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Running Head: Colonial Independence 0

Factors that Led to Colonial Independence

In 1775, an open conflict between the United States thirteen colonies and Great Britain sprouted. This conflict later came to be called the American Revolution. Many factors influenced the decision of the colonists’ to seek for freedom and fight their mother country. Not only did the issues lead to war but they also ensured the future of the United States.

The American Revolution was not a simple war that just sprouted overnight. Many factors contributed to the war. Essentially, the war began the moment there was a disagreement on the methods that Great Britain used to rule their colonies and the way the colonies wanted to be ordered and governed (Wucherpfennig et al., 2016). The Americans wanted to get all the rights and privileges of the British people but the British, on the other hand, believed that the sole purpose of creating colonies was to have authority over them and use them for the benefit of the Crown and Parliament (Shaffer, 2017). Below are some of the significant events that shaped a discord between the American colonies from their mother country- Great Britain.

Stamp Act

The implementation of the Stamp Act in1765 was the first primary reason why there existed a discord between Great Britain and the American colonies (Shaffer, 2017). The parliament passed the bill with the sole purpose of raising revenue for the British Army that was in America. The Stamp Act created an excise tax on commodities such as custom documents and college diplomas as well as newspapers (Shaffer, 2017).

The colonies firmly objected the stamp act even though it was popular in England. The colonies came up with a banner “no taxation without representation.” In October 1765, the colonies expressed their dissatisfaction with the new British tax. Furthermore, most of the colonies went ahead to boycott British goods, and civil disobedience became rampant in the colonies. The attack on customhouses and tax collectors forced the Parliament to revoke the Stamp Act in March 1766 (Wucherpfennig et al., 2016). The colonists were so happy with the step Parliament had taken to rescind the Act, and they looked forward to working on the broken relationship with the mother country. However, at this point, it was still unknown whether the colonies were planning to break from England but, for sure, colonial defiance had been made.

Tea Act

After the mayhem created by the implementation of the Stamp Act, the colonies went back to normal until Parliament enacted the Tea Act of 1773. According to Parliament, the bill was to save the falling British East India Company in many ways which included lowering its tea tax as well as making it the only producer on the American tea trade (Gould and Onuf, 2015). The low fee would see to it that the company sells its tea cheaper than the smuggled tea that came in with the Dutch traders. Be it as it may, many colonists saw this as another taxation tyranny and rose to oppose it.

In the wake of the Tea Act, Massachusetts militia came up with the Boston Tea Party. At the Boston Tea Party, the militants dumbed the British tea into the Boston Harbor (Gould and Onuf, 2015). The Parliament was outraged with the Boston Tea Party thus enacted stringent laws called the Intolerable Acts in 1774 (Gould and Onuf, 2015). Under the Intolerable Acts, Boston was closed to merchant shipping. Also, the act formally created a British military rule in Massachusetts and granted immunity to all the British officials in America regardless of the crimes they commit (Wucherpfennig et al., 2016).

In response to the Intolerable Act, the colonists organized the first Continental Congress in Philadelphia. The colonists’ delegates present unanimously agreed and summarized their demands in the Declaration of Rights. They decided that parliament had the power to control colonial commerce, but they argued that some of the Parliamentary deeds such as imposing taxes and enforcing laws through admiralty courts were unconstitutional (Shaffer, 2017). These events had made it clear that discord from England was still not inevitable but it was a possible event.

Seven years’ war

The seven years’ war that began in 1756 to 1763 was one of the factors that made the American colonies separate from the mother country. In the war, the Americans defeated major countries such as France and England and took control of Canada. These events ensured the freedom if the Americans from the French menace thus enabling the American people to stand for themselves against the colonists. Additionally, the war made the Americans not to feel the need of maintaining the British army at their expenses. Therefore, after the seven years’ war, the American Revolution began (Shaffer, 2017).

Townshend’s policy

The Chancellor of Exchequer in Pitt enacted the Townshend's Duties of 1767 (Gould and Onuf, 2015). These duties taxed virtually every imported goods such as tea and glass as well as lead and paper. Thus leading to the nonimportation agreements which saw the colonists become rebellious and boycotted the British goods. Such a move devastated the British economy. The Townshend Duties were, therefore, repealed in 1770.

The events that led to the American Revolution made the thirteen colonies of America be from their mother country and formed the United States of America. The thirteen Colonies met at Philadelphia in1787 and passed the constitution of the US, and George Washington became the first president of the US.

References

Gould, E. H., & Onuf, P. S. (Eds.). (2015). Empire and Nation: The American Revolution in the Atlantic World. JHU Press.

Shaffer, A. H. (2017). The Politics of History: Writing the History of the American Revolution, 1783-1815. Routledge.

Wucherpfennig, J., Hunziker, P., & Cederman, L. E. (2016). Who inherits the state? Colonial rule and postcolonial conflict. American Journal of Political Science, 60(4), 882-898.