The Origins of the American Revolution

1. The Origins of the American Revolution The end of the Seven Years’ War in North America sparked a dispute that would eventually lead to a rebellion among the Thirteen Colonies. The principal disagreement concerned the placement of British regular soldiers in North America and how the British government sought to pay for their upkeep. Britain had emerged victorious from the Seven Years’ War, but in so doing had amassed a considerable debt. Before the war, the British government had undertaken minimal contact with or interference in the internal affairs of the North American colonies, aside from the Navigation Acts and Dominion of New England. Tensions with the French increased as the 1700s progressed, prompting the British to consider the North American colonies from a more “imperial” perspective. The government began to examine ways that the colonies could be tied into a more efficient trading system with British colonies in the Caribbean and India. Following the S.Y. war’s end, the British government decided that a large contingent of British soldiers should be stationed permanently in North American to offset French, Spanish, and Indian ambitions in the area.

2. The British government settled upon a series of new taxes on the colonies as the best way to fund establishing troops in North America. • They pass a series of acts and pieces of legislation designed to make money, and later to punish the colonies for non-compliance. • These initiatives provoked a negative reaction from the American colonists. • Their principal grievance was that the taxes had been levied by the British Parliament, rather than by the local colonial assemblies. • Popular opinion held that it was appropriate for taxation to be levied only by locally elected officials. • Britain believed that the colonies were represented in Parliament “virtually” like everyone else (virtual representation). • In other words, they thought Parliament represented the best interest of its people no matter where they were—even 3,000 miles away! • The colonists, on the other hand, believed that taxes were a voluntary act on the part of subjects to show appreciate to the monarch. They were not to be expected or demanded.