When the America’s were first discovered by explorers in the 1500’s, there was a mad rush by European powers to colonize the new world in order to profit from its vast natural resources. The Spanish were the first to successfully settle and exploit the rich resources of the Americas; they mainly settled the Caribbean, Mexico and Central and South America. The northern part of the Americas, what became known as North America, was settled later, mainly by the Dutch, French and English. This created a situation where there were settlers of various nationalities, loyal to their homeland, competing for the resources in the new world.
The American Revolution was not just an uprising of ex British patriots revolting against the homeland, though most of the participants in the American Revolution were of British descent. Revolutionaries came from a varied background of race, religion, gender and social class. The decision to support the revolution was a personal one that people made for a number of reasons. Mostly, however, settlers joined the cause due to a desire to protect their freedoms ‘ be it religious, economic or otherwise. However, settlers’ commitment and enthusiasm to the cause varied depending on whether the benefits of revolution outweighed the high costs of war.
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The British colonization of America brought a different sort of colonist to the new world. Many of those who came to the America’s were single men, who came to seek their fortune and return to their homeland. However, British colonists came as families, bringing along their belongings, including slaves; they came to start a new life in America, with no intention of returning to Europe. In 1619, the Virginia Company, who were given a royal charter to establish and maintain Jamestown, Virginia (the first successful British colony created the House of Burgesses, a legislative assembly of elected representatives that was the first of its kind in the new world. The intent was to encourage English craftsman to permanently settle in America, creating a colony that was more homelike, and less hostile than other frontier towns.
In the beginning, the colonists struggled just to survive; it was difficult for them to adjust to the harsh conditions of their new home. They struggled to plant and grow tobacco; they found that Indians were not good slaves or workers in the field. In the 1700’s, the import of African slaves began to increase. As the colonists adapted to the land, the fruitfulness of their harvests increased. In 1619, there were only 20 slaves recorded in Virginia; that number had risen to 120,000 by 1750. Tobacco production increased along with the slave population; in 1616 2,300 pounds of tobacco was exported from the Virginia colony; that number increased to 100,000,000 pounds in 1775, just one year before the revolution. The increased wealth of the colonies did not go unnoticed by England; England saw this as being a return on their investment and wanted their share (from taxation). The colonists saw their wealth as the reward of their own hard work and struggles, and did not feel they owed England a part of it.
An important intellectual source behind the American Revolution was the popular philosophy of the day called Enlightenment. Writers such as John Locke, Rene Montesquieu and Adam Smith planted the seed of rebellion through their writings on social contract and political philosophy. The seeds of democracy were planted by the ideas of the Enlightenment; namely, the belief in the values of classical republicanism, which had its roots in Greek philosophy. Many of the colonists, especially educated landowners who were making good money from their exports, were attracted to the ideas of the Enlightenment; they felt they had the right to govern themselves, without having to pay taxes to a king who lived an ocean away.
Early colonists came to America searching for religious freedom. Many of the villages were inhabited by Puritans and other religious zealots. There were historical ties between the church and state; kings had a divine right to rule, as ordained by God. However, by the early 1700’s, some of this religious fervor had begun to die out, and no longer was the kings power rule seen as a right divined by God. The attitude of the colonists towards the King of England was less passionate, adding to the belief of colonists that they were under no obligation to be ruled by England and its King.
There were several events in the decade before the revolution that heightened tensions between the colonists and Britain. The French-Indian War, which lasted seven years, from 1756-1763, was a precursor of the rising tensions between the American’s and the British. The British colonists played an important role in winning the war for England, securing large tracts of frontier lands for Great Britain. However, the war was costly, and Britain repaid the colonists loyalty by trying to get them to pay the costs. One solution was the creation of the Stamp Act of 1765. This was a direct tax imposed by the British Parliament that was required for all printed materials, including legal documents, newspapers and magazines. The Stamp Act was not appreciated by the colonists, who had no representation in Parliament and therefore no say on its passage.
Other taxes were imposed on imports; a famous one was the import tax on tea, (The Tea Act of 1773) which led to the famous Boston Tea Party. The Boston Tea Party occurred just three years before the Declaration of Independence was written. It was organized by a Boston group of revolutionaries called the Sons of Liberty. The group was protesting an import tax on tea. Three ships holding tea had arrived in the harbor, and as protest to the tax, the group snuck on board the ships and threw the cargo into the ocean. The action was not appreciated by the British, who responded by creating the Coercive Acts of 1774. The Coercive Acts, which were referred to by colonists as the Intolerable Acts, effectively ended Massachusetts local self-government. The Coercive Acts were protested throughout the thirteen colonies. Colonists formed the First Continental Congress in 1774 to petition England to repeal the act. Of course, it did not, and the American Revolution began a year later, in 1775, in Boston.
