The American Revolution: Monarchy to Democracy

The American Revolution:  Monarchy to Democracy

Matthew Payne

Southern New Hampshire University

The American Revolution, which encompassed the years of 1765 through 1783, was a result of growing discontent between Great Britain and the 13 American colonies.  The American colonists were comprised of two main groups: Loyalists, who were opposed to the Revolution and remained loyal to Britain and Patriots who desperately wanted to sever their relationship with Britain and construct a free nation.   Were the Loyalists who opposed the American Revolution against freedom, against liberty or were they pragmatic?   This paper will show that the Loyalists were pragmatic as they believed they were only realistic and sensible.  They were still British citizens and tied to the traditions and protections provided by the King.  They felt that the sensible approach was to remain under British rule as things weren't that bad.  They were also often motivated by self-interest and greed as many of these Loyalists were paid by Britain for the export of their services.  The Loyalists also did not want to walk away from their national identities and didn't believe that the Patriots were capable of creating a new government.

The American Revolution was a conflict between the thirteen American colonies and Great Britain.    The original thirteen colonies included:  New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.  Some colonists, also known as Patriots, wished to break away from Great Britain to establish a new country where they were self-ruled. There was not one single event that caused the war, but many events that occurred that led to the war.  If there were to be one underlying theme that resulted in the war, it would be that the Colonists were not afforded the same rights as citizens in Britain, under British rule.

        From 1688 – 1763 Great Britain financed mass amounts of resources to fight in the French & Indian Wars in the hope of gaining more lands in North America for themselves.  Due to the overuse of resources and money spent, Britain began to tax the 13 Colonies to try and re-coup their losses.  Taxation without Representation was just one event in the larger trend of issues between the colonists and Great Britain that led to the American Revolution.  The British authorities for a decade before the American Revolution imposed new tax Acts upon colonists (for example, the Sugar Act of 1764, Stamp Act of 1765, the Townsend Acts of 1767 ad the Tea Act of 1773).  These taxations were seen as tyranny by the colonists and led to "a  boycott of the items subject to the tax" (Hewitt & Lawson, 2016) which only increased the tension.  The settlers did not believe that they should pay taxes to the crown without appropriate representation in Parliament which is the right of any other British citizen.  The Boston Massacre of 1770 was a result of this tension when some British soldiers opened fire on a crowd of colonists.  This led to the Boston Tea Party on December 6, 1773, when colonists boarded British ships and dumped over three hundred chests of tea into the harbor.