Abstract

The American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) began as a war between The British Colonies and the Kingdom of Great Britain. In 1764 George III approved the enforcement of a series of Navigation Acts (the first of which had been on the books since the mid-17th century), which restricted some colonial trade. The American strategists predicted it was cost and war weariness that finally persuaded the British to conclude a favorable peace in 1783.

Revolutionary War Causes

Introduction

The American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) began as a war between The British Colonies and the Kingdom of Great Britain. It ended in the global war between several European powers. During this war, in United States, 4,435 battle deaths, 6,188 wounded; no British figures are available, but it can be safely assumed that they were similar to U.S. casualties (Schonwald, 189).

Causes of the War

The major causes of the war were:

French and Indian War

King George III (1738-1820) assumed the British throne in 1760, after his grandfather, George II (1683-1760), died. In 1764 George III approved the enforcement of a series of Navigation Acts (the first of which had been on the books since the mid-17th century), which restricted some colonial trade to dealing exclusively with the mother country and, in all other cases, ensured that the mother country would get a disproportionate share of trade profits (Weigley, p. 65). George III decided to use the acts as the basis for new taxes to help defray the costs of the recently ended French and Indian War. While the colonists had always acknowledged that the mother country had the right to regulate trade, they objected that the British government was now attempting to do what no such government had done before: to tax Americans, even though they were not represented in Parliament (Schonwald, 189).

Stamp Act

The first colonial protest in response to the Grenville Acts was peaceful, a 1764 Non-Importation Agreement, pledging to boycott a wide variety of English goods. Instead of yielding to the boycott, Grenville ushered the Stamp Act through Parliament, which was put into force on March 22, 1765 (Joughin, 1969).

Sons of liberty formed

The Stamp Act taxed all kinds of printed matter, including newspapers, legal documents, and even dice and playing cards. Response to the Stamp Act was swift. Samuel Adams (1722-1803) of Boston organized one of the first of many colonial secret societies opposed to the Stamp Act. Adams's group, like the others that would quickly follow, called ...