How Revolutionary Was The American Revolution  Term Paper

¶ … revolutionary the American Revolution was in reality. This is one issue that has been debated on by many experts in the past and in the present too. The contents of this paper serve to justify this though-provoking issue. American Revolution-how revolutionary was it?

When we try to comprehend why the American Revolution was fought, we come to know that the residents of the American colonies did so to retain their hard-earned economic, political and social order when the British had stated to neglect them. However, before we began to understand what The American Revolution was all about, it is necessary for us to look at conditions of the colonies preceding the war. The economy of Colonial America were divided into three separate parts: New England, where the economy was commerce; the South, where cash crops were the major source of earning; and the middle colonies, a combination of both. [Account of a Declaration 1]

The main idea we need to explore is what do we understand by the American Revolution? Was this just an American war fought by Americans or was the Revolution already in progress long before the war had began because the reality is that the Revolution was in the minds of the people. From this we can conclude that the major change in the principles, opinions, and sentiments of the people was the real American Revolution. [Essays on the American Revolution]

Besides, the American Revolution, we must learn to understand that not all revolutions are created equally. In spite of other revolutions and riots commencing at the bottom, Kurtz made it a point to note that the colonial leaders could have tried to stop riots or to convince mobs to use a lesser form of political frustration to accomplish its goals. The alternative to elite power, mob action, has also been mentioned. The French Revolution had to have mob action as a form of revolt of peasants. With George III being across the seas, it would take more than peasants to overthrow him from America, this is what is considered to have started a fiery revolution in eighteenth century America basically started by the elite. However, this is also no longer the view from historians who have made the Revolution Pyramid to find out the causes of the Revolution. [Essays on the American Revolution]

When we learn about the causes of the Revolution, we learn that the major contributing factor for the cause of the American Revolution was the negligence of the British authorities over the colonies. The growing barrier between the new Americans and the British led to the irritated colonists becoming more and more hostile towards their 'mother country' Great Britain when they wanted to end the differences. [The American Revolution]

Coming to realize that the major cause of the American Revolution was when Great Britain did not pay attention to the colonies, and became engrossed into their own affairs, and smoothly paying no heed to the colonies they had once started. This one major fault is what caused a chain reaction in the minds of these revolutionaries and led to further negligence at the hands of the British. [The American Revolution]

Historical evidence tells us that when the early settlers came to the newly discovered continent of America, they had nothing bad in mind. The primary intention of the God-fearing Pilgrims in Plymouth and the Puritans in the Massachusetts Bay colony was the preservation of their religious customs and traditions during their colonization. The only objective they had in mind was to set up their own place to practice their religious beliefs after what the Church of England, had attempted to do to them. So to continue with their religion, they decided to search for new lives in the colonies. The development of Jamestown in Virginia was based on a similar notion to the ones practiced during the 1500s when exploration was done for a purpose like to search for gold, glory, and even God. Georgia was colonized as a place for the highly religious Carolinas. In site of all the problems, each and every colony was successful and led to an eventual increase in the population of all the thirteen colonies as there was a greater influx from Great Britain. The main reason why the population was increasing was because other people were searching for freedom of religion or simply wanted to start a new life in the new continent. [A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American Republic]

With the new settlements, the slave trade was becoming increasingly popular and with...

...

Even though the truth is that the three areas known as the New England, Middle, and South colonies were different in many ways, they were also evolving differently from how things were in Great Britain. [Background to the American Revolution lecture outline]
When the colonies started to separate from Great Britain by becoming the unofficial caretakers, the British failed because when the colonies were at the point of prime growth of the colonies, and where Great Britain should have been there to take care of everything under the colonization process, it was too busy in its own associations. Despite this negligence, the colonists were advancing with prosperity and they were also not facing much difficulty because by this time they had learned to take care of themselves, formed their own nation by running the colonies themselves the way they thought was right and were successful in their attempt because the Great Britain did not bother to pay any attention to them. [Background to the American Revolution lecture outline]

