The American Revolution

4 Pages 1123 Words

“Americans saw themselves as a new society ideally equipped for a republican future.” (pg 4) This is what John Adams said in reference to the American Revolution. People realized that they did not like how Britain was ruling them from afar and they thought they knew what they needed better than any King would. After starting to think thing way, many things pushed them closer and closer to fight for their independence.

After the French were defeated in the French and Indian War, people wanted to own land and started to settle farther towards the western frontier. Everyone wanted land. People like Ezra Stiles, a minister in Newport, to Benjamin Franklin wanted to buy and sell land. The Indians were getting frustrated with the settlers because they kept taking more and more of their land. The British decided to use royal troops to stop the Indians from fighting with the settlers. The population in the backcountry was growing due to many settlers coming from all over Europe. Since the population was growing, authority was weakening but cities were getting richer and normal Americans could afford luxurious things that only the wealthy owned before.

One of the biggest problems for Britain was reorganizing the territory they got from France and Spain after the Seven Years’ war: new governments, Indian regulation, land claims, and warfare between settlers and Indians. The war caused Britain a huge debt and to keep the fighting down between Indians and the settlers, they had to keep troops in America. To help pay for all this debt, the British had to tax somebody so they decided to make taxes on things for the American settles, for example the Sugar Act of 1764, the Stamp Act of 1765, and the Molasses Act of 1733. This made settlers very mad and they declared these acts as unconstitutional and tried to do what they could to ignore them. In response to this, the British decided to use indirect taxes instead of direct. This only paid a...