A Study of Major Revolution Events in America

The American Revolution is one of the major events in US History because it led to the formation of the United States itself, but the causes of the war are crucial to understand. The thirteen colonies fought against Great Britain because the colonists wanted freedom, and they didn't like the fact that the British occupied the land. Events that helped cause the revolution were the French and Indian War, the various acts passed to pay for debt, and the Battle of Lexington and Concord.

One of the most important things that led up to the start of the American Revolution was the French and Indian War. Ever since the permanent settlement of North America, the “French and English had been at each other's throats. Competition for trade, uncertain boundaries, and a rambunctious population of frontiersmen kindled violence on both sides” (Fowler 2). The British and the French had a hard time getting along with each other due to fighting over territory. In fact, the French and Indian War didn't even go well for the British at first. General Edward Braddock was sent to the colonies as commander in chief of the British army, but he distanced himself from potential Indian allies, and colonial leaders failed to cooperate with him. Braddock was killed on July 13, 1755 when he failed to capture Fort Duquesne. After that, the war turned into a stalemate for the next couple years. The war started to turn in favor of the British in 1757.

William Pitt later led the British army in 1757, and helped defeat the French. The French leader, Montcalm, thought that “France was expanding, not contracting. The festering political problem for the French in Canada in the new year 1758 was that the Old World observers in France saw the entire North American continent as a disjointed and most unwelcome distraction from European battle fields. William Pitt, of course, saw the opposite” (Borneman 98). Even though the French were winning the war prior to when William Pitt led the British, they didn't do well when he became the leader of the British forces. Pitt sent thousands of British soldiers to fight alongside colonial troops. The British obtained parts of Canada that were occupied by the French, and the French had no victories in the war. The French could not revive Indian allies, and it caused the French to surrender in Canada on September 8, 1760.

While the British were still winning the war, Spain also entered as an ally for the French in 1762. The French still owned sugar islands in the Caribbean, but later these islands came under the control of the British. One of the major turning points was when the British captured Havana on August 13, 1762. The British also captured Manila on October 5, 1762, and that led to Britian becoming a global power. The war finally ended with the Treaty of Paris on February 10, 1763. The French regained their West Indian sugar islands which were the most valuable of their colonial possessions. On the other hand, the French lost the rest of the North American empire. The British received all lands east of the Mississippi River, and handed Spain claims to the Trans-Mississippi West and New Orleans. Cuba and the Philippines were returned to Spain after the British received Florida. France and Spain were collapsing financially, and the British started to dominate the new world. The Americans had a lot of pride in being a part of the British empire since it was considered the greatest global empire.

One of the major outcomes of the French and Indian War was when the national debt in England soared due to wartime expenses. The British wanted to find a way to make the colonists pay for the debt from the war. The first act to do this was the Sugar Act which was passed by the British Parliament. According to America's Homepage: Historic Documents of the United States, this was “an act for granting certain duties in the British colonies and plantations in America.” Basically, this act was supposed to put taxes on many goods such as sugar and wine. Britain also lowered the taxes on molasses from six to three pence per gallon. The British really were very greedy because they wanted more money in order to secure the colonies, and lowered taxes to encourage more trade with Great Britian instead of other countries such as France. It was expensive to secure the colonies due to the fact that the British had to fight against the Indians, colonists, and other foreign powers.

The Sugar Act was a failure because people were not happy with the law. Trading with Britain would mean that the people in the colonies would not be able to sell goods for a lot of money. People would even lose money if they tried to buy any goods that were important such as sugar and wine after the Sugar Act. The colonial leaders started a boycott on British goods in order to stop the law. The Sugar Act later became repealed in 1766 and replaced with the Revenue Act of 1766 that reduced tax to one penny per gallon of imported molasses no matter where it came from.

Another act that made people upset was the Stamp Act. This act required people to get a legal stamp on various papers and documents such as licenses, newspapers, and even playing cards. The colonists thought this was unfair because people had been owning these papers and documents for free, but the British wanted the debt to be paid off, so they used this method. The British thought this would be successful in paying off the debt from the French and Indian War, but it was unsuccessful. The colonists “[found] themselves taxes without consent for purposes of revenue, their rights to common-law trial abridged, the authority of one prerogative court (admiralty) enlarged, and the establishment of another (ecclesiastical) hinted at” (Morgan 74). The colonists continued to resist the British acts, and that is how the Stamp Act Congress started.

