In the year 1965, the process of radical change began when Parliament approved the Stamp Act (Richard & Gaston, 2014). The Act required that all legal documents, commercial contracts, pamphlets, licenses, playing cards, and dice to bear a stamp tax. That stamp increased revenue collected from thousands of each day’s businesses in every of the colony. Individuals charged with violation of that act would be tried in courts without a jury (Libcom.org, 2011).
Americans viewed it as a violation of the colonist’s rights as British citizens. Americans resorted to direct actions after an assembly of nine delegates from the nine colonies denied the Act. Prior to the Act going into effect, in all large colonial town, crowds of laborers and artisans, at times including blacks as well as women, assaulted men who agreed to be appointed as Stamp Act commissioners, more often than not forcing them to give up their jobs. American merchants also prepared non-importation contracts, which pressured the English merchants; in turn, the English merchants pressured the British administration. With the law effectively nullified by civil disobedience, parliament repealed the tax in 1966 (Richard & Gaston, 2014).
The 1773 Tea Act upheld the duty on tea and granted a monopoly to the English East India Company on the sale of that commodity to other countries (Richard, 2014). The company’s ships carrying tea stumbled upon problems in American ports, most especially in Boston, where on 16, December 1773. Britain reacted to this Tea Party at Boston using the Intolerable Acts in 1774 that closed the Boston port until the people of Boston paid for the tea. These acts also permitted the British soldiers charged with crimes whilst working in America to be tried in courts of Britain or within a different colony, moreover amended the Massachusetts Charter to do away with its elected administration. During that time, the Québec Act structured in Canada a British government that terrified many Protestant, liberal Americans: the act permitted the Catholic Church to continue being instituted in French Canada. Furthermore, it instituted a government with less liberties than Americans liked. Several Americans saw the Québec act as a representation for what the British had instore for the Americans. Together with the Québec Acts and the Intolerable Act came obvious signs that Britain would utilize whatever military force it believed necessary to control the Americans (International World History Project, 2007).
During September 1774 all colonies except Georgia, sent their delegates to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for the First ever Continental Congress. However, the Congress declined to recognize the power of Parliament but as an alternative the Congress sent to the king a petition. The petition declared the rule that Parliament, without their approval, was not capable of legislating for the colonies and extended this rule past taxation to every legislation.
During 1776, the hopes for American victory appeared small. Britain’s population was three times more than that of the colonies. The British army was big, well–trained and also very skilled. Conversely, the Americans had an unmanageable militia and just the early stages of a regular armed forces or even a government. However, Americans had very powerful advantages that eventually were important. The Americans battled on their own land, and so as to triumph, the Americans did not need to conquer the British but simply to persuade the British that it was very difficult to conquer the colonists. The British battled in vast, unfriendly territory. The British could take up the towns as well as be in command of the territory on which their army positioned; however, they were not able to control the American colonists. Two influential battles of the war, that is Yorktown and Saratoga, are cases in point.
A British militia coming down from Canada on the Hudson Valley went beyond its supply lines at Saratoga, New York, and was tangled in the wilderness. Later, Americans surrounded them. The Americans conquered a British detachment near Bennington in Vermont that was foraging for provisions. At Saratoga, the Americans then attacked the core body of the British soldiers. The British admit defeated and gave up an army of about five thousand, eight hundred. More important is that the victory of the American’s at Saratoga persuaded France that a coalition with the Americans would not be a bad gamble. The Americans received from the French loans, a small number of troops, and most crucial was the naval support. The French alliance also spun the rebellion into an extensive war where the British had to compete not just with the colonials but in addition, a French navy within the Caribbean as well as on the American coast.
During the Yorktown’s battle, the war’s climactic campaign, the hugeness of America once more conquered the British. Lord Charles Cornwallis, in 1781, led the soldiers all the way through Virginia nearly without resistance, afterwards left to a peninsula in Yorktown. In peninsula, Lord Charles Cornwallis was surrounded by the army of George Washington and detained with the French navy. Incapable of fleeing or getting any help, he gave up a whole British army. Cornwallis’s defeat successfully ended the battle. During the Treaty of Paris in 1783, the United States’ sovereignty was acknowledged by the British. The British surrendered its lands from the Atlantic towards the Mississippi (International World History Project, 2007).
Worldwide predicament, the postwar misery, in Massachusetts the near–war, plus related although less spectacular proceedings in other countries, led to calls for a powerful regime at both the state as well as national levels. The supporters sought after an administration that can deal with other nations, make a stable currency, in addition to upholding order within a society which a number of people thought was turning out to be too democratic. Several historians named the citizens who believed this way, cosmopolitans. They consisted of artisans and seaport merchants, southern planters, as well as commercial farmers whose overseas markets had been stopped. Most of the cosmopolitans’ leaders were ex- officers of the Continental army as well as officers of the Confederation administration. In the 1780s the so-called locals who were inclined to be farmers living in remote, local communities with merely minor ties to the market financial system, and who were also inclined to be in arrears to cosmopolitans, outnumbered the cosmopolitans(International World History Project, 2007). During the Revolution, a majority of the local people had served in militias as compared to serving in the state army. The locals maintained a localist’s analysis of politics rather than a nationalist’s analysis of politics.
References
International World History Project. (2007). The United States Of America, Part Two. Retrieved on Jan 29 from http://history-world.org/history_of_the_united_states2.htm
Libcom.org (2011). A people's history of the American revolution – Howard Zinn. Retrieved on
Jan 29 from http://libcom.org/history/peoples-history-american-revolution
Richard, S. & Gaston, A. (2014). Democracy as a Way of Life in America: A History. United
Kingdom: Taylor and Francis Group.