The colonists were aware of the trouble they were inviting but they were also subconsciously prepared to take action knowing the circumstances of the situation they were in, however, they chose to live in peace and work towards forming a proper government and also were successful with or without having the guidance from Great Britain. [Background to the American Revolution lecture outline]

Meanwhile, with the British engrossed with their own problems, the French and other nations began to take advantage of the situation in America, and they started colonizing towards the mid-west and also north of North America, including the Mississippi River and Ohio Valley also the areas that fall under what we know as Canada today. [The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution]

The French's Empire was spread over a huge area and when the British came to realize how the other countries were benefiting from the British negligence they decided to revolt and prevent themselves from losing control over the colonies. This action led to what we know as the Seven Years' fought in the French and Indian War. This war is also known as the "Great War for Empire," since the world's wealthy nations became involved in a battle for gaining control over North America. [The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution]

The British won the battle, once again in the powerful position of having full control of the territories that had belonged to the French before the outbreak of the war. Great Britain, after regaining its status, began to rigorously control the colonists. After winning the war, Britain was of the view that it had the authority to start controlling the colonies the way it wanted too. This attitude is attributed to the British owning the colonies that were entitled to them. However, even though the control was once again re-established, the colonists were of a different view, they felt they had no or very little connection and interest with the 'mother country' they also migrated from. [The Radicalism of the American Revolution]

The real picture was that the early English settlers who had discovered the American land were long dead, so the colonies were inhabited by the new generations that came and they were certainly not just English but also from other descents such as Dutch, Irish, French, Scottish. Perhaps, if the British had paid more attention to the colonists, they would feel a bonding to the country, but because the British had neglected them, that form of bonding never existed. [The New York Review of Books: Creating the Revolution]

The colonists who called themselves Americans were angry with the kind of attitude the British had towards them and they basically felt that when the British had left them to look after themselves then they had no right to interfere with their affairs when they had ignored them for so long. With the passage of time they had formed their own way of life and government, economy, and also system of trade. Great Britain was not bothered about them so as time passed by the colonists no longer needed the mother country. [The Radicalism of the American Revolution]

The British made their first move by establishing the Proclamation of 1763. The result of the French and Indian war was that the French were forced to leave 'New France'. The Proclamation Act in 1763 was issued due to the Pontiac's rebellion…

Sources Used in Documents:

References

Bailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Harvard University Press, 1967).

Kurtz and Hutson (eds), Essays on the American Revolution (University of North Carolina Press, 1973).

Account of a Declaration 1, available at: http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/account/, accessed on: February 11, 2004

American Journey, available at:
http://www.wadsworth.com/history_d/special_features/amJourney/ch04.html, accessed on: February 11, 2004
http://www.*****/American_History/aky23.shtml, accessed on: February 12, 2004
http://www.legallibraries.com/A_Leap_in_the_Dark_The_Struggle_to_Create_the_American_Republic_0195159241.html, accessed on: February 11, 2004
Background to the American Revolution lecture outline, available at: http://712educators.about.com/cs/historyarlessons/l/blamrevlecturea.htm, accessed on:
http://www.legallibraries.com/The_Ideological_Origins_of_the_American_Revolution_0674443020.html, accessed on: February 12, 2004
People's History of the American Revolution: How Common People Shaped the Fight for Independence - Book Review - by Ray Raphael, Howard Zinn (Editor), available at: http://www.bookfinder.us/review6/0060004401.html, accessed on: February 12, 2004
Slavery in the Americas, available at: http://histclo.hispeed.com/act/work/slave/sg-am.html, accessed on: February 12, 2004
The New York Review of Books: Creating the Revolution, available at: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=16061, accessed on: February 11, 2004
http://www.legallibraries.com/The_Radicalism_of_the_American_Revolution_0679736883.html accessed on: February 12, 2004


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