Causes Of American Revolution Essay, Research Paper
Causes of the Revolutionary War
The haphazard and disorganized British rule of the American colonies in the
decade prior to the outbreak led to the Revolutionary War. The mismanagement
of the colonies, the taxation policies that violated the colonist right’s, the
distractions of foreign wars and politics in England and mercantilist policies that
benefited the English to a much greater degree then the colonists all show the
British incompetence in their rule over the colonies. These policies and
distractions were some of the causes of the Revolutionary War.
The interests of England within the colonies were self-centered. The English
were exploiting were trying to govern the colonies by using the mercantilist
system. Mercantilism is when the state directs all the economic activities within
it’s borders(Blum 31). England was not attempting to make any changes that
would help the colonists. They limited the colonies commerce to internal trade
only(Miller 9). The English were exploiting the colonies by demanding that the
colonies import more from England then they exported to the colonies. They
were importing raw materials from the colonies and making them into exportable
goods in England. They would then ship these goods to foreign markets all
around the world including the colonies(America Online ). Throughout the
seventeenth century the English saw America as a place to get materials they
didn’t have at home and a market to sell finished products at after the goods had
been manufactured. This was detrimental to the colonies because it prevented
them from manufacturing any of the raw materials they produced and made them
more dependent upon England.
In addition to the unrest caused by their mercantilist policies, domestic political
issues distracted them from the activities of the colonies. Throughout the sixteen
hundreds, Great Britain was more involved in solving the Constitutional issue of
who was to have more power in English government, the king or parliament.
When this complex issue was finally resolved in the Glorious Revolution of 1688,
England turned its attention back to the colonies and found that colonists had
developed their own identity as American.
There was no central office in England to control what was happening in the
colonies. The executive authority in England was divided among several
ministers and commissioners that did not act quickly or in unison. Also, the
Board of Trade, the branch of government that knew more about the colonies
than any other governing body in England, did not have the power to make
decisions or to enforce decrees. Due to the distractions from the complex
constitutional issues and ineffective governmental organization the colonists felt
further separated from England(Blum 51).
The political scene in England was laced with corruption. Officers of the
government sent to the colonies were often bribe-taking politicians that were not
smart enough to hold government positions in England. After Grenville and
Townshend the most incompetent was Lord North, who became Prime Minister
in 1770 after the death of Charles Townshend. “North was the kind of politician
George had been looking for —-a plodding, dogged, industrious man, neither a
fool nor a genius, much like the king himself. For the next twelve years, despite
the opposition of abler men, he remained at the head of the government(Blum
104).” Corruption and incompetence among governing politicians often made
their rule over the colonies ineffective.
In the years leading up to the final decade before the American Revolution, the
relationship between Great Britain and her colonies in North America continued
to deteriorate. Relations began to worsen with the great victory over the French
and Indians in the Seven Years War. Unwelcome British troops had remained in
the colonies. Debts from this war caused the Prime Minister at the time, Lord
Grenville, to enforce Mercantilism in an effort to get the colonists to pay their
share of the national debt that had doubled since 1754(Blum 95).
England passed many Acts that were ill conceived and had long term effects on
the relationship between England and the colonies. The most controversial of
these were direct taxes. The last time Parliament had tried a direct tax was as
recent as 1765, when Lord Grenville enacted the Stamp Act which forced the
colonists to pay for stamps on printed documents, the Stamp Act(Higginbotham
34). The Americans had felt the taxes of Lord Grenville were “a deliberate aim to
disinherit the colonists by denying them the rights of the English(Blum 96).” The
first of these acts were the Townshend Acts. The Townshend Acts were passed
in 1767 and placed new taxes on paper, paints, tea, lead and, glass. The new
taxes would be used to pay for British officials in the American service. These
acts infuriated the colonists because they believed that Parliament had the right
to put taxes on the trade of the colonies but could not place taxes directly on the
colonists to raise revenue(America Online).
The spokesperson of the colonies, John Dickinson, wrote in his “Letters of a
Pennsylvania Farmer,” on the issue of direct taxes. He distinguished between
taxes that were imposed to regulate trade and those that were intended solely to
raise revenue. If the tax was used to promote commerce it was justifiable, but if
the tax was used only to gain revenue it was not viewed as a legitimate
tax(America Online). The colonists believed that this new tax was not legitimate
and therefore there was strong opposition to it throughout the colonies.
By 1766 England backed off in their efforts to tax their colonies. Following a year
of opposition from the colonists England revoked the Stamp Act and the first
Quartering Act, but they still passed the Declaratory Act (History Place). In 1766
the Declaratory Act was passed. It was passed the same day that the Stamp Act
was repealed. The Declaratory Act gave the English government total power to
pass laws to govern the colonies. The British claimed that the colonies had
always been and should always be subject to the British crown(Blum 99).”
In 1773 the Tea Act was passed. The Tea Act not only put a three penny per
pound tax on tea but it also gave the British East India Company a near
monopoly because it allowed the company to sell directly to the colonial agents
avoiding any middlemen. In Boston the colonists held a town meeting to try to
get their Tea Agents to resign. The Tea Agents would not resign and a few
months later angered Bostonians dressed as Indians boarded three tea ships
and dumped it all into Boston Harbor(Blum 106).
In 1774 the intolerable Acts were passed. They were passed as a way to
reprimand the Bostonians for the Boston Tea Party. This didn’t go over well in
Boston because both the innocent and the guilty were being punished
equally(America Online). There were five acts within the Intolerable Acts. The
Massachusetts Government Act, a new Quartering Act, the Administration of
Justice Act the Quebec Act and the closing of the port of Boston. The
Massachusetts Government Act said that the Governor’s council had to be
appointed by the King and limited town meetings to one per year. The new
Quartering Act, “authorized the quartering of troops within a town (instead of in
the barracks provided by the colony) whenever their commanding officers
thought it desirable.” The Administration of Justice Act stated that, “any
government or customs officer indicted for murder could be tried in England,
beyond the control of local juries.” The Quebec Act was not intended to be used
as a punishment of the colonists, rather to extend the boundaries of the province
of Quebec to the Ohio River and give the Roman Catholics in that province
religious liberty and the double protection of French and English law. But the
Quebec Act actually angered the colonists because the colonists living in
Quebec were getting rights that the Americans felt were being taken away from
them(Blum 106).
During these years of ineffective rule, the causes of the Revolutionary War
emerged. Laws and policies enacted were self-serving, causing the colonists to
vigorously resist and try to avoid British authority. The colonists moves toward
religious and commercial self-determination were overlooked while England
dealt with the Seven years war and a domestic political crisis. All these factors
highlighted the differences and miscalculations of the British and were the
beginnings of the Revolutionary War.
Blum, John M. The National Experience. Fort Worth: Hartcourt Brace College
Publishers, 1993.
Higginbotham, Don. The War of American Independence. New York: The
Macmillan Company, 1971.
Miller, John C. Origins of the American Revolution. London: Oxford University
Press, 1943.
America Online, Research and Learn, History, American History, Revolutionary
War Forum, Rev War Archives, Part 1.
Prelude to Revolution 1763 to 1775.” The History Place.