What Are The Missteps In The Declaration Of Independence

It was the Tea Act. This act stated that only the British East India Company could sell or transport tea. Members of parliament passed this act because many of them had stakes in the company. At the time the British India Company was going bankrupt. This act threatened all colonial businesses by creating a monopoly. In Boston, the colonists devised a plan to resist this act. Several colonists dressed as Indians to deceive the British. These colonists seized the imported tea and dumped it into the harbor. The colonists dubbed this “the tea party.” The British responded to these actions by creating four acts jointly called the Coercive Acts. These acts closed the Boston ports to all trade, increased power of Massachusetts governor, granted trials of royal officials in Massachusetts be tried elsewhere, and allowed the new governor rights to quarter his troops anywhere. These Coercive Acts only angered the colonists more. They have strengthened their non-importation of British goods. They have also begun the forming of local militia companies.

Protests in the streets against the British soldiers for this Townshend Tea Tax led to the first bloodshed early in the Revolution. The “Boston Massacre” was the killing of eleven citizens on the streets of Boston when a group of sixty colonists led by Crispus Attucks were protesting the new act. The news of this slaughter was spread throughout the colonies by the Committees of Correspondence set up by a rich politician named Samuel Adams. These committees made it possible for information on everything resistance-related to reach all of the colonies in due time. In this way was news of the Boston Massacre spread across the United States which created outrage across the country. As tea was shipped to America under the new tea tax, rebellion stirred in Boston. Colonists disguised themselves and pillaged the trade ships, ruining millions of dollars worth of tea. In response to this, Parliament passed the ‘Intolerable Acts’ which outraged the colonists even further by closing the Boston ports, placing Massachusetts under royal authority, and allowing the Catholic French to settle along the Ohio River Valley under the new policies. Thus continued Parliament to colonist battle as the First Continental Congress met to discuss their rights as subjects under the king and announce the changes they wanted made in the Declaration of Rights which argued that the natural rights of

Both the British and the American colonists contributed to causing the American Revolution. The war grew out of contempt: England’s contempt for the colonies and colonial contempt for British policies. A series of actions by the British eventually pushed the colonists over the edge and towards independence. The results of the war gave many citizens a new role in society while others, like slaves, felt no change at all. This paper will examine the specific causes and effects of the American Revolution.

This chapter covers the years that saw the colonies emerge as an independent nation. The colonial rebellion began as a protest on the part of the gentry, but military victory required that thousands of ordinary men and women dedicate themselves to the ideals of republicanism.

Anglicization of the Britain’s American colonies was a big event for the course of not only American or British history, but world history. The colonists adopting many British ways and becoming very patriotic towards the “mother country” had a large effect on the events that unfolded in the late 18th century. While it is true that the American colonists were incredibly British during the beginning to the mid-18th century, the colonies had been around long enough to develop their own culture and way of doing things. The series of events and acts that were imposed on the colonists post French and Indian War got the ball rolling on what came to be known as the American Revolution. The colonists were so fed up with the way in which the British were tightening their hold on the colonies to the point where they were driven to rebellion. The combination of British and underlying American ideals in the pre-revolution era were a necessarily pre-requisite and important component of what would become the American Revolution.

Today, many American’s are proud to identify that the Declaration of Independence marks the beginning of freedom for North America. However, as students in history classes across American schools and colleges dig deeper into the realities of the country’s battles for freedom of rights it represents that from the beginning the Revolution was in the hearts and minds of the American people. The signing of the Declaration of Independence on the face of it depicts it as liberty and democracy, but the realism is that the American colonists had little choice or no choice at all, in how the American British governed its people. It is clear, the American colonies never gave up their fight for freedom and human rights, but the British Revolution still

After months of protests Parliament realized their mistake and repealed the tax, but the damage had already been done and the Colonists would start a revolution to separate themselves from the British. On December 16, 1773 the Sons of Liberty, a group of Patriots led by Samuel Adams cut open 340 chests of British East India Company tea, weighing over 92,000 pounds (roughly 46 tons), onboard the Beaver, Dartmouth, and Eleanor and then dumped it into Boston Harbor; a total loss of $1,700,000 dollars in today’s money. Weeks after the ordeal the harbor still had the smell of tea. Until the 340 chest of British Eat India Company tea were paid for the British completely closed off Boston Harbor. The Intolerable act which was meant to punish the actions of the Sons of Liberty. This did not help Colonists’ approval of the British government. The harsh punishments unified the American colonists even more against British rule. The effect the Boston Tea Party had was noteworthy and ultimately sparked the American Revolution which started only two years later in Massachusetts on April 19,

The American Revolution. An ongoing controversial topic that is the subject of many debates and historians’ studies. A war that some say was all to blame on the colonists. On the contrary to this belief, this war was to blame on the British. This is because of their irrational acts, laws, and taxes passed. These enacted rules angered many colonists as the acts, in turn, caused bankruptcy for many citizens. These unfair ordinances resulted in a series of bloodshed battles, beginning in 1765 and ending in 1783. Many of these laws provoked angry colonists leading to the war declaration. Three specific events in which the British are contributing to tensions that led to the revolution were, the Proclamation of 1763 and the stationing of British troops, the Sugar act, as well as the Stamp act.

