The Seven Years’ War fought between Britain and France in 1763 caused the British to go bankrupt. The British Parliament decided to then pass “the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act and other measures of the early 1760’s in hope of binding
the American colonies more closely to the empire (Nation of Nations 121).” The colonies did not approve of the idea of taxed goods because that meant less freedom for trading. The British took the colonies activism lightly at first, especially the women’s involvement. England tried to rule with a stronger hand, not knowing later they would pay the price for being so naive in thinking the colonists would not fight back.
In July 1619, the House of Burgesses was formed to help repeal the Stamp Act. After the first House of Burgesses meeting, Britain reinforced the Stamp Act even more to ensure that Britain had power over the colony’s government. The colonies, however, retorted by not purchasing any of the British’s goods.
Women were one of the biggest consumers of British goods so they decided to take a stand
in politics. The British did not take these dissenters seriously and even joked about them depicting them in a British political cartoon entitled, “The Women of Edenton”. In this cartoon, the women were depicted as scandalous, unclean, and trampy. The British believed that a female had no place in politics and was only supposed to do household chores and take care of family matters. When the women decided to boycott tea and other British goods it did not bode well for the British. The women of the colonies decided to form the “Daughters of Liberty”, who wore clothes that they had made themselves from their own material and served coffee instead of English tea.
Women were not the only ones whom the British thought they would see no trouble from. The British wanted to have a solid hold on the economic parts of the colonies, thinking it would all work itself out as they had many loyalists in the colonies. What the British did not expect is how few men it takes to change a great amount of minds.
One of the last acts to fan the flame of a revolution along with the Stamp Act was the Boston Tea Party. The Boston Tea Party was led by Samuel Adams who was a radical writer and a member of the Committee of Correspondence. He and several other men dumped 90,000 pounds of tea into the Boston Harbor disguised as Indians. This drew the Parliaments attention to the fact that the colonists wanted independence from Britain. When the Parliament tried to get a stronger hold on the colonies and punish Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party, flames of Revolution leapt higher, burning a path towards independence and freedom from the oppresive controlling rule of the British.
Thomas Paine once wrote, “It was the destiny of Americans to be republicans, not monarchists. It was the destiny of Americans to be independent, not subject to British dominion. It was the destiny of Americans to be American, not English (Nation of Nations 144).” This states that in Paine’s opinion America did not want a monarchy. They wanted a democracy where there opinion mattered and where they would decide what should and should not be taxed. And through these historically significant acts that fueled the Revolution, the British were shown that the destiny of Americans was not to be ruled by them [British] but by themselves and to no longer be known as English but American.
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