Economic Prosperity Of The Colonists example essay topic
The language used to protest the British Acts was legal, and political. But the primary cause of the Revolution was economics. In theory, the colonists accepted the principle that natural laws rather than royal decrees should govern the economy. In practice only the southern colonies were bound to England by the tobacco trade. The New England and Middle Colonies, unable to find markets in Britain, found prosperity by trading outside the empire. Any attempt to stop this trade would lead to rebellion and consequently ensued.
The idea of mercantilism where the channelizing of all trade through England, was a restriction upon economic prosperity of the New England colony. The major cause for revolution within the economic theory is of economic subordination of colonies to England. The Grenville Ministry passed a number of acts, but of provocation to the colonists was the stamp act. On October 19, 1765 the Stamp Act Congress and Parliamentary Taxation committee's passed some laws that attempted to strengthen the grip of the English crown. The stamp act was protested upon the principle of 'no taxation without representation'.
The stamp act was affecting virtually all the colonists, and restricted economic prosperity; thus colonists protested it. The Townshend acts were also a factor in the cause of the revolution. Sam Adams had said, 'The parliament was taxing illegally', most colonists agreed, and a boycott of British goods resulted. When the British passed the Currency act, this left the paper money worthless, and the colonists had to rely on England for Hard Currency. The colonies were economically subordinate to England by the tea and coercive acts. The tea act was an act where the colonists' middlemen merchants were bypassed, and the British did the trading.
This hurt the economic prosperity of the colonists, mobs had strengthened in anger and the Boston Tea Party followed. The British were irate at the colonial resistance to British law; therefore, the British passed the Coercive Act or 'Intolerable Act'. The Intolerable act closed off the Boston Port, which closed off the center of economic prosperity of New England. England was also limiting the colonists to raw material production, which hindered the colonists' economic prosperity. There are many other reasons that do not support the economic theory but support the political theories. The Proclamation of 1763 restricted the settlement west of the Appalachians.
This was done because the British had wanted to avoid conflict with the Indians. The colonists perceived this as an illegal act of restricting the colonists to a specific area. The writ of assistance is an example of a political liberty being narrowed in abolishing the right of privacy for the colonists. Colonial ideology was also a constituent in how the colonists viewed England.
The colonists saw a conspiracy to destroy their liberty in British policies. Thus, when the colonists were forming the Declaration of Independence, the main goal was to show the Americans concern for the importance of liberty. The statement 'The primary cause of the American Revolution is economics and politics' is a very strong dictum which can be proved, but the American Revolution also was cause by a restriction of colonial liberty. The majority of the policies that affected the colonists between 1763 and 1776 were economic changes that limited the economic success of the colonies; furthermore, these policies also had negative political influences that led to the American Revolution.
In conclusion, I feel that the American Revolution was inevitable. There were many that chose not to go by the British laws and felt they were unfair. The revolution maybe could have been avoided if they knew how to negotiate well..