cause of the american revolution essay

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Setting the stage: The two armies

• Conflict begins in Massachusetts
• Paul Revere’s ride and the Battles of Lexington and Concord
• The Siege of Boston and the Battle of Bunker Hill
• Washington takes command
• The battle for New York
• A British general surrenders, and the French prepare for war
• After a hungry winter at Valley Forge
• Setbacks in the North
• Final campaigns in the South and the surrender of Cornwallis
• Early engagements and privateers
• French intervention and the decisive action at Virginia Capes
• The end of the war and the terms of the Peace of Paris (1783)
• How did the American colonies win the war?

What was the American Revolution?

How did the american revolution begin, what were the major causes of the american revolution, which countries fought on the side of the colonies during the american revolution, how was the american revolution a civil war.

American Revolution

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The American Revolution —also called the U.S. War of Independence—was the insurrection fought between 1775 and 1783 through which 13 of Great Britain ’s North American colonies threw off British rule to establish the sovereign United States of America, founded with the Declaration of Independence in 1776. British attempts to assert greater control over colonial affairs after a long period of salutary neglect , including the imposition of unpopular taxes, had contributed to growing estrangement between the crown and a large and influential segment of colonists who ultimately saw armed rebellion as their only recourse.

On the ground, fighting in the American Revolution began with the skirmishes between British regulars and American provincials on April 19, 1775 , first at Lexington , where a British force of 700 faced 77 local minutemen , and then at Concord , where an American counterforce of 320 to 400 sent the British scurrying. The British had come to Concord to seize the military stores of the colonists, who had been forewarned of the raid through efficient lines of communication—including the ride of Paul Revere , which is celebrated with poetic license in Longfellow ’s “Paul Revere’s Ride” (1861).  

The American Revolution was principally caused by colonial opposition to British attempts to impose greater control over the colonies and to make them repay the crown for its defense of them during the French and Indian War (1754–63). Britain did this primarily by imposing a series of deeply unpopular laws and taxes, including the Sugar Act (1764), the Stamp Act (1765), and the so-called Intolerable Acts (1774).

Until early in 1778, the American Revolution was a civil war within the British Empire , but it became an international war as France (in 1778) and Spain (in 1779) joined the colonies against Britain. The Netherlands , which was engaged in its own war with Britain, provided financial support for the Americans as well as official recognition of their independence. The French navy in particular played a key role in bringing about the British surrender at Yorktown , which effectively ended the war.

In the early stages of the rebellion by the American colonists, most of them still saw themselves as English subjects who were being denied their rights as such. “Taxation without representation is tyranny,” James Otis reportedly said in protest of the lack of colonial representation in Parliament . What made the American Revolution look most like a civil war , though, was the reality that about one-third of the colonists, known as loyalists (or Tories), continued to support and fought on the side of the crown.

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The American Revolution was an insurrection carried out by 13 of Great Britain ’s North American colonies that began in 1775 and ended with a peace treaty in 1783. The colonies won political independence and went on to form the United States of America . The war followed more than a decade of growing estrangement between the British crown and a large and influential segment of its North American colonies that was caused by British attempts to assert greater control over colonial affairs after having long adhered to a policy of salutary neglect .

Until early in 1778 the conflict was a civil war within the British Empire , but afterward it became an international war as France (in 1778) and Spain (in 1779) joined the colonies against Britain . Meanwhile, the Netherlands , which provided both official recognition of the United States and financial support for it, was engaged in its own war against Britain ( see Anglo-Dutch Wars ). From the beginning, sea power was vital in determining the course of the war, lending to British strategy a flexibility that helped compensate for the comparatively small numbers of troops sent to America and ultimately enabling the French to help bring about the final British surrender at Yorktown in 1781.

The American colonies fought the war on land with essentially two types of organization: the Continental (national) Army and the state militias . The total number of the former provided by quotas from the states throughout the conflict was 231,771 soldiers, and the militias totaled 164,087. At any given time, however, the American forces seldom numbered over 20,000; in 1781 there were only about 29,000 insurgents under arms throughout the country. The war was therefore one fought by small field armies. Militias, poorly disciplined and with elected officers, were summoned for periods usually not exceeding three months. The terms of Continental Army service were only gradually increased from one to three years, and not even bounties and the offer of land kept the army up to strength. Reasons for the difficulty in maintaining an adequate Continental force included the colonists’ traditional antipathy toward regular armies, the objections of farmers to being away from their fields, the competition of the states with the Continental Congress to keep men in the militia , and the wretched and uncertain pay in a period of inflation .

By contrast, the British army was a reliable steady force of professionals. Since it numbered only about 42,000, heavy recruiting programs were introduced. Many of the enlisted men were farm boys, as were most of the Americans, while others came from cities where they had been unable to find work. Still others joined the army to escape fines or imprisonment. The great majority became efficient soldiers as a result of sound training and ferocious discipline . The officers were drawn largely from the gentry and the aristocracy and obtained their commissions and promotions by purchase. Though they received no formal training, they were not so dependent on a book knowledge of military tactics as were many of the Americans. British generals, however, tended toward a lack of imagination and initiative , while those who demonstrated such qualities often were rash.

Because troops were few and conscription unknown, the British government, following a traditional policy, purchased about 30,000 troops from various German princes. The Lensgreve (landgrave) of Hesse furnished approximately three-fifths of that total. Few acts by the crown roused so much antagonism in America as that use of foreign mercenaries .

The Root Causes of the American Revolution

The cause of the american revolution.

• America's Independent Way of Thinking

The Freedoms and Restrictions of Location

The control of government, the economic troubles, the corruption and control, the criminal justice system, grievances that led to revolution and the constitution.

• M.A., History, University of Florida
• B.A., History, University of Florida

The American Revolution began in 1775 as an open conflict between the United Thirteen Colonies  and Great Britain. Many factors played a role in the colonists' desires to fight for their independence. Not only did these issues lead to war , but they also shaped the foundation of the United States of America.

No single event caused the revolution. It was, instead, a series of events that led to the war . Essentially, it began as a disagreement over the way Great Britain governed the colonies and the way the colonies thought they should be treated. Americans felt they deserved all the rights of Englishmen. The British, on the other hand, thought that the colonies were created to be used in ways that best suited the Crown and Parliament. This conflict is embodied in one of the rallying cries of the ​ American Revolution : "No Taxation Without Representation."

America's Independent Way of Thinking

In order to understand what led to the rebellion, it's important to look at the mindset of the founding fathers . It should also be noted that this mindset was not that of the majority of colonists. There were no pollsters during the American revolution, but it's safe to say its popularity rose and fell over the course of the war. Historian Robert M. Calhoon estimated that only about 40–45% of the free population supported the revolution, while about 15–20% of the free white males remained loyal.     

The 18th century is known historically as the age of Enlightenment . It was a period when thinkers, philosophers, statesman, and artists began to question the politics of government, the role of the church, and other fundamental and ethical questions of society as a whole. The period was also known as the Age of Reason, and many colonists followed this new way of thinking.

A number of the revolutionary leaders had studied major writings of the Enlightenment, including those of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and the Baron de Montesquieu. From these thinkers, the founders gleaned such new political concepts as the social contract , limited government, the consent of the governed, and the  separation of powers .

Locke's writings, in particular, struck a chord. His books helped to raise questions about the rights of the governed and the overreach of the British government. They spurred the "republican" ideology that stood up in opposition to those viewed as tyrants.

Men such as Benjamin Franklin and John Adams were also influenced by the teachings of the Puritans and Presbyterians. These teachings included such new radical ideas as the principle that all men are created equal and the belief that a king has no divine rights. Together, these innovative ways of thinking led many in this era to consider it their duty to rebel against laws they viewed as unjust.

The geography of the colonies also contributed to the revolution. Their distance from Great Britain naturally created a sense of independence that was hard to overcome. Those willing to colonize the new world generally had a strong independent streak with a profound desire for new opportunities and more freedom.

The Proclamation of 1763 played its own role. After the French and Indian War , King George III issued the royal decree that prevented further colonization west of the Appalachian Mountains. The intent was to normalize relations with the Indigenous peoples, many of whom fought with the French.

A number of settlers had purchased land in the now forbidden area or had received land grants. The crown's proclamation was largely ignored as settlers moved anyway and the "Proclamation Line" eventually moved after much lobbying. Despite this concession, the affair left another stain on the relationship between the colonies and Britain.

The existence of colonial legislatures meant that the colonies were in many ways independent of the crown. The legislatures were allowed to levy taxes, muster troops, and pass laws. Over time, these powers became rights in the eyes of many colonists.

The British government had different ideas and attempted to curtail the powers of these newly elected bodies. There were numerous measures designed to ensure the colonial legislatures did not achieve autonomy, although many had nothing to do with the larger British Empire . In the minds of colonists, they were a matter of local concern.

From these small, rebellious legislative bodies that represented the colonists, the future leaders of the United States were born.

Even though the British believed in mercantilism , Prime Minister Robert Walpole espoused a view of " salutary neglect ." This system was in place from 1607 through 1763, during which the British were lax on enforcement of external trade relations. Walpole believed this enhanced freedom would stimulate commerce.

The French and Indian War led to considerable economic trouble for the British government. Its cost was significant, and the British were determined to make up for the lack of funds. They levied new taxes on the colonists and increased trade regulations. These actions were not well received by the colonists.

New taxes were enforced, including the Sugar Act and the Currency Act , both in 1764. The Sugar Act increased already considerable taxes on molasses and restricted certain export goods to Britain alone. The Currency Act prohibited the printing of money in the colonies, making businesses rely more on the crippled British economy. 

Feeling underrepresented, overtaxed, and unable to engage in free trade, the colonists rallied to the slogan, "No Taxation Without Representation." This discontent became very apparent in 1773 with the events that later became known as the Boston Tea Party .

The British government's presence became increasingly more visible in the years leading to the revolution. British officials and soldiers were given more control over the colonists and this led to widespread corruption.

Among the most glaring of these issues were the "Writs of Assistance." These were general search warrants that gave British soldiers the right to search and seize any property they deemed to be smuggled or illegal goods. Designed to assist the British in enforcing trade laws, these documents allowed British soldiers to enter, search, and seize warehouses, private homes, and ships whenever necessary. However, many abused this power.

In 1761, Boston lawyer James Otis fought for the constitutional rights of the colonists in this matter but lost. The defeat only inflamed the level of defiance and ultimately led to the Fourth Amendment in the U.S. Constitution .

The Third Amendment was also inspired by the overreach of the British government. Forcing colonists to house British soldiers in their homes infuriated the population. It was inconvenient and costly to the colonists, and many also found it a traumatic experience after events like the  Boston Massacre in 1770 .

Trade and commerce were overly controlled, the British Army made its presence known, and the local colonial government was limited by a power far across the Atlantic Ocean. If these affronts to the colonists' dignity were not enough to ignite the fires of rebellion, American colonists also had to endure a corrupt justice system.

Political protests became a regular occurrence as these realities set in. In 1769, Alexander McDougall was imprisoned for libel when his work "To the Betrayed Inhabitants of the City and Colony of New York" was published. His imprisonment and the Boston Massacre were just two infamous examples of the measures the British took to crack down on protesters. 

After six British soldiers were acquitted and two dishonorably discharged for the Boston Massacre—ironically enough, they were defended by John Adams—the British government changed the rules. From then on, officers accused of any offense in the colonies would be sent to England for trial. This meant that fewer witnesses would be on hand to give their accounts of events and it led to even fewer convictions.

To make matters even worse, jury trials were replaced with verdicts and punishments handed down directly by colonial judges. Over time, the colonial authorities lost power over this as well because the judges were known to be chosen, paid, and supervised by the British government. The right to a fair trial by a jury of their peers was no longer possible for many colonists.

All of these grievances that colonists had with the British government led to the events of the American Revolution. And many of these grievances directly affected what the founding fathers wrote into the U.S. Constitution . These constitutional rights and principles reflect the hopes of the framers that the new American government would not subject their citizens to the same loss of freedoms that the colonists had experienced under Britain's rule.

Schellhammer, Michael. " John Adams's Rule of Thirds ." Critical Thinking, Journal of the American Revolution . 11 Feb. 2013.

Calhoon, Robert M. " Loyalism and Neutrality ." A Companion to the American Revolution , edited by Jack P. Greene and J. R. Pole, Wiley, 2008, pp. 235-247, doi:10.1002/9780470756454.ch29 

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• The Battles of Lexington and Concord
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The Revolution

The foundations of the constitution: the american revolution begins, introduction.

Defining the American Revolution within its historical context is crucial to understanding its significance in the course of American history.

The American Revolution was a pivotal event that transformed the thirteen American colonies from subjects of the British Empire into an independent nation. This treatise aims to explore the multifaceted aspects of this revolution, from its causes and progression to its profound impact on American society and its enduring ideological legacy.

The thesis of this treatise is that the American Revolution was not merely a war for independence, but a complex and transformative movement driven by a combination of factors, including British colonial policies, Enlightenment ideas, socioeconomic tensions, and pivotal events that culminated in the Declaration of Independence . Its consequences reshaped the course of history, both domestically and internationally, leaving a lasting legacy of freedom and democracy.

Causes of the American Revolution

British colonial policy.

The American Revolution was shaped significantly by British colonial policies that engendered growing discontent among the colonists. Among these policies, taxation was a focal point of contention. The Stamp Act of 1765, which imposed taxes on various printed materials, and the Townshend Acts of 1767, which levied duties on imported goods, were met with vehement opposition.

In addition to taxation, the Navigation Acts imposed restrictions on colonial trade, compelling colonists to trade primarily with Britain and its territories. These policies not only stifled economic growth but also bred resentment among those who sought more economic autonomy.

Enlightenment Ideas and Philosophical Influences

The Enlightenment, a period marked by intellectual flourishing and the spread of rationalist ideas, played a pivotal role in fomenting revolutionary sentiments. Influential thinkers like John Locke, whose ideas on natural rights and government’s obligation to protect them, and Montesquieu, whose theories on the separation of powers, deeply influenced American colonists.

These Enlightenment ideals not only provided intellectual underpinnings for the American Revolution but also ignited the belief that self-governance and liberty were inalienable rights that the British government was infringing upon.

Socioeconomic Factors

The American colonies were characterized by economic disparities and class tensions. The elites of colonial society were discontented with British economic policies, which they saw as detrimental to their prosperity. At the same time, the colonial economy was intricately tied to trade and commerce, further fueling resentment when British regulations interfered with these economic activities.

The tensions between the colonial elite and the common people, many of whom were struggling economically, contributed to the revolutionary fervor. The quest for greater economic independence and opportunities played a significant role in the growing unrest.

Events Leading to Conflict

While tensions simmered over time, several events served as catalysts for the outbreak of open conflict. The Boston Massacre of 1770, in which British soldiers killed five colonists during a confrontation, intensified anti-British sentiment.

Further escalation occurred with the Boston Tea Party in 1773 when colonists, disguised as Mohawk Indians, boarded British ships and dumped chests of tea into Boston Harbor in protest of the Tea Act. These events marked a turning point, as they demonstrated the readiness of some colonists to use force to resist British authority.

American Revolution: From Rebellion to Independence

Initial responses to british policies.

The initial responses to British policies were marked by protests and resistance. Colonists organized themselves, forming Committees of Correspondence to exchange information and coordinate actions against British authorities. The First Continental Congress convened in 1774, bringing together representatives from twelve of the thirteen colonies to discuss grievances and strategies for collective action.

Outbreak of Armed Conflict

The armed conflict that would become the American Revolution began in earnest with the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775. These skirmishes between colonial militia and British forces marked the first military engagements of the revolution. Paul Revere’s midnight ride and the contributions of figures like Sam Adams played crucial roles in alerting and rallying the colonial forces.

Declaration of Independence

The pivotal moment in the American Revolution arrived with the drafting and adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Crafted primarily by Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration proclaimed the colonies’ intent to sever ties with Britain and outlined the philosophical foundations for their decision. It asserted the self-evident truths of equality and unalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Military Campaigns and Key Figures

The subsequent years of the revolution were marked by a series of battles and campaigns, with George Washington emerging as a central figure. Key conflicts, such as the Battle of Saratoga and the Siege of Yorktown, significantly influenced the course of the war. The support of international allies, particularly the French, played a crucial role in securing American victory.

