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Events That Led to The American Revolution Essay examples

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Many people have the misconception that the American Revolution occurred because British colonists did not want to be British citizens any longer. This may have been the case for a select few, but many British colonists desired to maintain their status as British colonists and citizens. The foremost reason that the colonists began protests, boycotts, and petitions against the British was because they believed their innate rights as British citizens were being violated. The American Revolution occurred due to a chain of events and a complex set of intertwined reasons. One of the reasons that the colonists wanted to separate from Britain was that people in the colonies had begun to see themselves as small separate nations such as North …show more content…

The governor rarely intervened with political affairs that would incense the colonists, because the legislature controlled when and how the governor would be paid. These reasons all supplied the fuel to start the American Revolution, but the spark that began it was the taxation of the colonies. The biggest reason that colonists were becoming disgruntled with their mother country, Britain, was Britain’s heavy debts that Britain had accumulated while fighting wars with France which needed to be alleviated. As with all governments, Britain had to tax its people to procure the funds needed to pay these debts. Britain saw their colonies as thousands of British citizens that they had not taxed satisfactorily. After realizing this, Britain imposed several new taxes on goods imported and exported to and from the colonies. The colonists were livid over the new taxes. After all, Britain had practiced salutary neglect for almost 100 years. Salutary neglect is the practice of leaving one’s foreign acquisitions to their own devices with little to no interference of their government, social, or economic aspects. The colonists immediately began to petition these new taxes. Their logic: “No taxation without representation.” In contrast to Britain, the colonists believed in direct representation which is representation in government by having someone from a certain region represent that area. British government or Parliament believed in virtual representation

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