In October 1765, nine colonies created the Stamp Act Congress, and sent delegates to it. They met in order to protest the taxing of the colonies by the British Parliament. The Americans lead a boycott on British goods, and the British were pressured by the Americans. The British government felt that it was easier to repeal the law than enforce it. The law actually damaged British trade, and they didn't really care too much about the colonists rights. There was a Declaratory Act passed around the same time the Revenue Act was passed, and the Declaratory Act gave Parliament authority over what actions they thought were good for the empire. The colonists thought the Declaratory Act would solve problems, but it didn't because it gave the British control over what they thought was good for empire, and it resulted in even more acts later.

The Quartering Act was an act that was passed by the British Parliament in 1765, and it indirectly affected the colonists. According to the Library of Congress, the “British further angered American colonists with the Quartering Act, which required the colonies to provide barracks and supplies to the British troops.” The British wanted to “protect” the colonists from the French, so they threw this act at the colonists. It was meant to pay the British troops for their hard work at protecting the colonists from the French soldiers. The colonists didn't really see the French as a threat, so they didn't see much purpose for the law. The British thought that their soldiers weren't really treated fair in the colonies, so this act would ensure that they would get proper care such as providing food and drinks. The colonists didn't really get anything in return, and they thought it was unfair due to the fact that the soldiers weren't really people that the colonists knew personally. The soldiers would be random people that just stopped by people's homes and had the colonists take care of them. All of this eventually caused an uproar because the law was too unfair. It was actually opposed in some communities such as New York. The law didn't work out the way the British wanted it to, so it ended in 1767.

The Townshend Revenue Acts were passed by the British Parliament in 1767. The goods taxed included lead, paper, nails, tea, and glass because they were all made in England. Since it created taxes on the smuggling of British goods, it caused another boycott on them. The act was named after Charles Townshend, and he really “wanted to be certain these taxes were collected, so he ordered new customs boards in the colonies and created new vice-admiralty courts in the major port cities of Boston, Charleston, and Philadelphia to try cases of smuggling of tax evasion” (Berkin 117). The revenue from this act is meant to pay the salaries of judges and governors in the Congress. It was also meant to punish New York for failing to comply with the Quartering Act since they didn't provide supplies to the British troops who stopped at people's houses. All of the Townshend Acts except for the tea taxes were eventually repealed in March 1770. This is one of the events that led to the Boston Tea Party which occurred in 1773.

One of the events prior to the Boston Tea Party was the Boston Massacre. On March 5, 1770, the British troops fired on the American civilians in Boston because American colonists taunted the British soldiers guarding the Customs House. The Americans threw snowballs at the British guards, and Thomas Preston ordered his men to fix the bayonets and help guard the building by pushing all of the crowd back. Private Montgomery was hit, and a rifle was discharged at the crowd. The remaining people thought that Preston ordered his troops to fire, and five colonists were dead while six were wounded. This caused Captain Preston and his British soldiers to be put on trial. John Adams and Josiah Quincy Jr. defended the soldiers because they thought the soldiers should have a fair trial in the justice system. Samuel Adams said that the “event was not a riot, but the inevitable consequence of armed soldiers keeping order in a community that preferred the police itself” (Allison v).

The Tea Act occurred in 1773, and that helped lead to the Boston Tea Party. It gave the East India Company the right to sell tea throughout America without paying any duties collected in Britain. It led to the reduction of the retail price, and Americans saw this act as a means to pay for the Townshend duties in the colonies. Since the Americans didn't agree with this act, it led to resistance measures such as the the Boston Tea Party that occurred on December 16, 1773.

The Boston Tea Party was an event where the Sons of Liberty protested against the tax policies imposed by the British government. Officials in Boston refused to return tea to Britain, so colonists destroyed 342 chests of tea by throwing them into the Boston Harbor. This was done in order to prevent having to pay for them. The way that the colonists destroyed those 342 chests of tea is that they “put on disguises, boarded British ships, and dumped [them] into [the] Boston Harbor” (Furstinger 50). Great Britain was angry about all the destroyed tea, so they tried to hold the colonists accountable for what happened. One of the results of this event was what became known as Intolerable Acts.