Impact of the American Revolution

Domestic changes.

The American Revolution ushered in significant changes within the newly independent nation. The colonies transitioned into states, each drafting its own constitution and establishing governments. The Articles of Confederation served as the first attempt at a national government but proved ineffective, eventually leading to the drafting of the United States Constitution in 1787.

International Consequences

The American Revolution had far-reaching consequences on the international stage. It served as an inspiration for other independence movements, most notably the French Revolution. The successful American bid for independence also reshaped global politics, altering alliances and diplomatic relationships.

Ideological Legacy

The revolution’s ideological legacy left an indelible mark on American society. The principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, including the belief in individual rights and limited government, influenced the framing of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The American Revolution set a precedent for democratic governance and the protection of citizens’ rights that continues to shape American political and social life.

Challenges and Controversies

Loyalists and divided loyalties.

While the American Revolution garnered support from many colonists, it also created significant divisions and challenges. Loyalists, those who remained loyal to the British Crown, faced hostility and persecution from patriots. The experiences of Loyalists during and after the revolution shed light on the complex nature of divided loyalties within colonial society.

Native Americans and African Americans

The American Revolution had varying impacts on different groups, including Native Americans and African Americans. Native American tribes faced choices regarding alliances and territorial disputes. Some tribes sided with the British, while others aligned with the American colonists.

The question of slavery also loomed large during the revolution. Despite the rhetoric of liberty and equality, slavery persisted in many parts of the newly formed United States, revealing a stark contrast between the revolutionary ideals and the realities of racial inequality.

Women’s Contributions

Women played significant but often overlooked roles during the American Revolution. Figures like Abigail Adams, who corresponded with her husband John Adams about women’s rights and the need for legal protections, made important contributions to the revolutionary discourse. Women also supported the war effort as nurses, spies, and in various other roles, demonstrating their commitment to the cause of independence.

In conclusion, the American Revolution was a transformative and multifaceted movement that reshaped the course of history. It emerged as a response to a combination of factors, including oppressive British colonial policies, the influence of Enlightenment ideas, socioeconomic tensions, and pivotal events that culminated in the Declaration of Independence.

The consequences of the revolution were profound. Domestically, it led to the formation of a new nation with a unique system of government. The United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights reflected the revolutionary principles of individual rights and limited government, setting a precedent for democratic governance.

Internationally, the American Revolution inspired other independence movements and shifted the geopolitical landscape. It contributed to the emergence of the United States as a global player.

However, the revolution also brought forth challenges and controversies, such as the treatment of Loyalists, the complex relationships with Native Americans, the persistence of slavery, and the struggle for women’s rights.

Ultimately, the American Revolution’s legacy endures. It serves as a testament to the enduring power of ideas and the capacity of a determined people to shape their own destiny. The principles of liberty, equality, and self-determination continue to be central to the American identity and its role on the global stage.

Frequently Asked Questions about the American Revolution?

The American Revolution was driven by a complex interplay of factors. One of the primary causes was British colonial policies that imposed heavy taxation, such as the Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts, and restricted colonial trade through the Navigation Acts. These policies angered the colonists, who believed they were being unfairly taxed without representation in the British Parliament.

Enlightenment ideas also played a significant role. The works of thinkers like John Locke and Montesquieu, which emphasized individual rights and the separation of powers, influenced American colonists and fueled their desire for self-determination.

Socioeconomic factors cannot be overlooked. Economic disparities and tensions between the colonial elite and common people contributed to revolutionary sentiments. Many colonists sought greater economic autonomy and opportunities for growth.

The outbreak of armed conflict, triggered by events like the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party, further escalated tensions, pushing the colonists towards rebellion.

The American Revolution saw the emergence of several key figures who played pivotal roles in shaping its course.

George Washington: George Washington is often regarded as the father of the nation. He served as the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army and played a crucial role in leading the colonists to victory.

Thomas Jefferson: Thomas Jefferson is best known for drafting the Declaration of Independence, which articulated the colonists’ desire for independence and their belief in fundamental human rights.

Benjamin Franklin: Franklin was a polymath who made significant diplomatic contributions to the revolutionary cause. He helped secure French support, which proved vital to the American victory.

John Adams: John Adams was a key advocate for independence and played a critical role in the Continental Congress. He later became the second President of the United States.

Abigail Adams: While not a political leader, Abigail Adams deserves mention for her letters to her husband John Adams. Her correspondence highlighted the importance of women’s rights and their contributions to the revolution.

These figures, among others, shaped the American Revolution and the subsequent founding of the United States.

The American Revolution had profound and lasting impacts on American society. One of the most significant changes was the transition from colonies to states. Each state drafted its own constitution and established its government. However, the initial attempt at a national government under the Articles of Confederation proved ineffective, leading to the adoption of the United States Constitution in 1787.

The revolution also brought about a heightened sense of national identity among Americans, as they now saw themselves as citizens of a single nation rather than subjects of a distant monarchy.

Ideologically, the principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, such as individual rights and limited government, influenced the framing of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. This set the stage for the development of American democracy and the protection of citizens’ rights.

Economically, the revolution disrupted trade relationships with Britain but opened new possibilities for commerce and expansion within the United States.

While women’s roles in the American Revolution are often overlooked, they made significant contributions to the revolutionary cause. Women were actively involved in various capacities:

Spies: Some women acted as spies, gathering intelligence and passing on crucial information to the Continental Army. One notable spy was Lydia Darragh, who provided valuable information to George Washington.

Nurses and Medics: Women worked as nurses and medics, tending to wounded soldiers on the battlefield and in military hospitals.

Suppliers and Supporters: Women contributed by sewing uniforms, knitting socks, and preparing supplies for the troops. They also ran households and farms in the absence of male family members who were away fighting.

Ideological Contributions: Women like Abigail Adams wrote letters and engaged in intellectual discourse, advocating for women’s rights and highlighting the revolutionary ideals of liberty and equality.

Despite the limitations placed on their roles in society at the time, women played an integral part in supporting the American Revolution, and their contributions paved the way for discussions about gender equality in the years that followed.

Loyalists, those who remained loyal to the British Crown during the American Revolution, faced significant challenges and hardships. They were often subjected to persecution, harassment, and even violence by Patriots who viewed them as traitors. Loyalists had their properties confiscated, and some were forced to flee to British-controlled territories. After the war, many Loyalists faced difficulties reintegrating into American society, and some chose to emigrate to other British colonies, such as Canada.

The American Revolution had varied effects on Native American tribes. Some tribes supported the British, hoping that a British victory would prevent American expansion into their lands. Others, like the Oneida and Tuscarora, allied with the American colonists. The revolution ultimately led to territorial disputes, loss of land, and disruptions to Native American communities. The Treaty of Paris in 1783, which ended the war, did not protect Native American interests, and many tribes faced significant challenges in the post-revolutionary period.

Yes, slavery played a complex role in the American Revolution. While the revolution was motivated by ideals of liberty and equality, slavery continued to exist in many parts of the newly formed United States. Some enslaved individuals sought freedom by joining the British or Continental Army, where they were promised emancipation in exchange for their service. However, the institution of slavery persisted in many states, and the issue of slavery remained a contentious and divisive one in the years following the revolution. The contradiction between the revolutionary ideals of freedom and the reality of slavery would eventually lead to the abolitionist movement and the Civil War.

The American Revolution served as a source of inspiration for other independence movements globally. The successful rebellion against a colonial power demonstrated that it was possible to achieve independence and self-determination. Perhaps the most notable example is the French Revolution, which was heavily influenced by American revolutionary ideals and the Enlightenment. The French Revolution, in turn, inspired independence movements in Latin America, Haiti, and other regions. The American Revolution’s impact on the world stage extended beyond its own borders, contributing to a wave of movements seeking freedom and self-governance in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

International allies played a significant role in the American Revolution. The most notable ally was France, which provided critical military and financial support to the American colonists. The French Navy and troops, under General Rochambeau, played pivotal roles in the Siege of Yorktown, a decisive battle in the American Revolution. Additionally, Spain and the Netherlands offered support at various stages of the conflict. These international alliances helped tip the balance in favor of the American colonists and contributed significantly to their victory.

The American Revolution fundamentally altered the relationship between the United States and Britain. Prior to the revolution, the American colonies were British subjects. However, after gaining independence, the United States became a sovereign nation. The Treaty of Paris in 1783 formally recognized the independence of the United States and established the boundaries of the new nation. While the two countries eventually developed diplomatic relations, the legacy of the revolution left a lasting impact on their relationship, shaping their interactions on political, economic, and cultural fronts for years to come.

The American Revolution had profound and long-term consequences for American democracy. The revolutionary ideals of liberty, equality, and self-determination were enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and later reflected in the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These documents laid the foundation for American democracy, emphasizing individual rights, the rule of law, and limited government. The revolution set a precedent for democratic governance and became a touchstone for discussions on citizenship, civil liberties, and political participation. It continues to influence American political and social life, shaping debates and policies to this day.

The enduring legacy of the American Revolution in contemporary America is vast and multifaceted. It includes the establishment of a democratic republic with a system of checks and balances, a commitment to individual rights and freedoms, and the protection of civil liberties through the Bill of Rights. The revolution’s ideals continue to inspire political discourse, activism, and advocacy for social justice. Additionally, the American Revolution’s impact on international politics is seen in its influence on global movements for independence and self-determination. The revolution remains a source of national pride and identity, celebrated through holidays like Independence Day. Its legacy serves as a reminder of the enduring power of revolutionary ideas and the capacity of a determined people to shape their own destiny.

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• America 1765 - 1865

6 Key Causes of the American Revolution

14 Jan 2021

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This educational video is a visual version of this article and presented by Artificial Intelligence (AI). Please see our AI ethics and diversity policy for more information on how we use AI and select presenters on our website.

The American War of Independence (1775-1783) served as a harsh lesson to the British Empire that the dominions they controlled, if treated improperly, would always be susceptible to revolution.

The British did not wish to see the thirteen colonies break away from their realm, yet their colonial policies in the late-18th century proved consistently disastrous, demonstrating a complete lack of empathy or common understanding with the American population.

One might argue that independence was always on the horizon in this period for North America, yet even in an era of enlightenment the British seemed, through sheer ignorance, negligence and pride, to seal their own fate.

As with any revolution in history, ideological differences may have provided the foundation and impetus for change, but it is so often the events in the run up to the internal struggle that enhance tensions and ultimately trigger the conflict. The American Revolution was no different. Here are 6 key causes of the American revolution.

1. Seven Years War (1756-1763)

Although the Seven Years War was a multinational conflict, the main belligerents were the British and French Empires. Each looking to expand their territory across numerous continents, both nations suffered mass casualties and racked up copious amounts of debt in order to fund the long and ardous struggle for territorial dominance.

Arguably the most important theatre of the war was in North America, which in 1756 had been geographically split between the empires of the British, French and Spanish. With key but costly victories at Quebec and Fort Niagara, the British were able to emerge victorious from the war and henceforth assimilated large swathes of previously held French territory in Canada and the Mid-West as a result of the Treaty of Paris in 1763.

After a three-month siege of Quebec City, British forces captured the city at the Plains of Abraham. Image credit: Hervey Smyth (1734-1811), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

While British victory had removed any French and Native Indian threat (to an extent) to the thirteen colonies, the war had led to greater economic hardship in the US and an acknowledgment of the cultural differences between colonists and Britons.

Clashes in ideologies became all the more apparent as the British looked to levy higher taxes on the thirteen colonies in order to heal the debt they incurred from military and naval spending.

2. Taxes and Duties

If the Seven Years War had not exacerbated the divide between the colonies and the British metropole, the implementation of colonial taxation certainly did. The British witnessed these tensions first-hand when the Stamp Act of 1765 was introduced. Colonists bitterly opposed the new direct taxation on printed materials and forced the British Government to eventually repeal the legislation a year later.

“No taxation without representation” became an iconic slogan, as it effectively summarised the colonial outrage at the fact they were being taxed against their will and with no form of representation in Parliament.

A key cause of the American revolution which followed the Stamp Act was the introduction of Townshend Duties in 1767 and 1768. This was a series of acts that imposed new forms of indirect taxation of goods such as glass, paint, paper, lead and tea .

These duties caused outrage in the colonies and became the main root of spontaneous and violent opposition. Encouraged and rallied by propaganda leaflets and posters, such as those created by Paul Revere, colonists rioted and organised merchant boycotts. Eventually, the colonial response was met with fierce repression.

3. Boston Massacre (1770)

Just a year after the imposition of the Townshend Duties, the governor of Massachusetts was already calling for the other twelve colonies to join his state in resisting the British and boycotting their goods, which coincided with a riot in Boston over the seizure of a boat aptly named Liberty  for smuggling.

The Boston Massacre, 1770. Image credit: Paul Revere, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Despite these tremors of discontent, nothing suggested that the colonies might seriously consider fighting their British masters until the infamous Boston massacre of March 1770. This was one of the most significant causes of the American revolution.

A detachment of redcoats were accosted by a large crowd in the city, and bombarded with snowballs and more dangerous missiles as the cold and frustrated townsfolk vented their anger on the soldiers. Suddenly, they opened fire after a soldier was knocked down, killing five and injuring six others.

The Boston Massacre is often represented as the inevitable start of a revolution, but in fact it initially prompted Lord North’s government to withdraw the Townshend Acts and for a time it seemed like the worst of the crisis was over. However, radicals such as Samuel Adams and Thomas Jefferson kept the resentment ticking over.

4. Boston Tea Party (1773)

A switch had been flicked. The British government had a chance to make important political concessions to these disgruntled voices, yet they chose not to, and with this decision, the opportunity to avert rebellion was lost.

In 1772, a British ship which had been enforcing unpopular trade regulations was burned by angry patriots, while Samuel Adams set about creating Committees of Correspondence – a network of rebels across all of the 13 colonies.

Boston Tea Party. Image credit: Cornischong at lb.wikipedia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Yet it was in December 1773 that the most famous and overt display of anger and resistance took place. A group of colonists led by Adams hopped aboard the East India Company trade vessel Dartmouth and poured 342 chests of tea (worth close to $2,000,000 in today’s currency) of British tea into the sea at Boston Harbour. This act – now known as the ‘Boston Tea Party’, remains important in patriotic American folklore.

5. Intolerable Acts (1774)

Rather than attempting to appease the rebels, the Boston Tea Party was met with the passing of the Intolerable Acts in 1774 by the British Crown. These punitive measures included the forced closure of Boston port and an order of compensation to the East India Company for damaged property. Town meetings were now also banned, and the authority of the royal governor was increased.

The British lost further support and patriots formed the First Continental Congress in the same year, a body where men from all the colonies were formally represented. In Britain, opinion was divided as the Whigs favoured reform while North’s Tories wanted to demonstrate the power of the British Parliament. It would be the Tories who got their way.

In the meantime, the First Continental Congress raised a militia, and in April 1775 the first shots of the war were fired as British troops clashed with militia men at the twin battles of Lexington and Concord. British reinforcements landed in Massachusetts and defeated the rebels at Bunker Hill in June – the first major battle of the American War of Independence.

Shortly after, the British withdrew into Boston – where they were besieged by an army commanded by the newly appointed General, and future president, George Washington.

6. King George III’s Speech to Parliament (1775)

On 26 October 1775 George III , King of Great Britain, stood up in front of his Parliament and declared the American colonies to be in a state of rebellion. Here, for the first time, the use of force was authorised against the rebels. The King’s speech was long but certain phrases made it clear that a major war against his own subjects was about to commence:

“It is now become the part of wisdom, and (in its effects) of clemency, to put a speedy end to these disorders by the most decisive exertions. For this purpose, I have increased my naval establishment, and greatly augmented my land forces, but in such a manner as may be the least burthensome to my kingdoms.”

After such a speech, the Whig position was silenced and a full-scale war was inevitable. From it the United States of America would emerge, and the course of history radically changed.

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The American Revolution

The causes of the american revolution.

