Road To Revolution | BRI’s Homework Help Series

0:00 Welcome to Homework Help. Whether you’re studying for the AP US history exam or any other exam that your teacher is inflicting upon you, we’ve got you covered. Today we’re going to look at the events that led to the American Revolution. How did the American Revolution become possible? In the 1600s, American colonists were mostly loyal citizens of the British Empire. And yet by 1776, the colonists declared their independence from the British

0:21 motherland and entered into a full-blown revolution. So what changed during 100 years in between that caused this break to happen? As noted in our last video, the colonists developed a unique American identity throughout the 16 hundreds and early 1700s. Yet the colonists felt strong connections with England and shared the same political and cultural priorities as their peers across the Atlantic. But over the course of that time period,

0:42 the British Parliament began to change their relationship with the colonists from one which viewed the American territories as a strategic advantage to one which instead viewed the colonies as a major source of British wealth. During the 100 years that followed the initial settlements in Virginia and Plymouth, the leaders on the English mainland were mostly preoccupied with domestic affairs in England and across Europe. This led to the colonists enjoying a lot

1:03 of control over their own affairs in America. While Britain didn’t enact mercantilist policies such as the Navigation Act of 1651, 1660, and 1663 meant to ensure that the English controlled all trades from its American colonies, they are poorly enforced. The colonists often traded with the most convenient sources rather than allowing the British to enjoy a monopoly over American goods.

1:23 Therefore, the French, Spanish and Dutch colonies enjoyed decent trade with the American colonies as they were so much closer in England. While the British Parliament began setting the groundwork for a more rigid and consistent mercantilist policy. Throughout the 1700s, it was the French and Indian War that ended up being a major influencer to the American Revolution. The Americans had little animosity against their French neighbors, yet by the 1750s, there was war on the American continents.

1:47 England had become a powerhouse in Europe after defeating the Spanish Armada to control transatlantic trade routes by the 1730s. Then by the 1750s, England was determined to strengthen its empire by pushing France completely off the North American continents. The French and Indian War had very little to do with the colonists in British America. It was part of a larger conflict between

2:07 European powers known as the Seven Years War. During the first years of the French and Indian War, most battles were fought on French territories and England lost most of them because they relied on foreign troops and because they were unable to elicit much colonial support. The course of the war changed in 1758. After William Pitt became Prime Minister of England. He was only in power for four years. Within that time,

2:28 he managed to gain strong support for the war raging in America. He was able to unite the colonists with the English homeland by rallying support for the war as a matter of patriotic glory. He used the British Navy throughout the Atlantic to seriously undermine France’s ability to supply its colonial troops. In America George Washington and other American colonists took leadership positions in the Land War, and the superior numbers

2:49 of British colonists overwhelmed the French even with their native allies. By the end of the war in 1763, Britain pushed France out of North America and claimed other territories in Europe, Africa, and across the seas. Unfortunately, the war left Britain in massive debt. Following the war, the British Parliament was focused more on mercantilist efficiency and less on cultural unity within the empire.

3:11 Almost immediately, the Crown imposed new taxes and new trade regulations on the colonists in an effort to help pay for the war. This includes the Sugar Act of 1764, the Stamp Act of 1765, and the Townshend Act of 1767, which all acted as revenue generators for the Crown. Having enjoyed so much freedom over their own affairs at that point, the Americans were surprised and began to become resentful.

3:33 Furthermore, colonists wanted to move westward into the Ohio territories. Instead, the Crown denied further westward expansion with a proclamation of 1763 which prohibited the colonists from moving past the Appalachian Mountains. This did not sit well with westward explorers. Little by little, the British placed greater restrictions on American economic and political freedoms.

3:53 More importantly, the Parliament made no attempt to include colonists in the discussion. Eventually, the colonists made their frustrations known by tossing a lot of British tea into Boston Harbor. Frustrated and ready to ensure that the colonists obey the Crown, the British passed a series of acts known as the Coercive Acts, aka the Intolerable Acts, to punish the people of Boston for the Tea Party.

4:14 This includes the Boston Port Act, Massachusetts Government Act, Administration of Justice Act and the Quatering Act. In essence, these acts put the city of Boston under strict British control and were intended to force the Bostonians to pay for the lost tea. For the Americans, the Crown no longer protected the rights of the colonies, as they had promised to do in their original charters of the 1600s.

4:34 By 1776, the colonists believed the British Crown no longer respected them as equal voices within the empire and concluded that common sense dictated that they abolished their connection with the British homeland and declare their independence so as to govern themselves directly.