Influences Of The American Revolution

3 Pages 826 Words

The American Revolution as influenced by many different aspect of colonial life and by many British mistakes. The most influential of all of these colonial aspects and British mistakes was the Colonies economy. The economy of the American Colonies was vitally important to their survival, even as British colonies. Without their own economy, the colonies would have no money to pay for imported goods and no way to make a life of their own with relying on the British for everything they needed. In the end, the fact that the British were taxing the economy that the American Colonies worked so hard to get started ultimately caused the American Revolution.
In 1764 the British, for the first time, imposed a series of taxes designed to raise revenue from the colonies. The taxes official name was the American Revenue Act, but popularly known as the Sugar Act. On of its major components was the raising of taxes on imported and exported goods, mainly sugar. While the British had passed acts like this before, this was the first act that the decided to strictly enforce. Before this act the British had been doing something called “Salutary Neglect” to the colonies. Salutary Neglect was the action of the British passing laws and acts but not enforcing them very strictly. For instance, the Colonies were not allowed to trade with the Spanish due to an earlier passed act. However, they often did trade with them because the British did next to nothing to stop them. While this was the first of the acts that the British strongly enforced, it was certainly not the last.
The British Prime Minister, George Greenville, felt that the colonies should share some of the burden of keeping British troops in the colonies. Greenville's first act was to make sure the navy enforced the Navigation Acts. The Navigation Acts were a set of laws that said who the colonies could trade with and what sort of taxes would be on their cargo. Greenville then got th...