Most immediately, the American Revolution resulted directly from attempts to reform the British Empire after the Seven Years’ War. The Seven Years’ War culminated nearly a half-century of war between Europe’s imperial powers. It was truly a world war, fought between multiple empires on multiple continents. At its conclusion, the British Empire had never been larger. Britain now controlled the North American continent east of the Mississippi River, including French Canada. It had also consolidated its control over India. But, for the ministry, the jubilation was short-lived. The realities and responsibilities of the post-war empire were daunting. War (let alone victory) on such a scale was costly. Britain doubled the national debt to 13.5 times its annual revenue. In addition to the costs incurred in securing victory, Britain was also looking at significant new costs required to secure and defend its far-flung empire, especially western frontiers of the North American colonies. These factors led Britain in the 1760s to attempt to consolidate control over its North American colonies, which, in turn, led to resistance.

King George III took the crown in 1760 and brought Tories into his Ministry after three decades of Whig rule. They represented an authoritarian vision of empire where colonies would be subordinate. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was Britain’s first postwar imperial action. The King forbade settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains in attempt to limit costly wars with Native Americans. Colonists, however, protested and demanded access to the territory for which they had fought alongside the British.

In 1764, Parliament passed two more reforms. The Sugar Act sought to combat widespread smuggling of molasses in New England by cutting the duty in half but increasing enforcement. Also, smugglers would be tried by vice-admiralty courts and not juries. Parliament also passed the Currency Act, which restricted colonies from producing paper money. Hard money, like gold and silver coins, was scarce in the colonies. The lack of currency impeded the colonies’ increasingly sophisticated transatlantic economies, but it was especially damaging in 1764 because a postwar recession had already begun. Between the restrictions of the Proclamation of 1763, the Currency Act, and the Sugar Act’s canceling of trials-by-jury for smugglers, some colonists began to see a pattern of restriction and taxation.

In March 1765, Parliament passed the Stamp Act. The Sugar Act was an attempt to get merchants to pay an already-existing duty, but the Stamp Act created a new, direct (or internal) tax . Parliament had never before directly taxed the colonists. Instead, colonies contributed to the empire through the payment of indirect, internal taxes, such as customs duties. In 1765, Daniel Dulany of Maryland wrote, “A right to impose an internal tax on the colonies, without their consent for the single purpose of revenue, is denied, a right to regulate their trade without their consent is, admitted.”

Stamps were to be required on all printed documents, including newspapers, pamphlets, diplomas, legal documents, and even playing cards. Unlike the Sugar Act, which primarily affected merchants, the Stamp Act directly affected numerous groups including printers, lawyers, college graduates, and even sailors who played cards. This led, in part, to broader, more popular resistance.

Resistance took three forms, distinguished largely by class: legislative resistance by elites, economic resistance by merchants, and popular protest by common colonists. Colonial elites responded with legislative resistance initially by passing resolutions in their assemblies. The most famous of the anti-Stamp Act resolutions were the “Virginia Resolves” that declared that the colonists were entitled to “all the liberties, privileges, franchises, and immunities . . . possessed by the people of Great Britain.” When the resolves were printed throughout the colonies, however, they often included three extra, far more radical resolves not passed by the Virginia House of Burgesses, the last of which asserted that only “the general assembly of this colony have any right or power to impose or lay any taxation” and that anyone who argued differently “shall be deemed an enemy to this his majesty’s colony.” The spread of these extra resolves throughout the colonies helped radicalize the subsequent responses of other colonial assemblies and eventually led to the calling of the Stamp Act Congress in New York City in October 1765. Nine colonies sent delegates, including Benjamin Franklin, John Dickinson, Thomas Hutchinson, Philip Livingston, and James Otis.

Men and women politicized the domestic sphere by buying and displaying items that conspicuously revealed their position for or against Parliamentary actions. This witty teapot, which celebrates the end of taxation on goods like tea itself, makes clear the owner’s perspective on the egregious taxation. “Teapot, Stamp Act Repeal’d,” 1786, in Peabody Essex Museum. Salem State University .

The Stamp Act Congress issued a “Declaration of Rights and Grievances,” which, like the Virginia Resolves, declared allegiance to the King and “all due subordination” to Parliament, but also reasserted the idea that colonists were entitled to the same rights as native Britons. Those rights included trial by jury, which had been abridged by the Sugar Act, and the right to only be taxed by their own elected representatives. As Daniel Dulany wrote in 1765, “It is an essential principle of the English constitution, that the subject shall not be taxed without his consent.” Benjamin Franklin called it the “prime Maxim of all free Government.” Because the colonies did not elect members to Parliament, they believed that they were not represented and could not be taxed by that body. In response, Parliament and the Ministry argued that the colonists were “virtually represented,” just like the residents of those boroughs or counties in England that did not elect members to Parliament. However, the colonists rejected the notion of virtual representation, with one pamphleteer calling it a “monstrous idea.”

The second type of resistance to the Stamp Act was economic. While the Stamp Act Congress deliberated, merchants in major port cities were preparing non-importation agreements, hoping that their refusal to import British goods would lead British merchants to lobby for the repeal of the Stamp Act. The plan worked. As British exports to the colony dropped considerably, merchants did pressure Parliament to repeal.

The third, and perhaps, most crucial type of resistance was popular protest. Violent riots broke out in Boston, during which crowds, led by the local Sons of Liberty, burned the appointed stamp collector for Massachusetts, Peter Oliver, in effigy and pulled a building he owned “down to the Ground in five minutes.” Oliver resigned the position of stamp collector the next day. A few days later a crowd also set upon the home of his brother-in-law, Lt. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson, who had publicly argued for submission to the stamp tax. Before the evening was over, much of Hutchinson’s home and belongings had been destroyed.

Popular violence and intimidation spread quickly throughout the colonies. In New York City, posted notices read: “PRO PATRIA, The first Man that either distributes or makes use of stampt paper, let him take care of his house, person, and effects. Vox Populi. We dare.” By November 16, all of the original twelve stamp collectors had resigned, and by 1766, Sons of Liberty groups formed in most of the colonies to direct and organize further popular resistance. These tactics had the dual effect of sending a message to Parliament and discouraging colonists from accepting appointments as stamp collectors. With no one to distribute the stamps, the Act became unenforceable.

Violent protest by groups like the Sons of Liberty created quite a stir both in the colonies and in England itself. While extreme acts like the tarring and feathering of Boston’s Commissioner of Customs in 1774 propagated more protest against symbols of Parliament’s tyranny throughout the colonies, violent demonstrations were regarded as acts of terrorism by British officials. This print of the 1774 event was from the British perspective, picturing the Sons as brutal instigators with almost demonic smiles on their faces as they enacted this excruciating punishment on the Custom Commissioner. Philip Dawe (attributed), “The Bostonians Paying the Excise-man, or Tarring and Feathering,” Wikimedia .

Pressure on Parliament grew until, in March of 1766, they repealed the Stamp Act. But to save face and to try to avoid this kind of problem in the future, Parliament also passed the Declaratory Act, asserting that Parliament had the “full power and authority to make laws . . . to bind the colonies and people of America . . . in all cases whatsoever.” However, colonists were too busy celebrating the repeal of the Stamp Act to take much notice of the Declaratory Act. In New York City, the inhabitants raised a huge lead statue of King George III in honor of the Stamp Act’s repeal. It could be argued that there was no moment at which colonists felt more proud to be members of the free British Empire than 1766. But Britain still needed revenue from the colonies.

The colonies had resisted the implementation of direct taxes, but the Declaratory Act reserved Parliament’s right to impose them. And, in the colonists’ dispatches to Parliament and in numerous pamphlets, they had explicitly acknowledged the right of Parliament to regulate colonial trade. So Britain’s next attempt to draw revenues from the colonies, the Townshend Acts, were passed in June 1767, creating new customs duties on common items, like lead, glass, paint, and tea, instead of direct taxes. The Acts also created and strengthened formal mechanisms to enforce compliance, including a new American Board of Customs Commissioners and more vice-admiralty courts to try smugglers. Revenues from customs seizures would be used to pay customs officers and other royal officials, including the governors, thereby incentivizing them to convict offenders. These acts increased the presence of the British government in the colonies and circumscribed the authority of the colonial assemblies, since paying the governor’s salary gave the assemblies significant power over them. Unsurprisingly, colonists, once again, resisted.

Even though these were duties, many colonial resistance authors still referred to them as “taxes,” because they were designed primarily to extract revenues from the colonies not to regulate trade. John Dickinson, in his “Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer,” wrote, “That we may legally be bound to pay any general duties on these commodities, relative to the regulation of trade, is granted; but we being obliged by her laws to take them from Great Britain, any special duties imposed on their exportation to us only, with intention to raise a revenue from us only, are as much taxes upon us, as those imposed by the Stamp Act.” Hence, many authors asked: once the colonists assented to a tax in any form , what would stop the British from imposing ever more and greater taxes on the colonists?

New forms of resistance emerged in which elite, middling, and working class colonists participated together. Merchants re-instituted non-importation agreements, and common colonists agreed not to consume these same products. Lists were circulated with signatories promising not to buy any British goods. These lists were often published in newspapers, bestowing recognition on those who had signed and led to pressure on those who had not.

Women, too, became involved to an unprecedented degree in resistance to the Townshend Acts. They circulated subscription lists and gathered signatures. The first political newspaper essays written by women appeared. Also, without new imports of British clothes, colonists took to wearing simple, homespun clothing. Spinning clubs were formed, in which local women would gather at one their homes and spin cloth for homespun clothing for their families and even for the community.

Homespun clothing quickly became a marker of one’s virtue and patriotism, and women were an important part of this cultural shift. At the same time, British goods and luxuries previously desired now became symbols of tyranny. Non-importation, and especially, non-consumption agreements changed colonists’ cultural relationship with the mother country. Committees of inspection that monitored merchants and residents to make sure that no one broke the agreements. Offenders could expect to have their names and offenses shamed in the newspaper and in broadsides.

Non-importation and non-consumption helped forge colonial unity. Colonies formed Committees of Correspondence to update the progress of resistance in each colony. Newspapers reprinted exploits of resistance, giving colonists a sense that they were part of a broader political community. The best example of this new “continental conversation” came in the wake of the “Boston Massacre.” Britain sent regiments to Boston in 1768 to help enforce the new acts and quell the resistance. On the evening of March 5, 1770, a crowd gathered outside the Custom House and began hurling insults, snowballs, and perhaps more at the young sentry. When a small number of soldiers came to the sentry’s aid, the crowd grew increasingly hostile until the soldiers fired. After the smoke cleared, five Bostonians were dead, including Crispus Attucks, a former slave turned free dockworker. The soldiers were tried in Boston and won acquittal, thanks, in part, to their defense attorney, John Adams. News of the “Boston Massacre” spread quickly through the new resistance communication networks, aided by a famous engraving attributed to Paul Revere, which depicted bloodthirsty British soldiers with grins on their faces firing into a peaceful crowd. The engraving was quickly circulated and reprinted throughout the colonies, generating sympathy for Boston and anger with Britain.

This iconic image of the Boston Massacre by Paul Revere sparked fury in both Americans and the British by portraying the redcoats as brutal slaughterers and the onlookers as helpless victims. The events of March 5, 1770 did not actually play out as Revere pictured them, yet his intention was not simply to recount the affair. Revere created an effective propaganda piece that lent credence to those demanding that the British authoritarian rule be stopped. Paul Revere (engraver), “The bloody massacre perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th 1770 by a party of the 29th Regt.,” 1770. Library of Congress .

Resistance again led to repeal. In March of 1770, Parliament repealed all of the new duties except the one on tea, which, like the Declaratory Act, was left to save face and assert that Parliament still retained the right to tax the colonies. The character of colonial resistance had changed between 1765 and 1770. During the Stamp Act resistance, elites wrote resolves and held congresses while violent, popular mobs burned effigies and tore down houses, with minimal coordination between colonies. But methods of resistance against the Townshend Acts became more inclusive and more coordinated. Colonists previously excluded from meaningful political participation now gathered signatures, and colonists of all ranks participated in the resistance by not buying British goods.

Britain’s failed attempts at imperial reform in the 1760s created an increasingly vigilant and resistant colonial population and, most importantly, an enlarged political sphere — both on the colonial and continental levels—far beyond anything anyone could have imagined a few years earlier. A new sense of shared grievances began to join the colonists in a shared American political identity.

• American Yawp. Located at : http://www.americanyawp.com/index.html . Project : American Yawp. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike

THE AMERICAN YAWP

5. the american revolution.

Paul Revere, Landing of the Troops, c. 1770. Courtesy American Antiquarian Society . Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

*The American Yawp is an evolving, collaborative text. Please click  here  to improve this chapter.*

I. Introduction

Ii. the origins of the american revolution, iii. the causes of the american revolution, iv. independence, v. the war for independence, vi. the consequences of the american revolution, vii. conclusion, viii. primary sources, ix. reference material.

In the 1760s, Benjamin Rush, a native of Philadelphia, recounted a visit to Parliament. Upon seeing the king’s throne in the House of Lords, Rush said he “felt as if he walked on sacred ground” with “emotions that I cannot describe.” 1 Throughout the eighteenth century, colonists had developed significant emotional ties with both the British monarchy and the British constitution. The British North American colonists had just helped to win a world war and most, like Rush, had never been more proud to be British. And yet, in a little over a decade, those same colonists would declare their independence and break away from the British Empire. Seen from 1763, nothing would have seemed as improbable as the American Revolution.

The Revolution built institutions and codified the language and ideas that still define Americans’ image of themselves. Moreover, revolutionaries justified their new nation with radical new ideals that changed the course of history and sparked a global “age of revolution.” But the Revolution was as paradoxical as it was unpredictable. A revolution fought in the name of liberty allowed slavery to persist. Resistance to centralized authority tied disparate colonies ever closer together under new governments. The revolution created politicians eager to foster republican selflessness and protect the public good but also encouraged individual self-interest and personal gain. The “founding fathers” instigated and fought a revolution to secure independence from Britain, but they did not fight that revolution to create a “democracy.” To successfully rebel against Britain, however, required more than a few dozen “founding fathers.” Common colonists joined the fight, unleashing popular forces that shaped the Revolution itself, often in ways not welcomed by elite leaders. But once unleashed, these popular forces continued to shape the new nation and indeed the rest of American history.

The American Revolution had both long-term origins and short-term causes. In this section, we will look broadly at some of the long-term political, intellectual, cultural, and economic developments in the eighteenth century that set the context for the crisis of the 1760s and 1770s.

