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United States Dbq

Decent Essays

Final Essay
Dawning like the sun on a new day, the United Sates of America has risen to become the most powerful nation on Earth. The United States of today is a land of freedom and inspiration, and a place where dreams have a real possibility of coming true. Though the United States may be very strong today, it wasn’t always like this. In the years leading up to the formation of the United States, many of what are considered “natural rights” were not established, and the nation was in chaos trying to fight for these rights from the overruling British empire led by King George III. Several things led to the formation and firm establishment of the United States, the three most prominent being the imposition of taxation acts, acts of rebellion …show more content…

These actions were some of the first and most crucial events that led up to the Revolutionary War. The first major stand that the Patriots made was the Boston Tea Party. In the Boston Tea Party in December 1773, members of the Sons of Liberty camouflaged themselves as American Indians and a British tea ship a dumped $700,000 – $4,000,000 worth of tea in today’s terms. This act enraged the British king and Parliament, causing them to create the Coercive Acts, which angered them even more. Later, in 1775, a group of Massachusetts minutemen decided to stash weapons and ammunition so that the British Redcoats couldn’t find them. When Thomas Gage decided to take these weapons, a small skirmish occurred between the two forces at Lexington and Concord. This small battle, in which the Patriots drove the British all the way back to Boston, was the first battle of the Revolutionary War. Even after independence was won, many problems still existed that caused major crucial events within the now states. One event stemmed from the lack of control that the Articles of Confederation gave to the national government. Since the national government had no power to regulate the minting of money or taxation, inflation became a large problem. In Massachusetts, rather than printing more money to pay off war debts, the state raised taxes on land. Farmers in Massachusetts, having lots of land were heavily taxed, but because of inflation, the gold and silver that they owned wasn’t worth enough to pay off farmers’ debts. Some farmers were even imprisoned because of their debts. In September 1786, Daniel Shays, a Revolutionary War veteran, led a rebellion in western Massachusetts in hopes of closing court so that they couldn’t charge debtors. Though the members of the rebellion were eventually either captured or had surrendered, the event pointed out

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