American Revolution - Essay Example

Albeit the British introduced slavery in America, the people who were enslaved in America were not its citizens but rather Africans who were brought into the country through slave trade. Thus, the intention to enslave was not the main driver of the circumstances that led to the events in 1775. Instead, it was the attempts of the British to impose series of high and unjust taxes that led to the events of 1763 to 1775 that formally begun with the shot at Lexington. (Countryman, 2003). It was further fueled by the British attempt to tighten control over the colonies particularly in their respond to the Boston Tea Party incident that led to a clash that resulted to the death of five individuals.

These deaths fueled the dormant resentment of the colonies that instead of quelling a rebellion, it broke out into a full scale War of Independence that freed American from the clutches of British colonizers. It is important to understand that before 1763, the British Empire was also embroiled in another costly war which was the French and Indian War of which the British thought that it was reasonable to impose a tax on its thirteen American colonies to help finance and defray the cost of the war.

The Americans however saw it to be unjust and excessive. They viewed it as “Taxation without representation” or a tax imposed and enforced just to raise revenue at the expense of American taxpayers. These “taxation without representation” was composed of series of Acts which begun with the Stamp Act which was passed by the British Parliament in 1765 to impose stamp duties in the thirteen American colonies occupied by the British empire to compel America to share the burden of cost of the French and Indian War.

This measure was heavily petitioned by colonial leaders for the Parliament and King George III to repeal it. This was later repealed but another tax measure followed which is the Townshend Acts which was passed by the British Parliament in January of 1967. This law included Revenue Act of 1767, the Indemnity Act and New York Restraining Act which was again imposed to raise revenue to finance the war and to assert British sovereignty over its colony by taxing them. This law so unpopular that it was met with resistance in Boston prompting the British troops to garrison it led to clash with the mob on on March 5, 1770 where five colonists perished that fueled the impending revolution.

There was also another tax measure that was imposed on the American colonies which probably precipitated the War of Independence. This tax measure was called the Tea Act, the precursor of the famous Boston Tea Party, which gave the British company British East India Company to have a virtual monopoly on all teas that were exported to the American colonies (Yale Law Schol, 2008). This revenue measure was so unpopular that businessmen cancelled orders. The Massachusetts governor however was bent in imposing it and forced Boston harbor to receive the tea cargoes and to force payment for such goods.

Finally, in the evening of December 16, 1773, sixty men disguised as American Indians boarded the ships that carried tea and threw all the shipment of tea into the waters. We know this event now as the Boston Tea Party which was one of the key events that led to the War of Independence. The method of protest was justifiable from the point of view of the Americans because they are undermining the very goods that are subject of their complaints.