Based on the ideas of the American Enlightenment, the American Revolution was an ideological and political uprising that took place in British America from 1765 to 1783. It set the stage for the American Revolutionary War, which broke out between 1775 and 1783 and resulted in the Thirteen Colonies gaining their independence from the British Crown and the United States becoming the first sovereign nation state based on liberal democracy, constitutionalism, and the consent of the governed.
Since they were not directly represented in the British Parliament, American colonists objected to paying taxes to this body. Colonial legislatures at the local level oversaw the colonies’ internal affairs, with a comparatively high degree of autonomy granted by British colonial authorities prior to the 1760s.
Nonetheless, during the 1760s, acts were passed by the British Parliament with the intention of bringing the American colonies closer to the British monarchy and integrating their economies with Britain in a way that would strengthen the monarchy’s hold over the colonies.(Source: )
The Stamp Act, passed by the British Parliament in 1765, levied taxes on official documents, newspapers, magazines, and most other items printed in the colonies. This caused outcry among the colonists, who called the Stamp Act Congress in New York City to organize a retaliatory response. Tensions were temporarily reduced when the British repealed the Stamp Act, but they soon returned in 1767 after Parliament passed a series of new levies known as the Townshend Acts.
King George III sent troops to Boston on March 5, 1770, in an attempt to put an end to a growing insurrection throughout the colonies, which was most severe in the Province of Massachusetts Bay during the colonial era.
This led to the Boston Massacre. Subsequently, in 1770, the British government eliminated the majority of the Townshend charges, but kept the tea tax in place as a symbolic reminder of Parliament’s authority to impose taxes on the colonies. on response, the thirteen colonies took bold action, setting fire to the Gaspee on Rhode Island in 1772 and escalating tensions significantly when they launched the Boston Tea Party in Boston Harbor on December 16, 1773.
In response, the British shut down Boston Harbor and passed a number of harsh regulations that essentially took away Massachusetts’ independence from federal government.
Twelve of the thirteen colonies dispatched representatives to Philadelphia in late 1774 in support of Massachusetts. There, they established the First Continental Congress and started organizing opposition to British colonial rule. Those who opposed Britain were referred to as “Whigs” or “Patriots,” while colonists who continued to be loyal to the Crown were called “Loyalists” or “Tories.” The British monarchy issued an order for the disarmament of American patriots at the beginning of 1775, declaring Massachusetts to be in a state of open defiance and insurrection.
When British troops were sent to seize a cache of military supplies and were met by American patriots at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, tensions between the British Army and revolutionary militiamen reached a breaking point and the American Revolutionary War began. George Washington was named the Continental Army’s commander-in-chief by the Second Continental Congress, which met in Philadelphia on June 14, 1775, in response.
Washington and the Continental Army attacked British soldiers in the Siege of Boston, forcing them to retreat by sea, marking an early success for the Americans. Along with taking over from the previous British-controlled colonial governments, each of the thirteen colonies established its own Provincial Congress.
The Provincial Congresses supported the Continental Army while putting an end to Loyalists. During the winter of 1775–1776, the Patriots made an unsuccessful attempt to invade northeastern Quebec in an effort to mobilize colonists who shared their views. However, they were more successful in the southwest of the colony.
The Second Continental Congress proclaimed King George III a despot who violated the colonists’ rights as Englishmen at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. The Lee Resolution, passed by Congress on July 2, 1776, stated that the colonies regarded themselves as “free and independent states”. The Declaration of Independence was mostly written by Thomas Jefferson, a member of the Committee of Five tasked by Congress with its drafting, and was unanimously approved by the body two days later, on July 4, 1776.
The famous statement “all men are created equal” was found in the Declaration of Independence, which also embraced liberalism and republicanism as political ideologies and denounced monarchy and aristocracy.
A blow to American patriotism came in the summer of 1776 when the British took control of New York City and its vital harbor. Anticipating a concerted British Army assault on Philadelphia, the revolutionary capital, the Continental Congress was compelled to temporarily relocate from Philadelphia to Baltimore in September 1777, where they proceeded with their discussions.
At the Battle of Saratoga in October 1777, the Continental Army achieved a notable triumph by seizing British troops. The Revolutionary War became a worldwide struggle as France joined the fight as an ally of the United States and the cause of American freedom after the Saratoga campaign proved successful. Though they were unable to kill Washington’s army, the British Royal Navy blockaded ports and controlled New York City throughout the war, as well as other cities for short periods of time.
Britain’s focus switched southward in an effort to cling onto the Southern states in the unlikely hope that Loyalist support would materialize. Early in 1780, British general Charles Cornwallis captured soldiers from the Continental Army in Charleston, South Carolina, but he was unable to recruit more volunteers.
