The American Revolution was a result of the colonists unrest caused by their abhorrence towards their British Mother Country. For several centuries the colonies had been subject to rule by the English Crown and it’s Parliament. They no longer wanted to be controlled by a country an ocean away, and in turn sought independence. A huge factor in the start of the American Revolution was the French and Indian War that changed the age-old bond between the colonies and England. Decades of conflict followed, starting with the revolt as a result of the Stamp Act in 1765, leading to the eruption of war in 1775.
The French and Indian War, or the Seven Years’ war in Europe, had a negative impact on relations between the American colonies and Great Britain. The British forgot about the colonists’ role during the war. British troops in the colonies treated the colonists with cruelty, convincing the colonists that they would possibly be enslaved in the future by Britain. Although the colonists were original from Britain, they had different ideals and philosophies. After the war, Great Britain was in a large enough debt that it was able to destroy the English government.
The Boston Tea Party Vs. The Tea Party Movement Our founding fathers established this country on many different values and beliefs that they fought for during the revolution. As our country grew, so did these values and beliefs, which called for changes to be made to the country’s doctrine. Bills and laws were passed, and as a result, citizens had differing opinions and beliefs about how the system should work. Such actions resulted in the creation of political parties; the biggest political parties are the Republican and Democratic parties.
The French however were trying to cause a true revolution, a reason to overthrown their king and remove all the inequalities there was. The American Revolution, beginning in 1776, had started with tensions between Britain and its colonist due to the debt that the Britain’s accrued from the war with the French and Indians. Up to this point the colonist had elected their own assemblies and had grown accustomed to running their own affairs. The British began passing legislation, which increased the taxation of American colonies, tightening their control over the colonists. One of the regulations that Parliament passed was the Stamp Act of 1765.
Britain therefore tried to tighten control over the Colonists through a series of acts designed to quell any sense of rebellion. This situation grew to one of intolerable differences on both sides. The goal of the American Revolution for the Colonists was to gain total political and financial independence from Britain and to become its own sovereign country. The goal of the British in the American Revolution was to squash all resistance and retain control over the
“Sea Venture” In 1609 the Virginia Company had a decision to make. Continue business as usual and allow the settlers in Jamestown to slowly perish, and not recoup any money for its investors, or drum up more investors and send the single largest group of settlers the New World had seen. The decision that Thomas Smythe and the Virginia Company made would lead to the settlement of a new land, and save Jamestown. In February 1609, the Virginia Company acquired a new charter for Jamestown, the Second Charter of Virginia, from King James. The new charter not only restructured the Colony in the new world, but completely restructured the Virginia Company and gave them “full and absolute power and authority, to correct, punish, pardon, govern,
The Mayflower Voyage The group that set out from Plymouth, in southwestern England, in September 1620 included 35 members of a radical Puritan faction known as the English Separatist Church. In 1607, after illegally breaking from the Church of England, the Separatists settled in the Netherlands, first in Amsterdam and later in the town of Leiden, where they remained for the next decade under the relatively lenient Dutch laws. Due to economic difficulties, as well as fears that they would lose their English language and heritage, they began to make plans to settle in the New World. Their intended destination was a region near the Hudson River, which at the time was thought to be part of the already established colony of Virginia. In 1620, the would-be settlers joined a London stock company that would finance their trip aboard the Mayflower, a three-masted merchant ship, in 1620.
They provoked many hostile responses. There were many mobs that occurred and even abolitionist editor Elijah Lovejoy died. Abolitionists’ actions consequently promoted a gag rule that banned anti-slavery petitions in the House of Representatives. Abolitionists made the South believe the North was against them due to the abolitionists’ actions and beliefs (Stewart, J. B., 1991).
The Native Americans became angered and after the Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded in 1630, they also began to commit bad acts. For example, they killed Anne Hutchinson and her entire family. The relationship of the American Indians and Europeans was negatively impacted by the actions of both parties. The road for more settlement of New England and more conflict with American Indians was set as Europeans still wanted to expand their land and American Indians still wanted to protect their ground. In1606, the Virginia Company of London receives a charter from King James I of England for a settlement of the New World.
During the beginning of colonial settlement, Britain did not enforce strict laws upon the colonies because it wanted them to prosper. Once war broke out between the French and the British in the French and Indian war, Britain began to enforce harsher laws and greater taxes on the colonies to draw revenue for the war. This in turn, angered the colonists and they began to think twice about having another country rule them. The colonists at the time also violated the same ideals of equality of rights and rule of law when they discriminated against the African Americans, Native Americans, and the poorer white settlers by forcing people into slavery with terrible conditions and taking land just because the colonist needed it. When the French and Indian War broke out between the British and the French, Britain hoped to use the colonies as an extra source of wealth to fight the war.