was a momentous event that changed the face of the whole world. Though the Revolutionary War lasted only a few short years, the American Revolution was a process that started long before the first shots of war were fired. The rebellion was permeated with the legacy of colonial political ideals, aggravated by parliamentary taxation, escalated by the restriction of American civil liberties and ignited by British military measures.

England had a hard time controlling its American colonies from the very beginning, leaving them to develop relatively on their own for several generations. The North American continent is close to 3,000 miles away from England and the trip from England to American by boat in the 1600s took six to eight weeks if not longer. The trip was not easy and many died along the way, but when immigrants did reach the New World they arrived a bit changed by their harrowing journey. These new immigrants were met with a clean, new, virgin land, virtually unchanged for thousands of years. It was as if they had landed on a whole separate planet. These immigrants, then, established new societies based on whatever personal religious or political values they had, far from the shadow of England. Over 150 years later these values still lived strongly in the descendants of these original settlers. The rights of the individual were dominant in every aspect of American life in 1763. From the relative religious freedom, to the independence of the press, to the coveted public town meeting, Americans, unlike many Europeans at the time, enjoyed the right to choose how they lived their lives.

Theoretically, under the concept of mercantilism, which affirmed that the sole purpose of a colony was to provide for its mother country, Americans were restricted economically. But, until 1763, with England's practice of salutary neglect, Americans enjoyed economic freedom and were able to trade covertly with whomever they wished. In 1763, England won the French/Indian War at a heavy financial. The high cost of the war forced England to take a firmer hold on its North American colonies. Since the French/Indian war was fought on American soil for the protection of the American people, the English government thought it elementary that the colonists should help pay off some of the debt incurred by the war. But the Americans were outraged. When the Stamp Act of 1765 was passed colonists reacted with widespread anger and violence.