In the pre-revolutionary period between 1760 and 1775, the American colonists revolted against their mother country. By the year 1760, England and Scotland had united into one kingdom of Great Britain, which extended her influence into North America to about thirteen thriving colonies. However, this power would not last long since the economic and political alliances that bound these two sides began to crumble and sabotaged their relationship (Ubbelohde, and Stout).
American colonists were different from British natives because they were immigrants. Those that had departed for the New World aspired to attain wealth and a sense of economic entitlement. They needed to find a different kind of hope, and opportunity and this new world was their realm of fulfilment for this dream. In this hope, they wished to free themselves from theoretical underpinnings and entangles that their native roots extended to them even in the new world. Some colonists, however, continued to support Britain even after the war began owing to their loyalty to their motherland. There emanated a drift between these loyalists and the revolutionists who wanted to separate from Britain and establish their government and economy. After the French and Indian war, Britain tried to reassert itself over the new America by imposing taxes and new laws. This attracted a lot of resentment from the colonists who felt their rights were being violated and by then wanted to be more autonomous and break free from Great Britain’s hold.
If I would have been living at this time, I would have been patriotic to the new America and fought against the British government. The primary reason for this action would have been the need to secede and conquer the new world while freeing myself from the roots of entanglement of the old one. My rights as an Englishman to only be taxed by a duly elected representative would also have contributed to my revolt, given that the motherland trampled on these rights by imposing heavy taxes in a foreign land mostly for the purpose of regulation. Furthermore, instead of supporting the quest for new opportunities in the new world, Britain was looking to curtail its countrymen and distend their control on new America. Such control is the very reason most Englishmen freed Great Britain in the quest for new hopes and opportunities.
Work cited
Ubbelohde, Carl, and Neil R. Stout. "The Royal Navy in America, 1760-1775: A Study of Enforcement of British Colonial Policy in the Era of the American Revolution." The American Historical Review 80.2 (1975): 406. Print.