Between the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the middle of the eighteenth century, Britain had largely failed to define the colonies’ relationship to the empire and institute a coherent program of imperial reform. Two factors contributed to these failures. First, Britain was at war from the War of the Spanish Succession at the start of the century through the Seven Years’ War in 1763. Constant war was politically consuming and economically expensive. Second, competing visions of empire divided British officials. Old Whigs and their Tory supporters envisioned an authoritarian empire, based on conquering territory and extracting resources. They sought to eliminate Britain’s growing national debt by raising taxes and cutting spending on the colonies. The radical (or patriot) Whigs based their imperial vision on trade and manufacturing instead of land and resources. They argued that economic growth, not raising taxes, would solve the national debt. Instead of an authoritarian empire, “patriot Whigs” argued that the colonies should have equal status with the mother country. There were occasional attempts to reform the administration of the colonies, but debate between the two sides prevented coherent reform. 2

Colonists developed their own understanding of how they fit into the empire. They saw themselves as British subjects “entitled to all the natural, essential, inherent, and inseparable rights of our fellow subjects in Great-Britain.” The eighteenth century brought significant economic and demographic growth in the colonies. This success, they believed, resulted partly from Britain’s hands-off approach to the colonies, an approach that has been called salutary neglect. By midcentury, colonists believed that they held a special place in the empire, which justified Britain’s hands-off policy. In 1764, James Otis Jr. wrote, “The colonists are entitled to as ample rights, liberties, and privileges as the subjects of the mother country are, and in some respects to more .” 3

In this same period, the colonies developed their own local political institutions. Samuel Adams, in the Boston Gazette , described the colonies as each being a “separate body politic” from Britain. Almost immediately upon each colony’s settlement, they created a colonial assembly. These assemblies assumed many of the same duties as the Commons exercised in Britain, including taxing residents, managing the spending of the colonies’ revenue, and granting salaries to royal officials. In the early 1700s, colonial leaders unsuccessfully lobbied the British government to define their assemblies’ legal prerogatives, but Britain was too occupied with European wars. In the first half of the eighteenth century, royal governors tasked by the Board of Trade attempted to limit the power of the assemblies, but the assemblies’ power only grew. Many colonists came to see their assemblies as having the same jurisdiction over them that Parliament exercised over those in England. They interpreted British inaction as justifying their tradition of local governance. The Crown and Parliament, however, disagreed. 4

Political culture in the colonies also developed differently than that of the mother country. In both Britain and the colonies, land was the key to political participation, but because land was more easily obtained in the colonies, a higher proportion of male colonists participated in politics. Colonial political culture drew inspiration from the “country” party in Britain. These ideas—generally referred to as the ideology of republicanism—stressed the corrupting nature of power and the need for those involved in self-governing to be virtuous (i.e., putting the “public good” over their own self-interest). Patriots would need to be ever vigilant against the rise of conspiracies, centralized control, and tyranny. Only a small fringe in Britain held these ideas, but in the colonies, they were widely accepted. 5

In the 1740s, two seemingly conflicting bodies of thought—the Enlightenment and the Great Awakening—began to combine in the colonies and challenge older ideas about authority. Perhaps no single philosopher had a greater impact on colonial thinking than John Locke. In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding , Locke argued that the mind was originally a tabula rasa (or blank slate) and that individuals were formed primarily by their environment. The aristocracy then were wealthy or successful because they had greater access to wealth, education, and patronage and not because they were innately superior. Locke followed this essay with Some Thoughts Concerning Education , which introduced radical new ideas about the importance of education. Education would produce rational human beings capable of thinking for themselves and questioning authority rather than tacitly accepting tradition. These ideas slowly came to have far-reaching effects in the colonies and, later, the new nation.

At the same time that Locke’s ideas about knowledge and education spread in North America, the colonies also experienced an unprecedented wave of evangelical Protestant revivalism. Between 1739 and 1740, the Rev. George Whitefield, an enigmatic, itinerant preacher, traveled the colonies preaching Calvinist sermons to huge crowds. Unlike the rationalism of Locke, his sermons were designed to appeal to his listeners’ emotions. Whitefield told his listeners that salvation could only be found by taking personal responsibility for one’s own unmediated relationship with God, a process that came to be known as a “conversion” experience. He also argued that the current Church hierarchies populated by “unconverted” ministers only stood as a barrier between the individual and God. In his wake, new traveling preachers picked up his message and many congregations split. Both Locke and Whitefield had empowered individuals to question authority and to take their lives into their own hands.

In other ways, eighteenth-century colonists were becoming more culturally similar to Britons, a process often referred to as Anglicization. As colonial economies grew, they quickly became an important market for British manufacturing exports. Colonists with disposable income and access to British markets attempted to mimic British culture. By the middle of the eighteenth century, middling-class colonists could also afford items previously thought of as luxuries like British fashions, dining wares, and more. The desire to purchase British goods meshed with the desire to enjoy British liberties. 6 These political, intellectual, cultural, and economic developments built tensions that rose to the surface when, after the Seven Years’ War, Britain finally began to implement a program of imperial reform that conflicted with colonists’ understanding of the empire and their place in it.

Most immediately, the American Revolution resulted directly from attempts to reform the British Empire after the Seven Years’ War. The Seven Years’ War culminated nearly a half century of war between Europe’s imperial powers. It was truly a world war, fought between multiple empires on multiple continents. At its conclusion, the British Empire had never been larger. Britain now controlled the North American continent east of the Mississippi River, including French Canada. It had also consolidated its control over India. But the realities and responsibilities of the postwar empire were daunting. War (let alone victory) on such a scale was costly. Britain doubled the national debt to 13.5 times its annual revenue. Britain faced significant new costs required to secure and defend its far-flung empire, especially the western frontiers of the North American colonies. These factors led Britain in the 1760s to attempt to consolidate control over its North American colonies, which, in turn, led to resistance.

King George III took the crown in 1760 and brought Tories into his government after three decades of Whig rule. They represented an authoritarian vision of empire in which colonies would be subordinate. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was Britain’s first major postwar imperial action targeting North America. The king forbade settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains in an attempt to limit costly wars with Native Americans. Colonists, however, protested and demanded access to the territory for which they had fought alongside the British.

In 1764, Parliament passed two more reforms. The Sugar Act sought to combat widespread smuggling of molasses in New England by cutting the duty in half but increasing enforcement. Also, smugglers would be tried by vice-admiralty courts and not juries. Parliament also passed the Currency Act, which restricted colonies from producing paper money. Hard money, such as gold and silver coins, was scarce in the colonies. The lack of currency impeded the colonies’ increasingly sophisticated transatlantic economies, but it was especially damaging in 1764 because a postwar recession had already begun. Between the restrictions of the Proclamation of 1763, the Currency Act, and the Sugar Act’s canceling of trials-by-jury for smugglers, some colonists began to fear a pattern of increased taxation and restricted liberties.

In March 1765, Parliament passed the Stamp Act. The act required that many documents be printed on paper that had been stamped to show the duty had been paid, including newspapers, pamphlets, diplomas, legal documents, and even playing cards. The Sugar Act of 1764 was an attempt to get merchants to pay an already existing duty, but the Stamp Act created a new, direct (or “internal”) tax. Parliament had never before directly taxed the colonists. Instead, colonies contributed to the empire through the payment of indirect, “external” taxes, such as customs duties. In 1765, Daniel Dulany of Maryland wrote, “A right to impose an internal tax on the colonies, without their consent for the single purpose of revenue, is denied, a right to regulate their trade without their consent is, admitted.” 7 Also, unlike the Sugar Act, which primarily affected merchants, the Stamp Act directly affected numerous groups throughout colonial society, including printers, lawyers, college graduates, and even sailors who played cards. This led, in part, to broader, more popular resistance.

Resistance to the Stamp Act took three forms, distinguished largely by class: legislative resistance by elites, economic resistance by merchants, and popular protest by common colonists. Colonial elites responded by passing resolutions in their assemblies. The most famous of the anti-Stamp Act resolutions were the Virginia Resolves, passed by the House of Burgesses on May 30, 1765, which declared that the colonists were entitled to “all the liberties, privileges, franchises, and immunities . . . possessed by the people of Great Britain.” When the Virginia Resolves were printed throughout the colonies, however, they often included a few extra, far more radical resolutions not passed by the Virginia House of Burgesses, the last of which asserted that only “the general assembly of this colony have any right or power to impose or lay any taxation” and that anyone who argued differently “shall be deemed an enemy to this his majesty’s colony.” 8 These additional items spread throughout the colonies and helped radicalize subsequent responses in other colonial assemblies. These responses eventually led to the calling of the Stamp Act Congress in New York City in October 1765. Nine colonies sent delegates, who included Benjamin Franklin, John Dickinson, Thomas Hutchinson, Philip Livingston, and James Otis. 9

Men and women politicized the domestic sphere by buying and displaying items that conspicuously revealed their position for or against parliamentary actions. This witty teapot, which celebrates the end of taxation on goods like tea itself, makes clear the owner’s perspective on the egregious taxation. Teapot, Stamp Act Repeal’d, 1786, in Peabody Essex Museum. Salem State University .

The Stamp Act Congress issued a “Declaration of Rights and Grievances,” which, like the Virginia Resolves, declared allegiance to the king and “all due subordination” to Parliament but also reasserted the idea that colonists were entitled to the same rights as Britons. Those rights included trial by jury, which had been abridged by the Sugar Act, and the right to be taxed only by their own elected representatives. As Daniel Dulany wrote in 1765, “It is an essential principle of the English constitution, that the subject shall not be taxed without his consent.” 10 Benjamin Franklin called it the “prime Maxim of all free Government.” 11 Because the colonies did not elect members to Parliament, they believed that they were not represented and could not be taxed by that body. In response, Parliament and the Crown argued that the colonists were “virtually represented,” just like the residents of those boroughs or counties in England that did not elect members to Parliament. However, the colonists rejected the notion of virtual representation, with one pamphleteer calling it a “monstrous idea.” 12

The second type of resistance to the Stamp Act was economic. While the Stamp Act Congress deliberated, merchants in major port cities were preparing nonimportation agreements, hoping that their refusal to import British goods would lead British merchants to lobby for the repeal of the Stamp Act. In New York City, “upwards of two hundred principal merchants” agreed not to import, sell, or buy “any goods, wares, or merchandises” from Great Britain. 13 In Philadelphia, merchants gathered at “a general meeting” to agree that “they would not Import any Goods from Great-Britain until the Stamp-Act was Repealed.” 14 The plan worked. By January 1766, London merchants sent a letter to Parliament arguing that they had been “reduced to the necessity of pending ruin” by the Stamp Act and the subsequent boycotts. 15

The third, and perhaps, most crucial type of resistance was popular protest. Riots broke out in Boston. Crowds burned the appointed stamp distributor for Massachusetts, Andrew Oliver, in effigy and pulled a building he owned “down to the Ground in five minutes.” 16 Oliver resigned the position the next day. The following week, a crowd also set upon the home of his brother-in-law, Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson, who had publicly argued for submission to the stamp tax. Before the evening was over, much of Hutchinson’s home and belongings had been destroyed. 17

Popular violence and intimidation spread quickly throughout the colonies. In New York City, posted notices read:

PRO PATRIA, The first Man that either distributes or makes use of Stampt Paper, let him take care of his House, Person, & Effects. Vox Populi; We dare.” 18

By November 16, all of the original twelve stamp distributors had resigned, and by 1766, groups calling themselves the Sons of Liberty were formed in most colonies to direct and organize further resistance. These tactics had the dual effect of sending a message to Parliament and discouraging colonists from accepting appointments as stamp collectors. With no one to distribute the stamps, the act became unenforceable.

Violent protest by groups like the Sons of Liberty created quite a stir both in the colonies and in England itself. While extreme acts like the tarring and feathering of Boston’s Commissioner of Customs in 1774 propagated more protest against symbols of Parliament’s tyranny throughout the colonies, violent demonstrations were regarded as acts of terrorism by British officials. This print of the 1774 event was from the British perspective, picturing the Sons as brutal instigators with almost demonic smiles on their faces as they enacted this excruciating punishment on the Custom Commissioner. Philip Dawe (attributed), “The Bostonians Paying the Excise-man, or Tarring and Feathering,”  Wikimedia .

Pressure on Parliament grew until, in February 1766, it repealed the Stamp Act. But to save face and to try to avoid this kind of problem in the future, Parliament also passed the Declaratory Act, asserting that Parliament had the “full power and authority to make laws . . . to bind the colonies and people of America . . . in all cases whatsoever.” However, colonists were too busy celebrating the repeal of the Stamp Act to take much notice of the Declaratory Act. In New York City, the inhabitants raised a huge lead statue of King George III in honor of the Stamp Act’s repeal. It could be argued that there was no moment at which colonists felt more proud to be members of the free British Empire than 1766. But Britain still needed revenue from the colonies. 19

The colonies had resisted the implementation of direct taxes, but the Declaratory Act reserved Parliament’s right to impose them. And, in the colonists’ dispatches to Parliament and in numerous pamphlets, they had explicitly acknowledged the right of Parliament to regulate colonial trade. So Britain’s next attempt to draw revenues from the colonies, the Townshend Acts, were passed in June 1767, creating new customs duties on common items, like lead, glass, paint, and tea, instead of direct taxes. The acts also created and strengthened formal mechanisms to enforce compliance, including a new American Board of Customs Commissioners and more vice-admiralty courts to try smugglers. Revenues from customs seizures would be used to pay customs officers and other royal officials, including the governors, thereby incentivizing them to convict offenders. These acts increased the presence of the British government in the colonies and circumscribed the authority of the colonial assemblies, since paying the governor’s salary had long given the assemblies significant power over them. Unsurprisingly, colonists, once again, resisted.

Even though these were duties, many colonial resistance authors still referred to them as “taxes,” because they were designed primarily to extract revenues from the colonies not to regulate trade. John Dickinson, in his “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania,” wrote, “That we may legally be bound to pay any general duties on these commodities, relative to the regulation of trade, is granted; but we being obliged by her laws to take them from Great Britain, any special duties imposed on their exportation to us only, with intention to raise a revenue from us only, are as much taxes upon us, as those imposed by the Stamp Act.” Hence, many authors asked: once the colonists assented to a tax in any form , what would stop the British from imposing ever more and greater taxes on the colonists? 20

New forms of resistance emerged in which elite, middling, and working-class colonists participated together. Merchants reinstituted nonimportation agreements, and common colonists agreed not to consume these same products. Lists were circulated with signatories promising not to buy any British goods. These lists were often published in newspapers, bestowing recognition on those who had signed and led to pressure on those who had not.

Women, too, became involved to an unprecedented degree in resistance to the Townshend Acts. They circulated subscription lists and gathered signatures. The first political commentaries in newspapers written by women appeared. 21 Also, without new imports of British clothes, colonists took to wearing simple, homespun clothing. Spinning clubs were formed, in which local women would gather at one of their homes and spin cloth for homespun clothing for their families and even for the community. 22

Homespun clothing quickly became a marker of one’s virtue and patriotism, and women were an important part of this cultural shift. At the same time, British goods and luxuries previously desired now became symbols of tyranny. Nonimportation and, especially, nonconsumption agreements changed colonists’ cultural relationship with the mother country. Committees of Inspection monitored merchants and residents to make sure that no one broke the agreements. Offenders could expect to be shamed by having their names and offenses published in the newspaper and in broadsides.

Nonimportation and nonconsumption helped forge colonial unity. Colonies formed Committees of Correspondence to keep each other informed of the resistance efforts throughout the colonies. Newspapers reprinted exploits of resistance, giving colonists a sense that they were part of a broader political community. The best example of this new “continental conversation” came in the wake of the Boston Massacre. Britain sent regiments to Boston in 1768 to help enforce the new acts and quell the resistance. On the evening of March 5, 1770, a crowd gathered outside the Custom House and began hurling insults, snowballs, and perhaps more at the young sentry. When a small number of soldiers came to the sentry’s aid, the crowd grew increasingly hostile until the soldiers fired. After the smoke cleared, five Bostonians were dead, including one of the ringleaders, Crispus Attucks, a formerly enslaved man turned free dockworker. The soldiers were tried in Boston and won acquittal, thanks, in part, to their defense attorney, John Adams. News of the Boston Massacre spread quickly through the new resistance communication networks, aided by a famous engraving initially circulated by Paul Revere, which depicted bloodthirsty British soldiers with grins on their faces firing into a peaceful crowd. The engraving was quickly circulated and reprinted throughout the colonies, generating sympathy for Boston and anger with Britain.

This iconic image of the Boston Massacre by Paul Revere sparked fury in both Americans and the British by portraying the redcoats as brutal slaughterers and the onlookers as helpless victims. The events of March 5, 1770 did not actually play out as Revere pictured them, yet his intention was not simply to recount the affair. Revere created an effective propaganda piece that lent credence to those demanding that the British authoritarian rule be stopped. Paul Revere (engraver), “The bloody massacre perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th 1770 by a party of the 29th Regt.,” 1770.  Library of Congress .

Resistance again led to repeal. In March 1770, Parliament repealed all of the new duties except the one on tea, which, like the Declaratory Act, was left, in part, to save face and assert that Parliament still retained the right to tax the colonies. The character of colonial resistance had changed between 1765 and 1770. During the Stamp Act resistance, elites wrote resolves and held congresses while violent, popular mobs burned effigies and tore down houses, with minimal coordination between colonies. But methods of resistance against the Townshend Acts became more inclusive and more coordinated. Colonists previously excluded from meaningful political participation now gathered signatures, and colonists of all ranks participated in the resistance by not buying British goods and monitoring and enforcing the boycotts.

Britain’s failed attempts at imperial reform in the 1760s created an increasingly vigilant and resistant colonial population and, most importantly, an enlarged political sphere—both on the colonial and continental levels—far beyond anything anyone could have imagined a few years earlier. A new sense of shared grievances began to join the colonists in a shared American political identity.