The Intolerable Acts, also known as the Coercive Acts were laws that were passed by the British Parliament in the spring of 1774. There were 5 acts created: the Boston Port Act, the Massachusetts Government Act, the Administration of Justice Act, the Quartering Act of 1774, and the Quebec Act. The Boston Port Act was a direct response to the Boston Tea Party. This called for the closing of the Boston Harbor port until the colonists paid the East India company for all of the destroyed tea. It wasn't only the people destroying the tea that were held accountable, but all of the Bostonian people. The Massachusetts Government Act altered the government of Massachusetts so that it would be controlled by the British government. It also limited town meetings to one each year, and the members of the governor's council and sheriffs would be appointed by the king or governor instead of elected. The Administration of Justice Act gave the governor a chance to move trials of an accused royal official to a different colony or Great Britain itself if that person didn't believe that he got a fair trial in Massachusetts. Most colonists didn't believe the act was necessary because British soldiers got a fair trial after the Boston Massacre. The Quartering Act of 1774 let soldiers to be quartered in any building as opposed to just people's houses. It applied to every US colony instead of just Massachusetts alone, and was the least protested out of all the Intolerable Acts. The Quebec Act instituted a permanent administration in Canada to replace the temporary government, and gave French Canadians religious freedom and restored French civil law. It was considered one of the Intolerable acts by the colonies although it didn't relate to any events in Boston, but helped start the American Revolution.

Twelve of the thirteen colonies responded to the Intolerable Acts in the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia during September to October 1774. They called for a boycott of British goods, and the colonies agreed to meet again if the Great Britain policies were not changed. The delegates voted not to import goods from Great Britain, but they delayed voting on the policy of non exportation to Great Britain. The colonists hoped that this would cause Great Britain to change their policies. The delegates also were successful in having the Congress endorse the Suffolk Resolves, so the Coercive Acts would be unconstitutional. The delegates denounced the dissolution of colonial assemblies since this would keep the troops in the colonies during the peacetime. The Congress defended the colonial rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and stated that colonial legislatures only had powers to make laws and pass taxes, making it to be subjected to royal veto. The Congress had to “invent itself [because] it was a new organization and the delegates had to decide its purpose” (Burnett 20).

The British troops eventually marched to Lexington and Concord. This marked the start of the American Revolution. General Thomas Gage and the British troops headed towards Concord in order to seize weapons and to arrest both Samuel Adams and John Hancock on April 14, 1775. Gage assembled “700 soldiers and prepared to march into the [towns] of [Lexington and Concord]. Gage didn't want the colonists to gather weapons that they could use against the soldiers” (Waldman 6). Adams and Hancock were in Lexington, and escaped. The British reached Lexington at dawn, and found 70 armed militia men in formation on village green. The Americans didn't plan to fight because they were outnumbered 10 to 1. The British troops burned down the rest of the supplies that they found at Concord, and shots were fired. News of the war spread rapidly throughout the colonies.

Overall, the American Revolution started because of the taxes imposed on the colonies to pay for the French and Indian War. The British won the French and Indian War, but they forced the colonists to pay taxes through the Sugar Act that increased tax on molasses. It failed because of a boycott on British goods. After the Sugar Act failed, other acts followed such as the Stamp and Quartering Act which taxed all sorts of paper and forced troops to be quartered in homes respectively. Those failed because the colonists were also angered by these laws too. Then the Townshend Acts, Tea Act, and the Boston Tea Party came into place, and those were related to taxes based on tea, but those laws made the colonists angry, causing the destruction of tea. Then the Intolerable Acts came into place as a response from the Boston Tea party, and those made people try to pay for the taxes from the destroyed tea. The colonists responded by creating the First Continental Congress in order to call a boycott on British goods, and to help end the Intolerable Acts. Finally, the British started the war by marching to Lexington and Concord to destroy weapons, and to try to arrest Samuel Adams and John Hancock, but they escaped. The Americans didn't have plans to fight at first because they were outnumbered. Once shots were fired by the British, the colonists responded, and this was the start of the American Revolution.