KENYATTA UNIVERSITY

UNIT CODE: AHT 355.

UNIT TITLE: SELECTED THEMES IN HISTORY OF USA.

DEPARTMENT: HISTORY ARCHEOLOGY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE.

FACILITATOR: DR. PHILIP ONDERE

NAME REG NO SIGN

Denis Wanjie E34/6537/2020

Walter Nachete E34/5966/2020

Mercy Wachira E34/0019/2020

TASK;

The causes of the American revolution were purely economic ,, discuss.

Revolution is an attempt to achieve a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political

The American revolution was the most important event to ever take place in the United States of
America. The war took place from the 1765-1783 and involved the great Britain and the United
States of America. Without this Revolution, the colonies would have never gained independence
from the great Britain and United Sta tes could still be under their control.

Economic problems and political disagreements occurred throughout the fight . The American
revolution had both acts of politics and economics but it was more of economic than political.
These economic acts included high taxes, The tea act, Boycotts, and others as discussed below.

The burden of the navigation act.

The colonies were prevented from shipping any goods anywhere without first shipping in an
England port to have their cargos loaded and unloaded. Only England ships would be allowed to
bring goods into England and that Americans colonies could only export its commodities such as
tobacco and sugar to England.

One early attempt to quantify the economic effects of the navigation acts was by Thomas (1965),
building upon the previous work of Harper(1942). Thomas employed a counterfactual analysis to
assess what would have happened to the American economy in the absence of the navigation act.
To do this, he compared American trade under the acts with that which would have occurred and
America been independent following the seven years war. Thomas then estimated the loss of
both consumer and produce surplus to the colonies as a result of shipping enumerated goods
indirectly through England. These burdens were partially offset by his estimated value of the
benefits of Britain protection and various bounties paid to the colonies. The outcome of his
analysis was that the navigation acts imposed a net burden of not less than one percent of
colonial per capita income. He concluded that this act was economic and not political.
The Second Continental Congress.

What happened then was a sequence of events that led to a significant increase in the degree of
American resistance to British polices. Before the Congress adjourned in October the delegates
voted to meet again in May of 1775 if Parliament did not meet their demands.

Confronted by the extent of the American demands the British government decided it was time to
impose a military solution to the crisis. Boston was occupied by British troops. In April a
military confrontation occurred at Lexington and Concord. Within a month the Second
Continental Congress was convened. Here the delegates decided to fundamentally change the
nature of their resistance to British policies. Congress authorized a continental army and
undertook the purchase of arms and munitions. To pay for all of this it established a continental
currency. With previous political efforts by the First Continental Congress to form an alliance
with Canada having failed, the Second Continental Congress took the extraordinary step of
instructing its new army to invade Canada. In effect, these actions taken were those of an
emerging nation-state. In October as American forces closed in on Quebec the King of England
in a speech to Parliament declared that the colonists having formed their own government were
now fighting for their independence. It was to be only a matter of months before Congress
formally declared it.

Economic Incentives for Pursuing Independence: Taxation

Given the nature of British colonial policies, scholars have long sought to evaluate the economic
incentives the Americans had in pursuing independence. In this effort economic historians
initially focused on the period following the Seven Years War up to the Revolution. It turned out
that making a case for the avoidance of British taxes as a major incentive for independence
proved difficult. The reason was that many of the taxes imposed were later repealed. The actual
level of taxation appeared to be relatively modest. After all, the Americans soon after adopting
the Constitution taxed themselves at far higher rates than the British had prior to the Revolution
(Perkins, 1988). Rather it seemed the incentive for independence might have been the avoidance
of the British regulation of colonial trade. Unlike some of the new British taxes, the Navigation
Acts had remained intact throughout this period.
American Expectations about Future British Policy

Did this mean then that the Americans had few if any economic incentives for independence?
Upon further consideration economic historians realized that perhaps more important to the
colonists were not the past and present burdens but rather the expected future burdens of
continued membership in the British Empire. The Declaratory Act made it clear the British
government had not given up what it viewed as its right to tax the colonists. This was despite the
fact that up to 1775 the Americans had employed a variety of protest measures including
lobbying, petitions, boycotts, and violence. The confluence of not having representation in
Parliament while confronting an aggressive new British tax policy designed to raise their
relatively low taxes may have made it reasonable for the Americans to expect a substantial
increase in the level of taxation in the future (Gunderson, 1976, Reid, 1978). Furthermore a
recent study has argued that in 1776 not only did the future burdens of the Navigation Acts
clearly exceed those of the past, but a substantial portion would have borne by those who played
a major role in the Revolution (Sawers, 1992). Seen in this light the economic incentive for
independence would have been avoiding the potential future costs of remaining in the British
Empire.