Tensions between the colonies and England eased for a time after the Boston Massacre. The colonial economy improved as the postwar recession receded. The Sons of Liberty in some colonies sought to continue nonimportation even after the repeal of the Townshend Acts. But in New York, a door-to-door poll of the population revealed that the majority wanted to end nonimportation. 23 Yet Britain’s desire and need to reform imperial administration remained.

In April 1773, Parliament passed two acts to aid the failing East India Company, which had fallen behind in the annual payments it owed Britain. But the company was not only drowning in debt; it was also drowning in tea, with almost fifteen million pounds of it stored in warehouses from India to England. In 1773, Parliament passed the Regulating Act, which effectively put the troubled company under government control. It then passed the Tea Act, which would allow the company to sell its tea in the colonies directly and without the company having to pay the usual export tax in London. Even though this would greatly lower the cost of tea for colonists, they resisted.

Merchants resisted the Tea Act because they resented the East India Company’s monopoly. But like the Sugar Act, the Tea Act affected only a small, specific group of people. The widespread support for resisting the Tea Act had more to do with principles. By buying tea, even though it was cheaper, colonists would be paying the duty and thereby implicitly acknowledging Parliament’s right to tax them. According to the Pennsylvania Chronicle , Prime Minister Lord North was a “great schemer” who sought “to out wit us, and to effectually establish that Act, which will forever after be pleaded as a precedent for every imposition the Parliament of Great-Britain shall think proper to saddle us with.” 24

The Tea Act stipulated that the duty had to be paid when the ship unloaded. Newspaper essays and letters throughout the summer of 1773 in the major port cities debated what to do upon the ships’ arrival. In November, the Boston Sons of Liberty, led by Samuel Adams and John Hancock, resolved to “prevent the landing and sale of the [tea], and the payment of any duty thereon” and to do so “at the risk of their lives and property.” 25 The meeting appointed men to guard the wharfs and make sure the tea remained on the ships until they returned to London. This worked and the tea did not reach the shore, but by December 16, the ships were still there. Hence, another town meeting was held at the Old South Meeting House, at the end of which dozens of men disguised as Mohawks made their way to the wharf. The Boston Gazette reported what happened next:

But, behold what followed! A number of brave & resolute men, determined to do all in their power to save their country from the ruin which their enemies had plotted, in less than four hours, emptied every chest of tea on board the three ships . . . amounting to 342 chests, into the sea ! ! without the least damage done to the ships or any other property . 26

As word spread throughout the colonies, patriots were emboldened to do the same to the tea sitting in their harbors. Tea was either dumped or seized in Charleston, Philadelphia, and New York, with numerous other smaller “tea parties” taking place throughout 1774.

Popular protest spread across the continent and down through all levels of colonial society. Fifty-one women in Edenton, North Carolina, for example, signed an agreement—published in numerous newspapers—in which they promised “to do every Thing as far as lies in our Power” to support the boycotts. 27 The ladies of Edenton were not alone in their desire to support the war effort by what means they could. Women across the thirteen colonies could most readily express their political sentiments as consumers and producers. Because women often made decisions regarding household purchases, their participation in consumer boycotts held particular weight. 28 Some women also took to the streets as part of more unruly mob actions, participating in grain riots, raids on the offices of royal officials, and demonstrations against the impressment of men into naval service. The agitation of so many helped elicit responses from both Britain and the colonial elites.

Britain’s response was swift. The following spring, Parliament passed four acts known collectively, by the British, as the Coercive Acts. Colonists, however, referred to them as the Intolerable Acts. First, the Boston Port Act shut down the harbor and cut off all trade to and from the city. The Massachusetts Government Act put the colonial government entirely under British control, dissolving the assembly and restricting town meetings. The Administration of Justice Act allowed any royal official accused of a crime to be tried in Britain rather than by Massachusetts courts and juries. Finally, the Quartering Act, passed for all colonies, allowed the British army to quarter newly arrived soldiers in colonists’ homes. Boston had been deemed in open rebellion, and the king, his advisors, and Parliament acted decisively to end the rebellion.

The Crown, however, did not anticipate the other colonies coming to the aid of Massachusetts. Colonists collected food to send to Boston. Virginia’s House of Burgesses called for a day of prayer and fasting to show their support. Rather than isolating Massachusetts, the Coercive Acts fostered the sense of shared identity created over the previous decade. After all, if the Crown and Parliament could dissolve Massachusetts’s government, nothing could stop them from doing the same to any of her sister colonies. In Massachusetts, patriots created the Provincial Congress, and, throughout 1774, they seized control of local and county governments and courts. 29 In New York, citizens elected committees to direct the colonies’ response to the Coercive Acts, including a Mechanics’ Committee of middling colonists. By early 1774, Committees of Correspondence and/or extralegal assemblies were established in all of the colonies except Georgia. And throughout the year, they followed Massachusetts’s example by seizing the powers of the royal governments.

Committees of Correspondence agreed to send delegates to a Continental Congress to coordinate an intercolonial response. The First Continental Congress convened on September 5, 1774. Over the next six weeks, elite delegates from every colony but Georgia issued a number of documents, including a “Declaration of Rights and Grievances.” This document repeated the arguments that colonists had been making since 1765: colonists retained all the rights of native Britons, including the right to be taxed only by their own elected representatives as well as the right to a trial by jury.

Most importantly, the Congress issued a document known as the “Continental Association.” The Association declared that “the present unhappy situation of our affairs is occasioned by a ruinous system of colony administration adopted by the British Ministry about the year 1763, evidently calculated for enslaving these Colonies, and, with them, the British Empire.” The Association recommended “that a committee be chosen in every county, city, and town . . . whose business it shall be attentively to observe the conduct of all persons touching this association.” These Committees of Inspection would consist largely of common colonists. They were effectively deputized to police their communities and instructed to publish the names of anyone who violated the Association so they “may be publicly known, and universally condemned as the enemies of American liberty.” The delegates also agreed to a continental nonimportation, nonconsumption, and nonexportation agreement and to “wholly discontinue the slave trade.” In all, the Continental Association was perhaps the most radical document of the period. It sought to unite and direct twelve revolutionary governments, establish economic and moral policies, and empower common colonists by giving them an important and unprecedented degree of on-the-ground political power. 30

But not all colonists were patriots. Indeed, many remained faithful to the king and Parliament, while a good number took a neutral stance. As the situation intensified throughout 1774 and early 1775, factions emerged within the resistance movements in many colonies. Elite merchants who traded primarily with Britain, Anglican clergy, and colonists holding royal offices depended on and received privileges directly from their relationship with Britain. Initially, they sought to exert a moderating influence on the resistance committees, but, following the Association, a number of these colonists began to worry that the resistance was too radical and aimed at independence. They, like most colonists in this period, still expected a peaceful conciliation with Britain and grew increasingly suspicious of the resistance movement.

However, by the time the Continental Congress met again in May 1775, war had already broken out in Massachusetts. On April 19, 1775, British regiments set out to seize local militias’ arms and powder stores in Lexington and Concord. The town militia met them at the Lexington Green. The British ordered the militia to disperse when someone fired, setting off a volley from the British. The battle continued all the way to the next town, Concord. News of the events at Lexington spread rapidly throughout the countryside. Militia members, known as minutemen, responded quickly and inflicted significant casualties on the British regiments as they chased them back to Boston. Approximately twenty thousand colonial militiamen laid siege to Boston, effectively trapping the British. In June, the militia set up fortifications on Breed’s Hill overlooking the city. In the misnamed “Battle of Bunker Hill,” the British attempted to dislodge them from the position with a frontal assault, and, despite eventually taking the hill, they suffered severe casualties at the hands of the colonists.

“The Battle of Lexington,” Published by John H. Daniels & Son, c1903.  Library of Congress .

While men in Boston fought and died, the Continental Congress struggled to organize a response. The radical Massachusetts delegates—including John Adams, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock—implored the Congress to support the Massachusetts militia, who without supplies were laying siege to Boston. Meanwhile, many delegates from the Middle Colonies—including New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia—took a more moderate position, calling for renewed attempts at reconciliation. In the South, the Virginia delegation contained radicals such as Richard Henry Lee and Thomas Jefferson, while South Carolina’s delegation included moderates like John and Edward Rutledge. The moderates worried that supporting the Massachusetts militia would be akin to declaring war.

The Congress struck a compromise, agreeing to adopt the Massachusetts militia and form a Continental Army, naming Virginia delegate George Washington commander in chief. They also issued a “Declaration of the Causes of Necessity of Taking Up Arms” to justify the decision. At the same time, the moderates drafted an “Olive Branch Petition,” which assured the king that the colonists “most ardently desire[d] the former Harmony between [the mother country] and these Colonies.” Many understood that the opportunities for reconciliation were running out. After Congress had approved the document, Benjamin Franklin wrote to a friend saying, “The Congress will send one more Petition to the King which I suppose will be treated as the former was, and therefore will probably be the last.” 31 Congress was in the strange position of attempting reconciliation while publicly raising an army.

The petition arrived in England on August 13, 1775, but before it was delivered, the king issued his own “Proclamation for Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition.” He believed his subjects in North America were being “misled by dangerous and ill-designing men,” who were “traitorously preparing, ordering, and levying war against us.” In an October speech to Parliament, he dismissed the colonists’ petition. The king had no doubt that the resistance was “manifestly carried on for the purpose of establishing an independent empire.” 32 By the start of 1776, talk of independence was growing while the prospect of reconciliation dimmed.

In the opening months of 1776, independence, for the first time, became part of the popular debate. Town meetings approved resolutions in support of independence. Yet, with moderates still hanging on, it would take another seven months before the Continental Congress officially passed the independence resolution. A small forty-six-page pamphlet published in Philadelphia and written by a recent immigrant from England captured the American conversation. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense argued for independence by denouncing monarchy and challenging the logic behind the British Empire, saying, “There is something absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island.” 33 His combination of easy language, biblical references, and fiery rhetoric proved potent, and the pamphlet was quickly published and dispersed. Arguments over political philosophy and rumors of battlefield developments filled taverns throughout the colonies.

George Washington had taken control of the army and after laying siege to Boston forced the British to retreat to Halifax. In Virginia, the royal governor, Lord Dunmore, issued a proclamation declaring martial law and offering freedom to “all indentured servants, Negros, and others” if they would leave their enslavers and join the British. Though only about five hundred to a thousand enslaved people joined Lord Dunmore’s “Ethiopian regiment,” thousands more flocked to the British later in the war, risking capture and punishment for a chance at freedom. Formerly enslaved people occasionally fought, but primarily served in companies called Black Pioneers as laborers, skilled workers, and spies. British motives for offering freedom were practical rather than humanitarian, but the proclamation was the first mass emancipation of enslaved people in American history. Enslaved people could now choose to run and risk their lives for possible freedom with the British army or hope that the United States would live up to its ideals of liberty. 34

Dunmore’s proclamation unnerved white southerners already suspicious of rising antislavery sentiments in the mother country. Four years earlier, English courts dealt a serious blow to slavery in the empire. In Somerset v Stewart , James Somerset sued for his freedom, and the court not only granted it but also undercut the very legality of slavery on the British mainland. Somerset and now Dunmore began to convince some enslavers that a new independent nation might offer a surer protection for slavery. Indeed, the proclamation laid the groundwork for the very unrest that loyal southerners had hoped to avoid. Consequently, enslavers often used violence to prevent their enslaved laborers from joining the British or rising against them. Virginia enacted regulations to prevent freedom-seeking, threatening to ship rebellious enslaved people to the West Indies or execute them. Many enslavers transported their enslaved people inland, away from the coastal temptation to join the British armies, sometimes separating families in the process.

On May 10, 1776, nearly two months before the Declaration of Independence, the Congress voted on a resolution calling on all colonies that had not already established revolutionary governments to do so and to wrest control from royal officials. 35 The Congress also recommended that the colonies should begin preparing new written constitutions. In many ways, this was the Congress’s first declaration of independence. A few weeks later, on June 7, Richard Henry Lee offered the following resolution:

Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, Free and Independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connexion between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved . 36

Delegates went scurrying back to their assemblies for new instructions and nearly a month later, on July 2, the resolution finally came to a vote. It passed 12–0, with New York, under imminent threat of British invasion, abstaining.

The passage of Lee’s resolution was the official legal declaration of independence, but, between the proposal and vote, a committee had been named to draft a public declaration in case the resolution passed. Virginian Thomas Jefferson drafted the document, with edits being made by his fellow committee members John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, and then again by the Congress as a whole. The famous preamble went beyond the arguments about the rights of British subjects under the British Constitution, instead referring to “natural law”:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government. 37

The majority of the document outlined a list of specific grievances that the colonists had with British attempts to reform imperial administration during the 1760s and 1770s. An early draft blamed the British for the transatlantic slave trade and even for discouraging attempts by the colonists to promote abolition. Delegates from South Carolina and Georgia as well as those from northern states who profited from the trade all opposed this language, and it was removed. 38

Neither the grievances nor the rhetoric of the preamble were new. Instead, they were the culmination of both a decade of popular resistance to imperial reform and decades more of long-term developments that saw both sides develop incompatible understandings of the British Empire and the colonies’ place within it. The Congress approved the document on July 4, 1776. However, it was one thing to declare independence; it was quite another to win it on the battlefield.

The Declaration of Independence,  National Archives and Records Administration .

The war began at Lexington and Concord, more than a year before Congress declared independence. In 1775, the British believed that the mere threat of war and a few minor incursions to seize supplies would be enough to cow the colonial rebellion. Those minor incursions, however, turned into a full-out military conflict. Despite an early American victory at Boston, the new states faced the daunting task of taking on the world’s largest military.

In the summer of 1776, the British forces that had abandoned Boston arrived at New York. The largest expeditionary force in British history, including tens of thousands of German mercenaries known as Hessians, followed soon after. New York was the perfect location to launch expeditions aimed at seizing control of the Hudson River and isolating New England from the rest of the continent. Also, New York contained many loyalists, particularly among its merchant and Anglican communities. In October, the British finally launched an attack on Brooklyn and Manhattan. The Continental Army took severe losses before retreating through New Jersey. 39 With the onset of winter, Washington needed something to lift morale and encourage reenlistment. Therefore, he launched a successful surprise attack on the Hessian camp at Trenton on Christmas Day by ferrying the few thousand men he had left across the Delaware River under the cover of night. The victory won the Continental Army much-needed supplies and a morale boost following the disaster at New York. 40

An even greater success followed in upstate New York. In 1777, British general John Burgoyne led an army from Canada to secure the Hudson River. In upstate New York, he was to meet up with a detachment of General William Howe’s forces marching north from Manhattan. However, Howe abandoned the plan without telling Burgoyne and instead sailed to Philadelphia to capture the new nation’s capital. The Continental Army defeated Burgoyne’s men at Saratoga, New York. 41 This victory proved a major turning point in the war. Benjamin Franklin had been in Paris trying to secure a treaty of alliance with the French. However, the French were reluctant to back what seemed like an unlikely cause. News of the victory at Saratoga convinced the French that the cause might not have been as unlikely as they had thought. A Treaty of Amity and Commerce was signed on February 6, 1778. The treaty effectively turned a colonial rebellion into a global war as fighting between the British and French soon broke out in Europe and India. 42

In this 1782 cartoon, the British lion faces a spaniel (Spain), a rooster (France), a rattlesnake (America), and a pug dog (Netherlands). Though the caption predicts Britain’s success, it illustrates that Britain faced challenges—and therefore drains on their military and treasury—from more than just the American rebels. J. Barrow, The British Lion Engaging Four Powers, 1782. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London .

Howe had taken Philadelphia in 1777 but returned to New York once winter ended. He slowly realized that European military tactics would not work in North America. In Europe, armies fought head-on battles in attempt to seize major cities. However, in 1777, the British had held Philadelphia and New York and yet still weakened their position. Meanwhile, Washington realized after New York that the largely untrained Continental Army could not win head-on battles with the professional British army. So he developed his own logic of warfare that involved smaller, more frequent skirmishes and avoided major engagements that would risk his entire army. As long as he kept the army intact, the war would continue, no matter how many cities the British captured.