The American Revolution was the first time any country had fought for independence, and that was a big deal in the 1700s. At the time, Great Britain was considered to be the greatest empire in the nation-how did thirteen little colonies with no military experience defeat this powerful empire? The colonists were very hesitant at first, but with superb leadership, help from the French, and a few errors made by British commanders, the colonies were able to conquer Great Britain and create their own empire.

The American Revolution, one of the most significant events in our world’s history, has established a huge impact on not only life back in the eighteenth and nineteenth century but our society today. The Acts of Parliament highly benefited the British but did not afford those same rights to the colonists until the formal issuing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776, in which colonial freedom was granted. The most controversial issue is which group caused it; a result of propaganda by the colonists. Multiple acts and protests contributed to this war, three influential ones being the Stamp Act, Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party.

The resistance created by the Act later culminated into the Boston Tea Party. History’s article title “Parliament passes the Tea Act” states “Patriot leader Samuel Adams organized the so-called Boston Tea Party with about 60 members of the radically anti-British Sons of Liberty.” This group of about 60 members dressed up as Mohawk Indians and dumped the tea into the Boston Harbor on December 16, 1773, which nearly amounts to a $4,000,000 loss in modern value. The colonists committed this act thinking that the British Parliament would back down, but it did the exact opposite. In response to the Boston Tea Party, the British Parliament enacted the Coercive Acts, known to the colonists as the Intolerable Acts, on March 28, 1774. The Coercive Acts was a series of four acts: The Boston Port Act, The Massachusetts Government Act, The Administration of Justice Act, and The Quartering Act. In addition to those four acts, a fifth act known as The Quebec Act was added to the Coercive Acts. The article “British Parliament adopts the Coercive Acts” by History describes each act

The passing of a series of laws regulating trade and tax, most notably the Sugar Act (1764), the Stamp Act (1765), and the Tea Act (1773) increased tension between Great Britain and its colonies in the period 1763-1776. Near the end of the French and Indian War, Great Britain was in desperate need of money to pay for their war debts. The British Parliament believed that they had a right to tax their colonies. Their legislations placed duties on certain imports that had never been taxed before. By the end of 1764, tensions heightened between colonists and imperial officials as they were disagreeing more and more about how the colonies should be taxed and governed. These feelings of dissatisfaction would soon swell into rebellion, leading to the American Revolution.

The first agent of the revolution started in 1763 with the ending of the French and Indian War in which Great Britain conquered all of France’s holdings in North America. Consequently, this resulted in large amounts of debt for the British. The British decided that raising taxes on the colonies would allow them to acquire the needed funds. Document one reads “ One of the first taxes imposed by the British parliament was commonly known as the Stamp Act. It required American colonists to pay fees for all kinds of printed documents.” The Colonists however, disagreed with this act. John Adams, a young lawyer in Massachusetts wrote a resolution protesting the new act. An excerpt from it found in document one reads: “This tax is unconstitutional. We have always understood it to be a grand and fundamental principal…that no…man should be subject to any tax which he has not given his own consent.” “If this new tax were allowed to pass without resistance, the colonists reasoned, the door would be open for far more troublesome taxation in the future.” 2

Leading up to the American Revolution, were a chain of events that created a spark in the colonists to obtain independence from Great Britain. The American Revolution could not be tied to one single event but instead by the feelings and determination brought on by this chain of disgraceful actions. Gordon S. Wood explains what he believes caused the rebellion of the American colonists from Great Britain and how those causes help explain the outcomes of the revolution in his essay, “Radical Possibilities of the American Revolution.” Wood argues that the colonists were motivated to rebel against the British monarchy due to their need to preserve their liberties and through this revolution a radical change in government and American life occurred.

This rebellion was dubbed as, The American Revolution. The catalyst of the American Revolution cannot be credited to one single event. The French and Indian War was the start of open conflicts between the colonies and Great Britain (Butler). After this war, the British were in a massive amount of debt (“Parliament Debates”). In early 1765, The British Parliament was struggling to meet the cost of defending its empire in North America. The only logical way that the British thought to relieve this problem was through the colonies, thus the passing of The Stamp Act was born (“Parliament Debates”). The British saw the thirteen colonies as a direct investment and extension of Great Britain, meanwhile the colonists were striving towards independence. “(The) once harmonious relations between Britain and the colonies became increasingly conflict- riven” (“Colonists Responds”). At this point, the