Greeley 2
Economic Concerns, Issues, and Fears the
Leading Cause for the Revolutionary War
Question # 4
History 150: U.S. History to 1865
Professor John Campbell
17 October 2018
The path to the American Revolution was paved, in many aspects, by economic reasons more than political and intellectual ones. Even though political reasons did exist as a cause for the Revolution, the Revolution should be considered more of an economic movement. Reason being, one of the biggest ideas of the revolution was: “no taxation without representation.” The colonists believed that the British control over them was extremely unfair. In the end, intellectual and political causes were immensely outnumbered by economic causes such as taxes, trade, and debt from the French and Indian War.
In 1754, the British fought the French in what is known as the French and Indian War; which was eventually won by the British. Despite their victory, the British were forced into debt, and their solution to get out from under this debt involved one thing: taxing the colonies. This led to the formation of multiple tax acts; for example- the Quartering Act, Stamp Act, reinforcing Navigation Acts, and many more. The reinforcement and creation of these taxes brought uproar from the colonies. The Quartering Act forced colonists to take in soldiers, feed them, and house them with no additional money from the British government, which caused the colonists to go into debt. After the Quartering Act, the British brought on the Stamp Act; one of the first direct taxes on the colonists, which made them furious. This caused a group known as the Sons of Liberty to form and lead a boycott against British taxation, led by the saying “no taxation without representation.”
The economic causes for the American Revolution were based off of the implication of British taxes in the colonies. The colonists found the taxes imposed on them by the British to be extremely unfair and uncalled for. The colonies were fixed on the moto “no taxation without representation”, because new taxes changed the economics of the colonies, causing them to lose money rapidly....