In 1778, the British shifted their attentions to the South, where they believed they enjoyed more popular support. Campaigns from Virginia to South Carolina and Georgia captured major cities, but the British simply did not have the manpower to retain military control. And upon their departures, severe fighting ensued between local patriots and loyalists, often pitting family members against one another. The war in the South was truly a civil war. 43

By 1781, the British were also fighting France, Spain, and Holland. The British public’s support for the costly war in North America was quickly waning. The Americans took advantage of the British southern strategy with significant aid from the French army and navy. In October, Washington marched his troops from New York to Virginia in an effort to trap the British southern army under the command of General Charles Cornwallis. Cornwallis had dug his men in at Yorktown awaiting supplies and reinforcements from New York. However, the Continental and French armies arrived first, quickly followed by a French navy contingent, encircling Cornwallis’s forces and, after laying siege to the city, forcing his surrender. The capture of another army left the British without a new strategy and without public support to continue the war. Peace negotiations took place in France, and the war came to an official end on September 3, 1783. 44

Lord Cornwallis’s surrender signaled the victory of the American revolutionaries over what they considered to be the despotic rule of Britain. This moment would live on in American memory as a pivotal one in the nation’s origin story, prompting the United States government to commission artist John Trumbull to create this painting of the event in 1817. John Trumbull, Surrender of Lord Cornwallis, 1820.  Wikimedia .

Americans celebrated their victory, but it came at great cost. Soldiers suffered through brutal winters with inadequate resources. During the single winter at Valley Forge in 1777–1778, over 2,500 Americans died from disease and exposure. Life was not easy on the home front either. Women on both sides of the conflict were frequently left alone to care for their households. In addition to their existing duties, women took on roles usually assigned to men on farms and in shops and taverns. Abigail Adams addressed the difficulties she encountered while “minding family affairs” on their farm in Braintree, Massachusetts. Abigail managed the planting and harvesting of crops, in the midst of severe labor shortages and inflation, while dealing with several tenants on the Adams property, raising her children, and making clothing and other household goods. In order to support the family economically during John’s frequent absences and the uncertainties of war, Abigail also invested in several speculative schemes and sold imported goods. 45

While Abigail remained safely out of the fray, other women were not so fortunate. The Revolution was not only fought on distant battlefields. It was fought on women’s very doorsteps, in the fields next to their homes. There was no way for women to avoid the conflict or the disruptions and devastations it caused. As the leader of the state militia during the Revolution, Mary Silliman’s husband, Gold, was absent from their home for much of the conflict. On the morning of July 7, 1779, when a British fleet attacked nearby Fairfield, Connecticut, it was Mary who calmly evacuated her household, including her children and servants, to North Stratford. When Gold was captured by loyalists and held prisoner, Mary, six months pregnant with their second child, wrote letters to try to secure his release. When such appeals were ineffectual, Mary spearheaded an effort, along with Connecticut Governor, John Trumbull, to capture a prominent Tory leader to exchange for her husband’s freedom. 46

American soldiers came from a variety of backgrounds and had numerous reasons for fighting with the American army. Jean-Baptiste-Antoine DeVerger, a French sublieutenant at the Battle of Yorktown, painted this watercolor soon after that battle and chose to depict four men in men military dress: an African American soldier from the 2nd Rhode Island Regiment, a man in the homespun of the militia, another wearing the common “hunting shirt” of the frontier, and the French soldier on the end. Jean-Baptiste-Antoine DeVerger, “American soldiers at the siege of Yorktown,” 1781.  Wikimedia .

Black Americans, enslaved and free, also impacted (and were impacted by) the Revolution. The British were the first to recruit Black (or “Ethiopian”) regiments, as early as Dunmore’s Proclamation of 1775 in Virginia, which promised freedom to any enslaved person who would escape their enslavers and join the British cause. At first, Washington, an enslaver himself, resisted allowing Black men to join the Continental Army, but he eventually relented. In 1775, Peter Salem’s enslaver freed him to fight with the militia. Salem faced British Regulars in the battles at Lexington and Bunker Hill, where he fought valiantly with around three dozen other Black Americans. Salem not only contributed to the cause, he earned the ability to determine his own life after his enlistment ended. Salem was not alone, but many more enslaved people seized on the tumult of war to run away and secure their own freedom directly. Historians estimate that between thirty thousand and one hundred thousand formerly enslaved people deserted their enslavers during the war. 47

Men and women together struggled through years of war and hardship. For patriots (and those who remained neutral), victory brought new political, social, and economic opportunities, but it also brought new uncertainties. The war decimated entire communities, particularly in the South. Thousands of women throughout the nation had been widowed. The American economy, weighed down by war debt and depreciated currencies, would have to be rebuilt following the war. State constitutions had created governments, but now men would have to figure out how to govern. The opportunities created by the Revolution had come at great cost, in both lives and fortune, and it was left to the survivors to seize those opportunities and help forge and define the new nation-state.

Another John Trumbull piece commissioned for the Capitol in 1817, this painting depicts what would be remembered as the moment the new United States became a republic. On December 23, 1783, George Washington, widely considered the hero of the Revolution, resigned his position as the most powerful man in the former thirteen colonies. Giving up his role as Commander-in-Chief of the Army ensured that civilian rule would define the new nation and that a republic would be set in place rather than a dictatorship. John Trumbull, General George Washington Resigning His Commission, c. 1817-1824. From the  Architect of the Capitol .

Like the earlier distinction between “origins” and “causes,” the Revolution also had short- and long-term consequences. Perhaps the most important immediate consequence of declaring independence was the creation of state constitutions in 1776 and 1777. The Revolution also unleashed powerful political, social, and economic forces that would transform the new nation’s politics and society, including increased participation in politics and governance, the legal institutionalization of religious toleration, and the growth and diffusion of the population, particularly westward. The Revolution affected Native Americans by opening up western settlement and creating governments hostile to their territorial claims. Even more broadly, the Revolution ended the mercantilist economy, opening new opportunities in trade and manufacturing.

The new states drafted written constitutions, which, at the time, was an important innovation from the traditionally unwritten British Constitution. These new state constitutions were based on the idea of “popular sovereignty,” that is, that the power and authority of the government derived from the people. 48 Most created weak governors and strong legislatures with more regular elections and moderately increased the size of the electorate. A number of states followed the example of Virginia and included a declaration or “bill” of rights in their constitution designed to protect the rights of individuals and circumscribe the prerogative of the government. Pennsylvania’s first state constitution was the most radical and democratic. They created a unicameral legislature and an Executive Council but no genuine executive. All free men could vote, including those who did not own property. Massachusetts’s constitution, passed in 1780, was less democratic in structure but underwent a more popular process of ratification. In the fall of 1779, each town sent delegates—312 in all—to a constitutional convention in Cambridge. Town meetings debated the constitution draft and offered suggestions. Anticipating the later federal constitution, Massachusetts established a three-branch government based on checks and balances between the branches. Independence came in 1776, and so did an unprecedented period of constitution making and state building.

The Continental Congress ratified the Articles of Confederation in 1781. The articles allowed each state one vote in the Continental Congress. But the articles are perhaps most notable for what they did not allow. Congress was given no power to levy or collect taxes, regulate foreign or interstate commerce, or establish a federal judiciary. These shortcomings rendered the postwar Congress weak and largely ineffectual.

Political and social life changed drastically after independence. Political participation grew as more people gained the right to vote, leading to greater importance being placed on representation within government. 49 In addition, more common citizens (or “new men”) played increasingly important roles in local and state governance. Hierarchy within the states underwent significant changes. Society became less deferential and more egalitarian, less aristocratic and more meritocratic.

The Revolution’s most important long-term economic consequence was the end of mercantilism. The British Empire had imposed various restrictions on the colonial economies including limiting trade, settlement, and manufacturing. The Revolution opened new markets and new trade relationships. The Americans’ victory also opened the western territories for invasion and settlement, which created new domestic markets. Americans began to create their own manufactures, no longer content to rely on those in Britain.

Despite these important changes, the American Revolution had its limits. Following their unprecedented expansion into political affairs during the imperial resistance, women also served the patriot cause during the war. However, the Revolution did not result in civic equality for women. Instead, during the immediate postwar period, women became incorporated into the polity to some degree as “republican mothers.” Republican societies required virtuous citizens, and it became mothers’ responsibility to raise and educate future citizens. This opened opportunity for women regarding education, but they still remained largely on the peripheries of the new American polity.

In the thirteen colonies, boycotting women were seen as patriots. In British prints such as this, they were mocked as immoral harlots sticking their noses in the business of men. Philip Dawe, A Society of Patriotic Ladies at Edenton in North Carolina, March 1775. Metropolitan Museum of Art .

Approximately sixty thousand loyalists ended up leaving America because of the Revolution. Loyalists came from all ranks of American society, and many lived the rest of their lives in exile from their homeland. A clause in the Treaty of Paris was supposed to protect their property and require the Americans to compensate Loyalists who had lost property during the war because of their allegiance. The Americans, however, reneged on this promise and, throughout the 1780s, states continued seizing property held by Loyalists. Some colonists went to England, where they were strangers and outsiders in what they had thought of as their mother country. Many more, however, settled on the peripheries of the British Empire throughout the world, especially Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Quebec. The Loyalists had come out on the losing side of a Revolution, and many lost everything they had and were forced to create new lives far from the land of their birth. 50

In 1783, thousands of formerly enslaved Loyalists fled with the British army. They hoped that the British government would uphold the promise of freedom and help them establish new homes elsewhere in the Empire. The Treaty of Paris, which ended the war, demanded that British troops leave formerly enslaved people behind, but the British military commanders upheld earlier promises and evacuated thousands of freedmen, transporting them to Canada, the Caribbean, or Great Britain. They would eventually play a role in settling Nova Scotia, and through the subsequent efforts of David George, a Black loyalist and Baptist preacher, some settled in Sierra Leone in Africa. Black loyalists, however, continued to face social and economic marginalization, including restrictions on land ownership within the British Empire. 51

Joseph Brandt as painted by George Romney. Brandt was a Mohawk leader who led Mohawk and British forces in western New York.  Wikimedia .

The fight for liberty led some Americans to manumit their enslaved laborers, and most of the new northern states soon passed gradual emancipation laws. Some manumissions also occurred in the Upper South, but in the Lower South, some enslavers revoked their offers of freedom for service, and other freedmen were forced back into bondage. The Revolution’s rhetoric of equality created a “revolutionary generation” of enslaved people and free Black Americans that would eventually encourage the antislavery movement. Slave revolts began to incorporate claims for freedom based on revolutionary ideals. In the long term, the Revolution failed to reconcile slavery with these new egalitarian republican societies, a tension that eventually boiled over in the 1830s and 1840s and effectively tore the nation in two in the 1850s and 1860s. 52

Native Americans, too, participated in and were affected by the Revolution. Many Native American groups, such as the Shawnee, Creek, Cherokee, and Iroquois, had sided with the British. They had hoped for a British victory that would continue to restrain the land-hungry colonial settlers from moving west beyond the Appalachian Mountains. Unfortunately, the Americans’ victory and Native Americans’ support for the British created a pretense for justifying rapid and often brutal expansion into the western territories. Native American peoples would continue to be displaced and pushed farther west throughout the nineteenth century. Ultimately, American independence marked the beginning of the end of what had remained of Native American independence.

The American Revolution freed colonists from British rule and offered the first blow in what historians have called “the age of democratic revolutions.” The American Revolution was a global event. 53 Revolutions followed in France, then Haiti, and then South America. The American Revolution meanwhile wrought significant changes to the British Empire. Many British historians even use the Revolution as a dividing point between a “first British Empire” and a “second British Empire.” At home, however, the Revolution created a new nation-state, the United States of America. By September 1783, independence had been won. What the new nation would look like, however, was still very much up for grabs. In the 1780s, Americans would shape and then reshape that nation-state, first with the Articles of Confederation, ratified in 1781, and then with the Constitution in 1787 and 1788.

Historians have long argued over the causes and character of the American Revolution. Was the Revolution caused by British imperial policy or by internal tensions within the colonies? Were colonists primarily motivated by constitutional principles, ideals of equality, or economic self-interest? Was the Revolution radical or conservative? But such questions are hardly limited to historians. From Abraham Lincoln’s use of the Declaration of Independence in the Gettysburg Address to twenty-first-century Tea Party members wearing knee breeches, the Revolution has remained at the center of American political culture. Indeed, how one understands the Revolution often dictates how one defines what it means to be American.

The Revolution was not won by a few founding fathers. Men and women of all ranks contributed to the colonies’ most improbable victory, from the commoners who protested the Stamp Act to the women who helped organize boycotts against the Townshend duties; from the men, Black and white, who fought in the army to the women who contributed to its support. The Revolution, however, did not aim to end all social and civic inequalities in the new nation, and, in the case of Native Americans, it created new inequalities. But over time, the Revolution’s rhetoric of equality, as encapsulated in the Declaration of Independence, helped highlight some of those inequalities and became a shared aspiration for future social and political movements, including, among others, the abolitionist and women’s rights movements of the nineteenth century, the suffragist and civil rights movements of the twentieth century, and the gay rights movement of the twenty-first century.

1. George R. T. Hewes, A retrospect of the Boston Tea-party, 1834

George R.T. Hewes wrote the following reminiscence of the Boston Tea Party almost 61 years after it occurred. It is likely that his memories included more than a few stories he picked up well after 1773. Nonetheless Hews provides a highly detailed account of this important event.

2. Thomas Paine calls for American independence ,  1776

Britons had long understood themselves as the freest people on earth, blessed with a limited monarchy and an enlightened parliament. Paine’s pamphlet offered a very different portrayal of the British government. His criticisms swept across the North American continent and generated widespread support for American independence. 

3. Declaration of Independence, 1776

It is hard to overstate the significance of the Declaration of Independence. Designed as a measured justification for the severing of ties with Britain, the document has also functioned as a transformative piece of political philosophy. Most of the conflicts of American history from this point forward emerged from attempts to understand and implement what it means to believe “all men are created equal.” 

4. Women in South Carolina experience occupation, 1780

The British faced the difficult task of fighting a war without pushing more colonists into the hands of the revolutionaries. As a result, the Revolutionary War included little direct attacks on civilians, but that does not mean that civilians did not suffer. The following account from Eliza Wilkinson describes the stress faced by non-combatants who had to face the British army. 

5. Oneida declaration of neutrality, 1775

The Oneida nation, one of the Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), issued a formal declaration of neutrality on June 19, 1775 to the governor of Connecticut after the imperial crisis between Great Britain and their North American colonies erupted into violence. This declaration hints at the Oneida conceptions of their own sovereignty among the Six Nations confederacy, the independence of other Native American nations, and how the Oneida understand the conflict as a war “between two brothers.” Samuel Kirkland, a missionary living in Iroquois country, interpreted and transcribed the Oneida’s words and sent them to Governor Jonathan Trumbull of Connecticut.

6. Boston King recalls fighting for the British and securing his freedom, 1798

Boston King was born into slavery in South Carolina in 1760. He escaped to the British Army during their invasion of South Carolina in 1780. He served as a Loyalist in the British Army, and participated in several important battles. Although captured, and once again enslaved by the Americans, King was able to escape to the British again, who secured his freedom by sending him and other Black Loyalists to Canada. Many Black colonists sought freedom by joining with the British, with estimates as high as 5,000. King later became a missionary and one of the first Black Canadian settlers of Sierra Leone in West Africa.

7. Abigail and John Adams converse on women’s rights, 1776

The American Revolution invited a reconsideration of all social inequalities. Abigail Adams, in this letter to her husband John Adams, asked her husband to “remember the ladies” in any new laws he may create. In his reply, John Adams treated this sentiment as a joke, demonstrating the limits of revolutionary liberty.  

8. American Revolution cartoon, 1782

Political cartoons provide insight into public opinion and the decisions made by politicians. These cartoons became an important medium for voicing criticism and dissent during the American Revolution. In this 1782 cartoon, the British lion faces a spaniel (Spain), a rooster (France), a rattlesnake (America), and a pug dog (Netherlands). Though the caption predicts Britain’s success, it illustrates that Britain faced challenges –and therefore drains on their military and treasury—from more than just the American rebels.

