What were the causes of the American Revolution?

In: American Revolution

Answers.com > Wiki Answers > Categories > History, Politics & Society > History > War and Military History > American Revolution > What were the causes of the American Revolution?
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Here are answers and opinions from WikiAnswer contributors:
  • Many, many things caused the revolution. From the economic problems, to the discontent with autocratic rule.
  • Also, the colonies were not allowed their own economy to flourish, not letting the colonials print legal tender money which also in turn, since any monies printed was not considered by the King, it made it much harder to pay royal taxes. After the Boston Tea Party, came the Coercive Acts, or the Intolerable Acts on Boston, which really upset them and made them want to take even more action, rather than just using effigies (dolls made to look like the redcoats and used to scare the redcoat's and boycotting.
  • Reasons for American Revolution: Taxation without representation in parliament. Colonials thought the English could not control colonies from so far away. (across the pond) Money, people like John Hancock did not want to pay taxes on his goods being brought into the docks or sent to England, import and export.
  • The "shot heard round the world" was fired when British soldiers marched out from Boston to seize the guns and ammo we Americans held at Concord. (Let that be a warning to those would do the same today.) For Parliament to tax us was also an irritant. We had no representation in that body and hence no way to limit those taxes. Many years after the fight, one of the Massachusetts men, asked why he fought, said something like: We had always governed ourselves; the British intended that we shouldn't. (Sorry for the lack of a direct quote; it is somewhere in "Paul Revere's Ride," by David Hackett Fischer.) The causes were many, but I think they all boil down to that one: self - government.
  • It all started with Salutary neglect. If Britain had kept some kind of authority over the colonies then they would have no way to revolt and if they did it would have happened differently.
  • I believe that the cause of the American Revolution was taxation.
  • The overwhelming population growth, through in no small part the immigration of Germans and Scots - Irish meant that cultural ties to the Mother Country were gradually being severed.
  • Between the settlement of Jamestown in 1607 and the French and Indian War the colonies have been isolated by the mother country due to the policy of salutary neglect in which the king argued that colonies should take care of their own affairs, as the British were busy fighting foreign wars. In 1763 the foreign wars ended in British victory, now the mother country has the time to focus on the colonies and restored its empire by taxing the colonies. Over 150 years of self - rule, yet loyal to the mother country, the English colonist will be imposed to follow laws and policies that violates the principles of their natural rights, and the principle of no taxation without representation The Proclamation Act of 1763 marked the beginning of the American Revolution as prohibited the colonists to advance further of the Appalachian Mountains thus begins the resentment in the colonists. Followed by several policies in years to follow imposed by King George III increased the tensions and resentment of the colonists towards the mother country, eventually leading to the American Revolution in 1776.
  • We wanted freedom, we were sick of being told what to do by a king. Look how it has payed off!
  • Colonists wanted to separate from England and get rid of taxes.
  • There were many reasons that lead to the American Revolution. The main and more known reasons are: 1. taxes imposed on the colonist by England to pay off the French Indian War debt infuriated the colonists; 2. colonists would no longer stand for "taxation without representation" and 3. the Age of Enlightenment - colonists began talking about freedom and questioning whether everybody was important. However there were other less noble causes: 1. Racism - colonists wanted Britain out of the picture so that they could tear up the Indian land treaties and use the land; 2. Greed - the merchant class thought that the acts eg, the Sugar Act, would ruin them; 3.Smuggling-colonists were trading with other countries even though England forebode them to. and 4. Mercantilism - that basically means money = power.
  • I do believe that the main reasons for the American Revolutionary War were great ones. One reasons I think contribute to the start of the American Revolutionary War was, again, the fact that the colonists were getting taxed without any representation in Parliament. Another reason that I think contributes to the start of the American Revolutionary War was that the English government was governing them from so far away, across the Atlantic Ocean.
  • The British were being unfair to the Americans the Americans wanted to live the way they wanted to be free.
  • The biggest cause of the American Revolution started with the French and Indian War. In this war, Great Britain went into much debt. To fix this problem, what they did was pass taxes onto the American colonies which the people were very unhappy with. Those causes resulted in new government, new constitutions, and an independent nation.
  • The colonists were tired of being controlled by the British.
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First answer by ID3452760599. Last edit by Deb. Contributor trust: 3026 [recommend contributorrecommended]. Question popularity: 334 [recommend question].
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