American Revolution: Foundational War for U.S.A. - Essay Sample

Introduction

The American Revolution that happened during 1775-1783 was the sole foundation of the United States of America. The war led to 13 British colonies gaining independence. The warfare resulted after more than ten years of increasing alienation amid the British rulers and a stour and swayful lith of its colonies in North America, which was triggered when the British attempted to aver huge puppeteer over the affairs of colonies following a long adherence to a policy of healful negligence. The battle was civil combat within the British Empire till 1778-79 when France and Spain ganged with the colonies against Britain and it became a universal battle. Meantime, the Netherlands, despite formally recognizing the United States and providing it with monetary support, was also battling against the British. The American war was basically initiated by the British trial to impose huge control over the colonies and make them pay back for security they were granted during the French-Indian combat by imposing unfair laws and taxes such as the Stamp Act of 1765 and Intolerable Act of 1774.

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Following the end of the French-Indian war, the British found that they had spent highly and imposed laws, taxes and business regulations to recover funds. The French-Indian war involved the British colonies in America and France and lasted between 1754 and 1763 (Bailyn 1). British army helped the colonies during the battle and thereafter remained in the colonies to protect them. The British crown spent a lot of money funding these troops and had to find a way the colonists would repay. Strange levies were imposed including the Sugar Act and the Currency Act in 1764. The Sugar Act raised the previously significant levies on molasses and limited particular export products to only Britain. On the other hand, the Currency Act forbade the colonies from printing cash, making them to solely depend on the already staggering British economy. The Stamp Act taxed a broad range of transactions in the colonies. Before then, every colony had its governance that made decisions on the taxes they would have and gathered them. The Americans refused to pay the taxes as well as buy goods from the British. The British also passed the Townshend Act, which had levies on tea as one of its clauses (Otis & Richard 3). The British government made laws to tax goods imported from Britain. The government also formed a board of customs commissioners to prevent goods being smuggled and corruption from the local officers in the colonies. The Americans fought back by boycotting British goods and mishandling the customs commissioners and this made the British government send the army to the colonies. The colonies felt that they had low representation, paid excess levies and were restricted from conducting free trading, and therefore decided to rally to the tagline 'No Taxation without Representation'. The dissatisfaction was apparently demonstrated in 1773 by events that were later termed Boston Tea Party.

Protests in Boston against the newly laid laws and taxes resulted in the Boston manslaughter that intensified the American war. Sons of Liberty, a group created in Boston in 1765 soon disseminated across the colonies. In one protest in Boston, the colonists surrounded a British troop and began to taunt and throw things at them and this provoked the troops who started shooting at them. The massacre led to the death of three men while two others were left wounded. The massacre was later used as a propaganda tool against the British.

During 1773, the British government enforced a new levy on tea. The new Tea Act was meant to salvage the financially crippling British East India Company. The Act offered the company fair tax regulation treatment, to allow it to sell its tea at low prices compared to American traders who imported from Dutch sellers. The Americans did not like this idea since they desired to do business with whichever country they choose. A number of patriotic Boston residents protested over this new tax by boarding ships in Boston and dumping tea in the water. This occurrence was later called the Boston Tea Party.

Following the Boston Tea Party, the British government decided to pass harsh regulations to tame the protests in Massachusetts. During the spring of 1774, the British legislation enacted the Coercive Acts. The Acts stipulated that the Boston harbor halts operations until indemnification was given for the dumped tea. The Acts also required that the elected council of the colony be substituted by one picked by the British, placed across-the-board powers to the British army governor General Thomas Gage and prohibited unapproved gatherings in the town (Jenyns 1). The Act also spelled that British colonial officers charged with capital offenses were not to be tried in Massachusetts, but in other colonies or Britain. The provision that provoked the colonists more was the Quartering Act that permitted the British army officials to claim for shelter in the houses that were unoccupied in the town for their troops. The colonists were required to fund the housing and feeding of the troops. The Act became one of the complaints quoted in the Declaration for Independence.

The events that occurred at Lexington and Concord initiated open combat. General Gage had led British soldiers to Lexington from Boston to arrest colonial leaders Sam Adams and John Hancock and later go to Concord to capture their firepower. Unfortunately, American spies knew of the plans and by the aid of Paul Revere, the news was spread. The British were confronted by 77 American soldiers on the Lexington Common and they opened fire. The combat resulted in the death of seven Americans, but the rest afforded to stop the British at Concord and harassed them as they retreated to Boston. This combat sent a serious message to the British and was the start of the independence battle. The British attacked the coastal towns including Massachusetts, Falmouth, and Norfolk (Thompson 188). It is during this climax of the war that Thomas Paine came in and insisted that the battle by the Americans was not only to be focused on the harsh taxes and laws by the British but also to lead to the acquisition of independence. Paine published pamphlets about Common Sense that were highly sold. The Common Sense publication created the way for the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

The American revolutionary war was incited by many factors, with major ones being the attempt to enforce huge control over the colonies and make them payback for the support provided during the French-Indian war by the British. Following the French-Indian combat, the British realized that they had used a lot of resources and were looking for ways to rejuvenate their economy. As part of the rebuilding process, they passed strange laws and taxes to its colonies. Among the laws passed were the Stamp Act, Sugar Act, Tea Act, Coercive Acts and the Townsend Act. These Acts incited the colonists since they realized that they were being overtaxed, and they, therefore, started revolts against the British government.

Works Cited

Bailyn, Bernard. The ideological origins of the American Revolution. Harvard University Press, 2017.

Jenyns, Soame. The objections to the taxation of our American colonies, by the legislature of Great Britain, briefly consider'd. J. Wilkie, 1765.

Otis, James, and Richard, Dana. The rights of the British colonies asserted and proved. Boston: Edes and Gill, 1764.

Thompson, C. Bradley. "The American Revolution and the New Moral History." American Political Thought 8.2 (2019): 175-201.