9. Drawings of the uniforms of the American Revolution, 1781

American soldiers came from a variety of backgrounds and had numerous reasons for fighting with the American army. Jean-Baptiste-Antoine DeVerger, a French sublieutenant at the Battle of Yorktown, painted this watercolor soon after that battle and chose to depict four men in men military dress: an African American soldier from the 2nd Rhode Island Regiment, a man in the homespun of the militia, another wearing the common “hunting shirt” of the frontier, and the French soldier on the end.

This chapter was edited by Michael Hattem, with content contributions by James Ambuske, Alexander Burns, Joshua Beatty, Christina Carrick, Christopher Consolino, Michael Hattem, Timothy C. Hemmis, Joseph Moore, Emily Romeo, and Christopher Sparshott.

Recommended citation: James Ambuske et al., “The American Revolution,” Michael Hattem, ed., in The American Yawp , eds. Joseph Locke and Ben Wright (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018).

Recommended Reading

• Bailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1967.
• Berkin, Carol. Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence. New York: Knopf, 2005.
• Breen, T. H. The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
• Carp, Benjamin L. Rebels Rising: Cities and the American Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
• DuVal, Kathleen. Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution. New York: Random House, 2015.
• Egerton, Douglas R. Death or Liberty: African Americans and Revolutionary America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
• Eustace, Nicole. Passion Is the Gale: Emotion, Power, and the Coming of the American Revolution. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008.
• Fliegelman, Jay. Prodigals and Pilgrims: The American Revolution Against Patriarchal Authority 1750–1800 . New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
• Gould, Eliga. Among the Powers of the Earth: The American Revolution and the Making of a New World Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012.
• Greene, Jack P. The Constitutional Origins of the American Revolution . New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
• Holton, Woody. Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999.
• Jasanoff, Maya. Liberty’s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World. New York: Knopf, 2011.
• Kamensky, Jane. A Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley. New York: Norton, 2016.
• Kerber, Linda K. Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980.
• Knott, Sarah. Sensibility and the American Revolution. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009.
• Landers, Jane G. Atlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolutions. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010.
• Maier, Pauline. American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence. New York: Knopf, 1997.
• ———. From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765–1776. New York: Vintage Books, 1974.
• Nash, Gary B. The Unknown American Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America. New York: Viking, 2005.
• Norton, Mary Beth. Liberty’s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750–1800. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980.
• O’Shaughnessy, Andrew Jackson. The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013.
• Schiff, Stacy. A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America. New York: Thorndike Press, 2005.
• Waldstreicher, David. Slavery’s Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification. New York: Hill and Wang, 2009.
• Wood, Gordon S. The Radicalism of the American Revolution. New York: Vintage Books, 1992.
• Young, Alfred F., and Gregory Nobles. Whose American Revolution Was It? Historians Interpret the Founding. New York: New York University Press, 2011.
• Benjamin Rush to Ebenezer Hazard, October 22, 1768, in L. H. Butterfield, ed., Letters of Benjamin Rush , 2 vols. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1951), vol. 1, 68. [ ↩ ]
• Jack P. Greene, The Constitutional Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, UK: New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010). [ ↩ ]
• James Otis, The Rights of the Colonies Asserted and Proved (Boston: Edes and Gill, 1764), 52, 38. [ ↩ ]
• Greene, Constitutional Origins of the American Revolution , 118. [ ↩ ]
• Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1967). [ ↩ ]
• Jack P. Greene, Pursuits of Happiness: The Social Development of Early Modern British Colonies and the Formation of American Culture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), 170–171. Also see John Murrin, “Anglicizing an American Colony: The Transformation of Provincial Massachusetts,” PhD diss., Yale University, 1966. [ ↩ ]
• Daniel Dulany, Considerations on the Propriety of Imposing Taxes in the British Colonies, for the Purpose of Raising a Revenue, by Act of Parliament. The Second Edition (Annapolis, MD: Jonas Green, 1765), 34. For a 1766 London reprint, see https://archive.org/details/cihm_20394 , accessed April 24, 2018. [ ↩ ]
• Newport Mercury , June 24, 1765. This version was also reprinted in newspapers in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Maryland. [ ↩ ]
• Proceedings of the Congress at New-York (Annapolis, MD: Jonas Green, 1766). [ ↩ ]
• Dulany,  Considerations on the Propriety of imposing Taxes in the British Colonies , 8. [ ↩ ]
• “The Colonist’s Advocate: III, 11 January 1770,” Founders Online, National Archives. http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-17-02-0009 , last modified June 29, 2017. [ ↩ ]
• George Canning, A Letter to the Right Honourable Wills Earl of Hillsborough, on the Connection Between Great Britain and Her American Colonies (London: T. Becket, 1768), 9. [ ↩ ]
• “New York, October 31, 1765,” New-York Gazette, or Weekly Mercury , November 7, 1765. [ ↩ ]
• “Resolution of Non-Importation made by the Citizens of Philadelphia,” October 25, 1765, mss., Historical Society of Pennsylvania. http://digitalhistory.hsp.org/pafrm/doc/resolution-non-importation-made-citizens-philadelphia-october-25-1765 . For the published notice of the resolution, see “Philadelphia, November 7, 1765,” broadside, “Pennsylvania Stamp Act and Non-Importation Resolutions Collection,” American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, PA. [ ↩ ]
• “The Petition of the London Merchants to the House of Commons,” in Prologue to Revolution: Sources and Documents on the Stamp Act Crisis, 1764–1766 , ed. Edmund S. Morgan (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959), 130–131. [ ↩ ]
• Governor Francis Bernard to Lord Halifax, August 15, 1765, in ibid., 107. [ ↩ ]
• For Hutchinson’s own account of the events, see Thomas Hutchinson to Richard Jackson, August 30, 1765, in The Correspondence of Thomas Hutchinson, Volume 1: 1740–1766 , ed. John W. Tyler (Boston: Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 2014), 291–294. [ ↩ ]
• Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New-York, procured in Holland, England, and France , 13 vols., ed. Edmund O’Callaghan (Albany, NY: Weed, Parsons, 1856), vol. 7, 770. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Btm5M84IMAA4MCY.png:large , accessed April 24, 2018. [ ↩ ]
• “The Declaratory Act,” The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/declaratory_act_1766.asp , accessed April 24, 2018. [ ↩ ]
• “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies. Letter II,” Pennsylvania Gazette , December 10, 1767. [ ↩ ]
• “Address to the Ladies,” Boston Post-Boy , November 16, 1767; Boston Evening-Post , February 12, 1770. Many female contributions to political commentary took the form of poems and drama, as in the poetry of Hannah Griffitts and satirical plays by Mercy Otis Warren. [ ↩ ]
• Carol Berkin, Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence (New York: Knopf, 2005), 17–18. [ ↩ ]
• New York Gazette, or Weekly Post-Boy , June 18, July 9, 16, 1770. [ ↩ ]
• Pennsylvania Chronicle , September 27, 1773. For an example of how fast news and propaganda was spreading throughout the colonies, this piece was reprinted in Massachusetts Gazette , October 4, 1773; New-Hampshire Gazette, and Historical Chronicle , October 15, 1773; and Virginia Gazette , October 21, 1773. [ ↩ ]
• Massachusetts Gazette, and Boston Post-Boy , November 29, 1773. [ ↩ ]
• Boston Gazette , December 20, 1773. [ ↩ ]
• Virginia Gazette , November 3, 1774; Cynthia A. Kierner, “The Edenton Ladies: Women, Tea, and Politics in Revolutionary North Carolina,” in North Carolina Women: Their Lives and Times , ed. Michele Gillespie and Sally G. McMillen (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2014), 12–33. [ ↩ ]
• Ellen Hartigan-O’Connor, The Ties That Buy: Women and Commerce in Revolutionary America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 178–184. [ ↩ ]
• Ray Raphael, The First American Revolution: Before Lexington and Concord (New York: New Press, 2002), 59–168. [ ↩ ]
• American Archives: Fourth Series Containing a Documentary History of the English Colonies in North America , ed. Peter Force (Washington, D.C.: Clarke and Force, 1837), vol. 1, 913–916. https://archive.org/stream/AmericanArchives-FourthSeriesVolume1-ContainingADocumentaryHistory/AaSeries4VolumeI#page/n455/mode/2up , accessed April 24, 2018. [ ↩ ]
• “From Benjamin Franklin to Jonathan Shipley, 7 July 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives. http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-22-02-0057 , last modified June 29, 2017. [ ↩ ]
• Gt. Brit. Soveriengs, Etc., “His Majesty’s Most Gracious Speech to Both Houses of Parliament, on Friday, October 27, 1775 . . . New York? 1775].” https://www.loc.gov/item/rbpe.10803800/ , accessed April 24, 2018. [ ↩ ]
• Thomas Paine, Common Sense (Philadelphia: W. T. and Bradford, 1776). https://www.gutenberg.org/files/147/147-h/147-h.htm , accessed April 24, 2018. [ ↩ ]
• Pennsylvania Evening Post , September 21, 1776. [ ↩ ]
• Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 , 34 vols. (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1904–1937), vol. 4, 342. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/hlaw:@field(DOCID+@lit(jc004109 . [ ↩ ]
• “Report & the Resolution for Independancy Agreed to July 2d. 1776,” Papers of the Continental Congress, No. 23, folio 17, National Archives, Washington, DC. http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/american_originals/declarat.html . [ ↩ ]
• Journals of the Continental Congress 5: 510–516. [ ↩ ]
• For more on the process of writing the Declaration of Independence, see Pauline Maier, American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence (New York: Knopf, 1997). [ ↩ ]
• Barnet Schecter, The Battle for New York: The City at the Heart of the American Revolution (New York: Walker, 2002). [ ↩ ]
• David Hackett Fischer, Washington’s Crossing (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004). [ ↩ ]
• Richard M. Ketchum, Saratoga: Turning Point of America’s Revolutionary War (New York: Holt, 1997). [ ↩ ]
• For more on Franklin’s diplomacy in France, see Stacy Schiff, A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America (New York: Thorndike Press, 2005). [ ↩ ]
• David K. Wilson, The Southern Strategy: Britain’s Conquest of South Carolina and Georgia, 1775–1780 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2005). [ ↩ ]
• Richard M. Ketchum, Victory at Yorktown: The Campaign That Won the Revolution (New York: Holt, 2004). [ ↩ ]
• Woody Holton, Abigail Adams (New York: Free Press, 2009), 208–217. [ ↩ ]
• Joy Day Buel and Richard Buel, The Way of Duty: A Woman and Her Family in Revolutionary America (New York: Norton, 1995), 145–170. [ ↩ ]
• For discussion of these numerical estimates, see Gary Nash’s introduction to Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, Press, 1996), xxiii. [ ↩ ]
• Willi Paul Adams, The First American Constitutions: Republican Ideology and the Making of the State Constitutions in the Revolutionary Era (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001), 126–146. [ ↩ ]
• Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969). [ ↩ ]
• Maya Jasanoff, Liberty’s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World (New York: Knopf, 2011). [ ↩ ]
• Alan Gilbert, Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for Emancipation in the War of Independence (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012). [ ↩ ]
• Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 217–289. [ ↩ ]
• For a summary of the global aspects of the Revolution, see Ted Brackemyre, “The American Revolution: A Very European Ordeal,” U.S. History Scene , http://ushistoryscene.com/article/am-rev-european-ordeal , accessed April 24, 2018. [ ↩ ]

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7 Events That Enraged Colonists and Led to the American Revolution

By: Patrick J. Kiger

Updated: August 6, 2024 | Original: August 20, 2019

The American colonists’ breakup with the British Empire in 1776 wasn’t a sudden, impetuous act. Instead, the banding together of the 13 colonies to fight and win a war of independence against the Crown was the culmination of a series of events, which had begun more than a decade earlier. Escalations began shortly after the end of the French and Indian War —known elsewhere as the Seven Years War in 1763. Here are a few of the pivotal moments that caused the American Revolution.

1. The Stamp Act (March 1765)

To recoup some of the massive debt left over from the war with France, Parliament passed laws such as the Stamp Act , which for the first time taxed a wide range of transactions in the colonies.

“Up until then, each colony had its own government which decided which taxes they would have, and collected them,” explains Willard Sterne Randall , a professor emeritus of history at Champlain College and author of numerous works on early American history, including Unshackling America: How the War of 1812 Truly Ended the American Revolution. “They felt that they’d spent a lot of blood and treasure to protect the colonists from the Indians, and so they should pay their share.”

The colonists didn’t see it that way. They resented not only having to buy goods from the British but pay tax on them as well. “The tax never got collected, because there were riots all over the place,” Randall says. Ultimately, Benjamin Franklin convinced the British to rescind it, but that only made things worse. “That made the Americans think they could push back against anything the British wanted,” Randall says.

2. The Townshend Acts (June-July 1767)

Parliament again tried to assert its authority by passing legislation to tax goods that the Americans imported from Great Britain. The Crown established a board of customs commissioners to stop smuggling and corruption among local officials in the colonies, who were often in on the illicit trade.

Americans struck back by organizing a boycott of the British goods that were subject to taxation and began harassing the British customs commissioners. In an effort to quell the resistance, the British sent troops to occupy Boston, which only deepened the ill feeling.

The Stamp Act Riots

The measure that imposed a tax on all printed materials inspired widespread outrage and even violence among the colonists.

Townshend Acts

Townshend Duties The Townshend Acts, named after Charles Townshend, British chancellor of the Exchequer, imposed duties on British china, glass, lead, paint, paper and tea imported to the colonies. Benjamin Franklin had informed the British Parliament that the colonies intended to start manufacturing their own goods rather than paying duties on imports. These particular items […]

7 Surprising Facts About the Boston Tea Party

For starters, the colonists weren't protesting higher taxes on tea.

3. The Boston Massacre (March 1770)

Simmering tensions between the British occupiers and Boston residents boiled over one late afternoon when a disagreement between an apprentice wigmaker and a British soldier led to a crowd of 200 colonists surrounding seven British troops. When the Americans began taunting the British and throwing things at them, the soldiers apparently lost their cool and began firing into the crowd .

As the smoke cleared, three men—including an African American sailor named Crispus Attucks —were dead, and two others were mortally wounded. The massacre became a useful propaganda tool for the colonists, especially after Paul Revere distributed an engraving that misleadingly depicted the British as the aggressors.

4. The Boston Tea Party (December 1773)

The British eventually withdrew their forces from Boston and repealed much of the onerous Townshend legislation. But they left in place the tax on tea, and in 1773 enacted a new law, the Tea Act , to prop up the financially struggling British East India Company. The act gave the company extended favorable treatment under tax regulations to sell tea at a price that undercut the American merchants who imported from Dutch traders.

That didn’t sit well with Americans. “They didn’t want the British telling them that they had to buy their tea, but it wasn’t just about that,” Randall explains. “The Americans wanted to be able to trade with any country they wanted.”

The Sons of Liberty , a radical group, decided to confront the British head-on. Thinly disguised as Mohawks, they boarded three ships in Boston harbor and destroyed more than 92,000 pounds of British tea by dumping it into the harbor . To make the point that they were rebels rather than vandals, they avoided harming any of the crew or damaging the ships themselves, and the next day even replaced a padlock that had been broken.

Nevertheless, the act of defiance “really ticked off the British government,” Randall explains. “Many of the East India Company’s shareholders were members of Parliament. They each had paid 1,000 pounds sterling—that would probably be about a million dollars now—for a share of the company, to get a piece of the action from all this tea that they were going to force down the colonists’ throats. So when these bottom-of-the-rung people in Boston destroyed their tea, that was a serious thing to them.”

5. The Coercive Acts (March-June 1774)

In response to the Boston Tea Party, the British government decided that it had to tame the rebellious colonists in Massachusetts . In the spring of 1774, Parliament passed a series of laws, the Coercive Acts , which closed Boston Harbor until restitution was paid for the destroyed tea, replaced the colony’s elected council with one appointed by the British, gave sweeping powers to the British military governor General Thomas Gage, and forbade town meetings without approval.

