American Revolution

Authors Note: For this piece I was supposed to work on my communication, a venture that ultimately failed on my part. I ended up working on the conclusion of the piece the most.

The year 1775 is one of the most important years in American history. This is the year the Declaration of independence was signed and the American Revolution begun. the war where a group of colonies fought a futile battle against one of the worlds largest empires for their independence and won. The Revolutionary war was fought because the British parliament was infringing on the colonists rights and the colonies fought to keep those rights.

Following the Seven Years War England was in debt and needed more money to pay it off. To get the extra funds they started putting heavy tax laws on the colonists. Prior to this, the colonist had lived mostly independent from England and governed themselves more than they were governed by Britain. When Britain began putting new laws on the colonists, the colonists became angry, believing the British were depriving them of their rights. They believed that laws such as tax laws are an internal affair and shouldn’t be decided by and external source like England. The British placed many tax laws on the colonists, many of which were revoked later. Some of these laws are the Sugar act, the Stamp act, the Currency act and the Tea act. The Sugar act made it so the colonies had to pay more for products like sugar and the Stamp act made it so every legal document had to have a stamp on it, forcing the colonists to pay extra for the stamps. The Currency act made it illegal for governments to pay taxes with American paper money and all taxes and payments had to be made with British currency. The colonists didn’t have a representative in the British parliament to express their point of view. They took up the slogan “No taxation without representation”. The British parliament also passed the quartering act, which stated that the colonists must give food and shelter to British troops without compensation, or without anything in return.

The colonies took action against the new tax laws. They sent letters to parliament trying to explain their point of view and formed petitions, but no matter what they tried nothing seemed to work. They found the most effective way to send a message to parliament was a boycott of British goods. This affects British merchants as they are making much less money without the colonies buying their products. Eventually Parliaments repealed all tax laws except the Tea act. They also passed a new law called the Declaratory act stating that parliament can make laws governing the colonies. The colonies reacted by not buying tea from the East India Company and not even letting these ships unload their cargo.  A group of colonists called the sons of liberty dressed like Native Americans and dumped the cargo of three East India Company ships into the harbor in what is known as the Boston Tea Party. This ended with parliament shutting down the harbor, posting troops in Boston and appointing a general as governor of Massachusetts. Another incident occurred when a group of soldiers was being harassed by colonists who were insulting and throwing things like rocks at them. The soldiers fired on the colonists and killed five of them. This was known as the Boston Massacre. All but two of the soldiers were acquitted of murder. Later the first Continental Congress formed and decided to cut all trade with Great Britain.

The British took this as an act of rebellion and sent General Gage to dispose of any challenge to British authority in the colonies. Gage first set out to seize the rebel supplies at Concord, Massachusetts. When they arrived at Lexington, five miles east of Concord, they were stopped by 70 colonial “Minutemen”. A shot was fired prompting the British troops to fire upon the Minutemen, killing eight and wounding ten more. When the British got to North Bridge they were attacked by another group of Minutemen and fled while the Minutemen continued to fire at them. The official start of the Revolutionary war was the Battle of Bunker Hill. Although the hill was taken by the British, at the cost of over 40% of their troops, it is considered a colonial victory as it showed that the colonists could fight the British forces. This is when King George officially declared the colonies rebels.

The British army was much better trained than the colonial militia which gave them the advantage. However, because of this they severely underestimated the militia’s chances, expecting an easy victory. While the colonial militia wasn’t as well trained as the British, army they were able to beat them using unconventional guerrilla style tactics. The British army wasn’t used to these tactics and didn’t know how to react to surprise round attacks, but had a great advantage in naval warfare. Britain had one of the largest navies of the time and easily outmatched any colonial naval force. Even though the British army had more troops and better training, These are useless if the commanding officers don’t know how to use them correctly, as was the case as many of the commanding British officers didn’t have and experience commanding forces. Instead of training to get their rank or earning it in the field, many used wealth to obtain their command. One of the largest disadvantages of the British army was the need to wait two months to get supplies from oversea while the colonies supplies were already

 There. One of the biggest disadvantages of the colonial militia was the lack of troops. Men were constantly dropping out and leaving the war thus raising the need for new men to fill their place. The militia was also largely inexperienced in combat and had little to no training.

The American colonies lost many battles to Great Britain but always seemed to get a victory when they needed it most, when troop morale was low. One can consider the fact that the colonies were able to build a fighting force at all to be a big victory. One of the most famous victories is the battle of Trenton and Princeton when Washington crossed the Delaware river and ambushed the Hessian mercenaries the British had stationed there. This battle was important because the victory boosted the American morale and convinced more men to join the American army and lengthen their enlistments. One of the biggest victories is the Battle of Saratoga. While en route to the city of Albany, British General John Burgoyne was ambushed by American forces and eventually forced to surrender. This battle is important because the American victory convinced the French to support the American war effort by sending weapons and supplies. Soon after, the Spanish joined and the Netherlands began funding the American war effort.

With opposition coming from every side, the war against America was becoming harder to fight and less of a problem to Great Britain than the French and Spanish. The British realized the war in America would be too difficult and costly to continue if they were also at war with France and Spain. The war ended when Britain signed the treaty of Paris.

It’s possible the war could have been avoided altogether. When the colonists openly opposed the tax laws the opposition was ignored by parliament and were treated unfairly. If parliament had tried to be fairer to the colonists there might not have been a war. It’s also possible that the colonies would continue to grow separate from Britain as the colonies at the time were becoming more their own people than people of England. This change of government, lifestyle and mindset would probably cause the colonies to become independent anyways. I believe this outcome is more likely because the colonies had become vastly different than England and had developed a different government and different ideals. The war could be considered less a war to gain independence and more a war of an independent nation fighting for these new ideals.

"Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people . . . . This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution."
John Adams, 1818



 

Bigissueground.com

Americanrevolutionblog.blogspot.com

Digitalhistory.uh.edu

Conservapedia.com

Americanhistory.com

Interviewed dad