In the fall of 1781, a joint American and French force captured Cornwallis’ army at Yorktown, so guaranteeing an American triumph and bringing the war to a close. The Treaty of Paris, which the British signed on September 3, 1783, recognized the sovereignty and independence of the thirteen colonies. This agreement resulted in the creation of the United States, which annexed nearly all of the land east of the Mississippi River and south of the Great Lakes, including southern Canada. The British continued to rule over northern Canada, and Florida was reclaimed by French ally Spain.
Among the major outcomes of the American victory were the country’s independence and the abolition of British mercantilism, which allowed the US to resume trading with Britain and other countries throughout the world. While 60,000 or so Loyalists moved to other British possessions in Canada and other countries, the vast majority of them stayed in the United States.
The weaker Articles of Confederation from the conflict were replaced with the United States Constitution on March 4, 1789, after American delegates approved and states confirmed it at the Congress of the Confederation in Philadelphia in 1787. It established a federal republic with a comparatively powerful national government composed of an elected national court, an elected bicameral Congress that represents the people in the House and the states in the Senate.
It established an elected bicameral Congress that represented states in the Senate and the people in the House of Representatives, along with a national court and a relatively strong national government organized as a federal republic. The United States became the first federal democratic republic in history to be constituted on the agreement of the governed after winning the American Revolution.
The first ten amendments of the Bill of liberties, which guaranteed fundamental liberties and served as the basis for the revolution, were ratified in 1791.[2][3] Later amendments expanded those rights to ever-larger groups of citizens, such as the Reconstruction Amendments, the Nineteenth Amendment, and others.
Origin of American Revolution
1651–1763: Early seeds
The English government adopted a mercantilist strategy from the outset of their colonization of the Americas, which was in line with the economic strategies of other European colonial powers at the period. Through regulating trade, limiting imports, encouraging exports, obtaining access to new natural resources, and amassing new precious metal reserves as cash, they aimed to increase England’s economic and political might.
From the beginning, several English American colonies were characterized by their mercantilist policies. Trade in what would become the Colony of Virginia was governed by the Virginia Company’s founding charter, issued in 1606. Generally speaking, it was forbidden to export raw materials to other countries, discouraged to import things from other countries, and limited to English-flagged ships for cabotage.
The first mercantilist laws were enacted after the English Civil War, with the victory of the Parliamentarians. The first of the Navigation Acts was passed by the Rump Parliament in 1651 with the goals of strengthening England’s commercial relations with its colonies and countering Dutch dominance of the transatlantic trade at the time. The next year saw the start of the conflict with the Netherlands as a result of this.[3–5]
The 1651 Act was revoked following the Restoration, but the Cavalier Parliament enacted many Navigation Acts that were considerably more stringent. Colonial responses to these measures were not uniform. The Acts banned tobacco and other raw material exports to areas that were not under English rule, which kept many planters from getting paid more for their products.
Furthermore, import restrictions hurt revenues by preventing merchants from bringing in specific items and materials from other countries. Smuggling among colonial merchants resulted from these causes, particularly when the Molasses Act was passed. However, some local businesses and retailers benefited from the limitations on overseas competition. In particular, the New England colonies’ shipbuilding industry benefited tremendously from the prohibitions on foreign-built ships.
Some contend that the colonists’ economic impact was negligible,[6].[7] However, because the most directly impacted merchants were also the most politically active, the acts caused more substantial political tension.(8)
During King Philip’s War, which lasted from 1675 to 1678, several native tribes and the colonists of New England engaged in combat. The fact that England did not provide military support during the conflict helped to distinguish the American people from the British.In [9] This growth was further expedited by the Restoration of King Charles II to the English throne.
With its strong Puritan tradition, New England had backed the parliamentarian Commonwealth government that had put his father, Charles I, to death. It took Massachusetts more than a year to acknowledge Charles II’s authority as legitimate. Thus, in the 1680s, Charles II grew increasingly eager to place the colonies in New England directly under English rule and with a more centralized administration.10]
In response to the New England colonists’ vehement opposition to his attempts, the Crown revoked their colonial charters.11] In 1686, James II, the successor to Charles, brought these endeavors to a close by uniting the Dominion of New England, which encompassed the hitherto independent provinces of New York and New Jersey.
The new Dominion was to be governed directly by Edmund Andros, the newly appointed royal governor. Rights were curtailed, new levies were imposed, and town meetings and colonial assemblies were prohibited. In New England, the imposition of the unpopular Navigation Acts and the reduction of local democracy infuriated the colonists to a great degree, leading to intense hostility toward Dominion rule.