Yet another provision protected British colonial officials who were charged with capital offenses from being tried in Massachusetts, instead requiring that they be sent to another colony or back to Great Britain for trial.

But perhaps the most provocative provision was the Quartering Act , which allowed British military officials to demand accommodations for their troops in unoccupied houses and buildings in towns, rather than having to stay out in the countryside. While it didn’t force the colonists to board troops in their own homes , they had to pay for the expense of housing and feeding the soldiers. The quartering of troops eventually became one of the grievances cited in the Declaration of Independence .

6. Lexington and Concord (April 1775)

British General Thomas Gage led a force of British soldiers from Boston to Lexington, where he planned to capture colonial radical leaders Sam Adams and John Hancock , and then head to Concord and seize their gunpowder. But American spies got wind of the plan, and with the help of riders such as Paul Revere , word spread to be ready for the British.

On the Lexington Common, the British force was confronted by 77 American militiamen , and they began shooting at each other. Seven Americans died, but other militiamen managed to stop the British at Concord and continued to harass them on their retreat back to Boston.

The British lost 73 dead, with another 174 wounded and 26 missing in action. The bloody encounter proved to the British that the colonists were fearsome foes who had to be taken seriously. It was the start of America’s war of independence.

7. British attacks on coastal towns (October 1775-January 1776)

Though the Revolutionary War’s hostilities started with Lexington and Concord, Randall says that at the start, it was unclear whether the southern colonies, whose interests didn’t necessarily align with the northern colonies, would be all in for a war of independence.

“The southerners were totally dependent upon the English to buy their crops, and they didn’t trust the Yankees,” he explains. “And in New England, the Puritans thought the southerners were lazy.”

But that was before the brutal British naval bombardments and burning of the coastal towns of Falmouth, Massachusetts and Norfolk, Virginia helped to unify the colonies. In Falmouth, where townspeople had to grab their possessions and flee for their lives, northerners had to face up to “the fear that the British would do whatever they wanted to them,” Randall says.

As historian Holger Hoock has written , the burning of Falmouth shocked General George Washington , who denounced it as “exceeding in barbarity & cruelty every hostile act practiced among civilized nations.”

Similarly, in Norfolk, the horror of the town’s wooden buildings going up in flames after a seven-hour naval bombardment shocked the southerners, who also knew that the British were offering African Americans their freedom if they took up arms on the loyalist side. “Norfolk stirred up fears of a slave insurrection in the South,” Randall says.

Leaders of the rebellion seized the burnings of the two ports to make the argument that the colonists needed to band together for survival against a ruthless enemy and embrace the need for independence. This spirit ultimately would lead to their victory.

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Causes of the American Revolution Essay

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1775 was the year that saw disagreements explode amid the United States’ colonized states, and the colonizer Great Britain. The phrase “no taxation without representation” is very familiar. The colonies succeeded in getting their independence by the signing of the Treaty of Paris that brought the war to stop. Whereas we cannot point to one particular action as the real cause of the American Revolution, the war was ignited by the way Great Britain treated the thirteen united colonies in comparison to the treatment that the colonies anticipated from Great Britain. The Americans had a feeling that they were equal to the Englishmen, and thus entitled to the same rights (Wood, 2002, p 123-125). On their part, the British had it that the Americans existed to be used according to the stipulation of the parliament, as well as the crown. This disagreement is carried in the American slogan, “no taxation without representation.”

We can look at the independent way of thinking by the American founding fathers. Firstly, geographically, the distance between the colonies and Great Britain made independence that could rarely be overcome. The colonizers were searching for new fertile lands as well as exploring new opportunities, and also being in the free world. Secondly, the presence of colonial legislators implied that the colonies were variously crown independent. Passing of laws, the mustering of the soldier troops, and levying of taxes was under the mandate of legislators. With time, these powers were considered rights. When they were denied by the British, disagreements set in between the groups. The leaders to be in the United States came out of their mothers’ wombs during this era of legislatures.

Thirdly, it was the issue of salutary neglect. Despite the belief strongly held by the British with regard to the leader then (Prime Minister Robert Walpole) favored the “salutary neglect.” This is a structure that promoted negligence in the actual enforcement of the relation to the outside or international trade. He had at the back of his mind that with this liberalism, trade would be triggered even more. Finally, there was the issue of enlightenment. The exposure of a large number of the revolutionary leaders to writings that consisted of works by prominent writers ( John Locke, Baron de Montesquieu) was an eye-opener to the Americans. The writings equipped the founders with concepts relating to limited government, separation of powers, the acceptance of the people governed not forgetting the social contract as well (Bancroft, 2007 pp 162-168).

Some of the main events that resulted in the revolution include the following:

1763 proclamation, which barred settlement past the Appalachian Mountains; the sugar act of 1764 which raised revenue via increased duties on sugar imported from West Indies; Quartering Act of 1765 where Britain did order that the colonists, where necessary were supposed to house as well feed the British soldiers; and the Stamp Act of 1765 which affected many items including licenses for marriage, but was repealed nine years later (Bancroft, 2007 pp 172-175). Further, the revolution at this point was due to increased hard life impositions from the British side (Bancroft, 2007 pp 1176).

There was the great awakening which was a period of heightened religious activity in all the colonies in America. The enthusiasm that resulted was characterized by disagreements among the competing divisions of churches as well as opposing the existing churches. These religious movements reignited the older customs relating to protestant dissent and resulted in the popular, as well as individualistic means of religiosity which disagreed with the alleges of the instated authorities, and respected chains of command- first within the churches and, after some time, around the 1760s to 1770s, in regal politics. It is argued that the first awaking that involved religious upheavals acted to set the stage for creating colonies that gave a hand to a political revolution. It is thus evident that American Revolution resulted from putting together the customs of republicanism and those relating to the radical protestant dissent (Wood, 2002, pp 178-190).

Works Cited

Bancroft, George. History of the United States-From the Discovery of the American Continent , Volume 4. New York: Read Books Publishers, 2007. Print.

Wood, Gordon S. The American Revolution: Volume 9 of Modern Library Chronicles. New York: Modern Library Publishers, 2002. Print.

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The Causes of the American Revolution

This essay about the causes of the American Revolution examines the multifaceted factors that ignited the flames of rebellion in the colonies. It highlights the clash of ideologies, economic grievances, and the quest for individual liberty that fueled the revolution. Through taxation without representation, erosion of colonial self-governance, and the influence of Enlightenment ideals, the colonists were driven to challenge British rule. The essay also underscores the social fissures within colonial society and the pivotal role of armed conflict in heralding the birth of a new nation founded on the principles of liberty and equality.

How it works

In the grand tapestry of human history, few chapters resonate with the fervor and defiance witnessed during the American Revolution. This pivotal moment in time, etched into the annals of nations, was not merely a spontaneous eruption of dissent, but a symphony of grievances echoing across the colonial landscape. To dissect the causes of the American Revolution is to embark on a journey through the labyrinthine corridors of political intrigue, economic disparity, and the clamor for individual liberty that defined an era.

At its heart, the American Revolution was a clash of ideologies, a struggle for autonomy against the backdrop of imperial overreach. The colonial relationship with the British Empire was fraught with tension, as the crown sought to tighten its grip on its overseas possessions. The economic doctrine of mercantilism, a relic of imperial ambition, shackled colonial trade with restrictive measures and monopolistic controls. Navigation Acts, like chains binding the hands of enterprising colonists, dictated where goods could flow and whose pockets they could line, stifling economic growth and nurturing a seed of resentment that would eventually bloom into rebellion.

Taxation became the powder keg upon which colonial grievances were ignited. The imposition of levies without the consent of the governed struck at the very core of colonial identity. The Stamp Act, the Tea Act, and a litany of duties imposed by a distant parliament ignited a firestorm of protest, as colonists recoiled at the notion of being taxed without representation. The rallying cry of “No taxation without representation” reverberated from the bustling streets of Boston to the tranquil hamlets of Virginia, uniting colonists in defiance against the tyranny of taxation.

The erosion of colonial self-governance served as a catalyst for rebellion, as the British government sought to exert greater control over its unruly subjects. The heavy-handed enforcement of the Intolerable Acts, designed to quell dissent in Massachusetts, only served to fan the flames of revolution. Colonial assemblies found themselves sidelined, as royal governors and appointed councils usurped their authority, leaving the voice of the people stifled beneath the weight of imperial decree. The specter of tyranny loomed large, driving colonists to the brink of insurrection in defense of their hard-won liberties.

Enlightenment ideals, a beacon of hope in an age of despotism, infused the revolutionary spirit with intellectual vigor. The writings of Locke, Rousseau, and Montesquieu illuminated the path to liberty, inspiring colonists to dare to dream of a world where the governed held sway over the governors. Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense,” a literary thunderbolt that electrified the colonies, laid bare the absurdity of monarchy and kindled a flame of revolutionary zeal that burned bright in the hearts of patriots.

Social fissures within colonial society further fueled the flames of rebellion, as economic disparities and class divisions sharpened the divide between the haves and the have-nots. The emergence of a burgeoning merchant class challenged the traditional hierarchy, while small farmers and laborers toiled beneath the yoke of oppression. The dream of a society founded on the principles of equality and justice fueled the fervor of revolutionaries, as they embarked on a quest to forge a new nation from the crucible of conflict.

The clash of arms at Lexington and Concord heralded the dawn of a new era, as colonists took up arms in defense of their rights and liberties. The Declaration of Independence, a testament to the indomitable spirit of a fledgling nation, proclaimed to the world the colonies’ resolve to break the chains of tyranny and forge their destiny as a free and independent people.

In summation, the causes of the American Revolution were as diverse as the people who fought for freedom. It was a revolution fueled by passion, driven by principle, and forged in the crucible of adversity. The quest for liberty, the demand for representation, and the unyielding spirit of resistance were the guiding stars that led the colonies on their journey from subjects to citizens, from colonies to a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

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What caused the American Revolution?

By pauline maier.

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• The Legacy of the Revolution

Why the American Revolution Matters

Posted February 18, 2019 / Basic Principles , History Education , The Legacy of the Revolution

The American Revolution was shaped by high principles and low ones, by imperial politics, dynastic rivalries, ambition, greed, personal loyalties, patriotism, demographic growth, social and economic changes, cultural developments, British intransigence, and American anxieties. It was shaped by conflicting interests between Britain and America, between regions within America, between families and between individuals. It was shaped by religion, ethnicity, and race, as well as by tensions between rich and poor. It was shaped, perhaps above all else, by the aspirations of ordinary people to make fulfilling lives for themselves and their families, to be secure in their possessions, safe in their homes, free to worship as they wished, and to improve their lives by availing themselves of opportunities that seemed to lie within their grasp.

No one of these factors, nor any specific combination of them, can properly be said to have caused the American Revolution. An event as vast as the American Revolution is simply too complex to assign it neatly to particular causes. Although we can never know the causes of the American Revolution with precision, we can see very clearly the most important consequences of the Revolution. They are simply too large and important to miss, and so clearly related to the Revolution that they cannot be traced to any other sequence of events. Every educated American should understand and appreciate them.

First, the American Revolution secured the independence of the United States from the dominion of Great Britain and separated it from the British Empire. While it is altogether possible that the thirteen colonies would have become independent during the nineteenth or twentieth century, as other British colonies did, the resulting nation would certainly have been very different than the one that emerged, independent, from the Revolutionary War. The United States was the first nation in modern times to achieve its independence in a national war of liberation and the first to explain its reasons and its aims in a declaration of independence, a model adopted by national liberation movements in dozens of countries over the last 250 years.

Second, the American Revolution established a republic , with a government dedicated to the interests of ordinary people rather than the interests of kings and aristocrats. The United States was the first large republic since ancient times and the first one to emerge from the revolutions that rocked the Atlantic world, from South America to Eastern Europe, through the middle of the nineteenth century. The American Revolution influenced, to varying degrees, all of the subsequent Atlantic revolutions, most of which led to the establishment of republican governments, though some of those republics did not endure. The American republic has endured, due in part to the resilience of the Federal Constitution, which was the product of more than a decade of debate about the fundamental principles of republican government. Today most of the world’s nations are at least nominal republics due in no small way to the success of the American republic.

Third, the American Revolution created American national identity , a sense of community based on shared history and culture, mutual experience, and belief in a common destiny. The Revolution drew together the thirteen colonies, each with its own history and individual identity, first in resistance to new imperial regulations and taxes, then in rebellion, and finally in a shared struggle for independence. Americans inevitably reduced the complex, chaotic and violent experiences of the Revolution into a narrative of national origins, a story with heroes and villains, of epic struggles and personal sacrifices. This narrative is not properly described as a national myth, because the characters and events in it, unlike the mythic figures and imaginary events celebrated by older cultures, were mostly real. Some of the deeds attributed to those characters were exaggerated and others were fabricated, usually to illustrate some very real quality for which the subject was admired and held up for emulation. The Revolutionaries themselves, mindful of their role as founders of the nation, helped create this common narrative as well as symbols to represent national ideals and aspirations.

American national identity has been expanded and enriched by the shared experiences of two centuries of national life, but those experiences were shaped by the legacy of the Revolution and are mostly incomprehensible without reference to the Revolution. The unprecedented movement of people, money and information in the modern world has created a global marketplace of goods, services, and ideas that has diluted the hold of national identity on many people, but no global identity has yet emerged to replace it, nor does this seem likely to happen any time in the foreseeable future.

Fourth, the American Revolution committed the new nation to ideals of liberty, equality, natural and civil rights, and responsible citizenship and made them the basis of a new political order. None of these ideals was new or originated with Americans. They were all rooted in the philosophy of ancient Greece and Rome, and had been discussed, debated and enlarged by creative political thinkers beginning with the Renaissance. The political writers and philosophers of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment disagreed about many things, but all of them imagined that a just political order would be based on these ideals. What those writers and philosophers imagined, the American Revolution created—a nation in which ideals of liberty, equality, natural and civil rights, and responsible citizenship are the basis of law and the foundation of a free society.

The revolutionary generation did not complete the work of creating a truly free society, which requires overcoming layers of social injustice, exploitation, and other forms of institutionalized oppression that have accumulated over many centuries, as well as eliminating the ignorance, bigotry, and greed that support them. One of the fundamental challenges of a political order based on principles of universal right is that it empowers ignorant, bigoted, callous, selfish, and greedy people in the same way it empowers the wise and virtuous. For this reason, political progress in free societies can be painfully, frustratingly slow, with periods of energetic change interspersed with periods of inaction or even retreat. The wisest of our Revolutionaries understood this, and anticipated that creating a truly free society would take many generations. The flaw lies not in our Revolutionary beginnings or our Revolutionary ideals, but in human nature. Perseverance alone is the answer.

Our independence, our republic, our national identity and our commitment to the high ideals that form the basis of our political order are not simply the consequences of the Revolution, to be embalmed in our history books. They are living legacies of the Revolution, more important now as we face the challenges of the modern world than ever before. Without understanding them, we find our history incomprehensible, our present confused, and our future dark. Understanding them, we recognize our common origins, appreciate our present challenges, and can advocate successfully for the Revolutionary ideals that are the only foundation for the future happiness of the world.

Above: Detail of Liberty by an unidentified American artist, ca. 1800-1820, National Gallery of Art.

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Home — Essay Samples — History — American Revolution — Was the American Revolution Justified?

Was The American Revolution Justified?

• Categories: American History American Revolution

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Published: Sep 7, 2023

Words: 674 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

Table of contents

Arguments in favor of the american revolution, arguments against the american revolution, assessing the justification.

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Causes of the American Revolution Reading Questions Worksheet

Subject: History

Age range: 11-14

Resource type: Worksheet/Activity

Last updated

23 August 2024

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In this activity, students will gain an understanding of the complex factors that led to the American Revolution, from early European colonization and its impact on Native Americans to the various acts and taxes imposed by the British Parliament. They will also explore key events like the Boston Tea Party, the Boston Massacre, and the First Continental Congress, which collectively fueled the colonies’ desire for independence and set the stage for armed conflict.

It has 18 questions for students to answer, as well as a paragraph response section for them to demonstrate their understanding of the topic.

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