Western Land Policies

The movement for independence arose in the colonies following a series of critical decisions
made by the British government after the end of the war with France in 1763. Two themes
emerge from what was to be a fundamental change in British economic policy toward the
American colonies. The first involved western land. With the acquisition from the French of the
territory between the Allegheny Mountains and the Mississippi River the British decided to
isolate the area from the rest of the colonies. Under the terms of the Proclamation of 1763 and
the Quebec Act of 1774 colonists were not allowed to settle here or trade with the Indians
without the permission of the British government. These actions nullified the claims to land in
the area by a host of American colonies, individuals, and land companies. The essence of the
policy was to maintain British control of the fur trade in the West by restricting settlement by the
Americans.
Tax Policies

The second fundamental change involved taxation. The British victory over the French had come
at a high price. Domestic taxes had been raised substantially during the war and total government
debt had increased nearly twofold (Brewer, 1989). Furthermore, the British had decided in1763
to place a standing army of 10,000 men in North America. The bulk of these forces were
stationed in newly acquired territory to enforce its new land policy in the West.
Forts were to be built which would become the new centers of trade with the Indians. The
British decided that the Americans should share the costs of the military buildup in the colonies.
The reason seemed obvious. Taxes were significantly higher in Britain than in the colonies. One
estimate suggests the per capita tax burden in the colonies ranged from two to four per cent of that
in Britain (Palmer, 1959). It was time in the British view that the Americans began to pay a larger
share of the expenses of the empire.

Accordingly, a series of tax acts were passed by Parliament the revenue from which was to be
used to help pay for the standing army in America. The first was the Sugar Act of 1764.
Proposed by England’s Prime Minister the act lowered tariff rates on non-British products from
the West Indies as well as strengthened their collection. It was hoped this would reduce the
incentive for smuggling and thereby increase tariff revenue (Bullion, 1982). The following year
Parliament passed the Stamp Act that imposed a tax commonly used in England. It required
stamps for a broad range of legal documents as well as newspapers and pamphlets. While the
colonial stamp duties were less than those in England they were expected to generate enough
revenue to finance a substantial portion of the cost the new standing army. The same year
passage of the Quartering Act imposed essentially a tax in kind by requiring the colonists to
provide British military units with housing, provisions, and transportation. In 1767 the
Townshend Acts imposed tariffs upon a variety of imported goods and established a Board of
Customs Commissioners in the colonies to collect the revenue.
Boycotts

American opposition to these acts was expressed initially in a variety of peaceful forms. While
they did not have representation in Parliament, the colonists did attempt to exert some influence
in it through petition and lobbying. However, it was the economic boycott that became by far the
most effective means of altering the new British economic policies. In 1765 representatives from
nine colonies met at the Stamp Act Congress in New York and organized a boycott of imported
English goods. The boycott was so successful in reducing trade that English merchants lobbied
Parliament for the repeal of the new taxes. Parliament soon responded to the political pressure.
During 1766 it repealed both the Stamp and Sugar Acts (Johnson, 1997). In response to the
Townshend Acts of 1767 a second major boycott started in 1768 in Boston and New York and
subsequently spread to other cities leading Parliament in 1770 to repeal all of the Townshend
duties except the one on tea. In addition, Parliament decided at the same time not to renew the
Quartering Act.

With these actions taken by Parliament the Americans appeared to have successfully overturned
the new British post war tax agenda. However, Parliament had not given up what it believed to
be its right to tax the colonies. On the same day it repealed the Stamp Act, Parliament passed the
Declaratory Act stating the British government had the full power and authority to make laws
governing the colonies in all cases whatsoever including taxation. Policies not principles had
been overturned.

The Tea Act

Three years after the repeal of the Townshend duties British policy was once again to emerge as
an issue in the colonies. This time the American reaction was not peaceful. It all started when
Parliament for the first time granted an exemption from the Navigation Acts. In an effort to assist
the financially troubled British East India Company Parliament passed the Tea Act of 1773,
which allowed the company to ship tea directly to America. The grant of a major trading
advantage to an already powerful competitor meant a potential financial loss for American
importers and smugglers of tea. In December a small group of colonists responded by boarding
three British ships in the Boston harbor and throwing overboard several hundred chests of tea
owned by the East India Company (Labaree, 1964). Stunned by the events in Boston, Parliament
decided not to cave in to the colonists as it had before. In rapid order it passed the Boston Port
Act, the Massachusetts Government Act, the Justice Act, and the Quartering Act. Among other
things these so-called Coercive or Intolerable Acts closed the port of Boston, altered the charter
of Massachusetts, and reintroduced the demand for colonial quartering of British troops. Once
done Parliament then went on to pass the Quebec Act as a continuation of its policy of restricting
the settlement of the West.

The First Continental Congress

Many Americans viewed all of this as a blatant abuse of power by the British government. Once
again a call went out for a colonial congress to sort out a response. On September 5, 1774
delegates appointed by the colonies met in Philadelphia for the First Continental Congress.
Drawing upon the successful manner in which previous acts had been overturned the first thing
Congress did was to organize a comprehensive embargo of trade with Britain. It then conveyed
to the British government a list of grievances that demanded the repeal of thirteen acts of
Parliament. All of the acts listed had been passed after 1763 as the delegates had agreed not to
question British policies made prior to the conclusion of the Seven Years War. Despite all the
problems it had created, the Tea Act was not on the list. The reason for this was that Congress
decided not to protest British regulation of colonial trade under the Navigation Acts. In short, the
delegates were saying to Parliament take us back to 1763 and all will be well.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the economic causes of the American Revolution were significant in shaping the
course of history. From the colonists' frustration with unfair taxation to the limitations on their
ability to trade freely, these economic factors helped to fuel the desire for independence from
Britain. The resulting Revolution not only created a new nation, but also had a profound impact
on the global economy. Without these economic factors, the world might look very
different today.
REERENCES
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2. Cipolla, L. D. (1972). The mercantilist roots of the American Revolution. The Journal of
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3. Mitchell, R. D. (2002). The economics of the American Revolution. Claremont Review of

4. Middlekauff, R. (2007). The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-