The American Separation in the American Revolutionary War

The Patriots reasons for separation from the British in the American Revolutionary war were unreasonable. The British were being taxed 25 times more than the Americans, a large portion of the Americans did not want to separate, and the main reasons cited for the American Revolutionary war, being the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party, were completely just.

The British were being taxed over 25 times what the Americans were, and yet the Americans complained of oppression due to taxation. “In 1763, the average Briton paid 26 shillings per annum in taxes whilst a Massachusetts taxpayer contributed one shilling each year to imperial coffers.” (Cogliano) Whenever the British tried to enforce taxes, the Americans protested, until they were forced to repeal them. In 1764, the British Parliament put the Sugar Act into place. The colonists protested this tax, saying that they should be no taxation without representation, yet the taxpayers of the American colonies had no less representation in the Parliament than the taxpayers of London (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A424072.)  The government in Britain was still not a democracy, and thus did not have representation that meant anything. In 1765, the British Parliament enforced the Stamp Act, which taxed all documents written on paper. Again, the American colonist protested, and the British government was forced to repeal the taxes due to the increasing violence against the tax collectors.

In 1763, a lot of Americans did not want to separate. They were proud to be British. “In 1763, Americans joyously celebrated the British victory in the Seven Years’ War, revelling in their identity as Britons and jealously guarding their much-celebrated rights which they believed they possessed by virtue of membership in what they saw as the world’s greatest empire” (Cogliano.) A lot of the Americans were simply neutral and did not care one way or the other. Sam Adams spurned them on with his talk of liberty and freedom, and it was a war started by a few men. “During the American Revolution of the late 1700’s America was divided into three equal and distinct groups. About one third were the Loyalists who, by definition, supported King George III of England”. The war was uncalled for, and not even wanted by the majority of the popular, rather it was wanted by a few rebels who were hungry for power.

As well, 80 000 to 100 000 Loyalists actually fled the country to go to Canada (http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca.) They were called Black Loyalists.

Some of the reasons cited for the beginning of the American Revolutionary war are the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party. They are portrayed as being harsh acts by the British, but in reality, they were simply retaliating from American provoking. On March 5th, 1770, a large group of people were taunting and provoking a British soldier. Not only taunting, they were physically harming them by throwing snowballs, rocks, and other things. Someone threw a club, it knocked a soldier down. He got up, and fired into the crowd (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A424072.) It was simple self-defense, and nothing more. If a club was thrown at a policeman today, you can be sure he would act in a similar manner. The Boston Tea Party happened on December 16th, 1773, and only took place because the Patriots were losing support, and talks of rebellion were dying. The East India Tea Company was going bankrupt, so the British government authorized them to export 500,000 pounds of tea to the colonies duty-free. It was to be a one time deal, to get them back on their feet. A group of Patriots did not like this, for fear it would create a monopoly, so they snuck aboard a ship and dumped all of the tea into the water (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A424072.) The only reason the company was going bankrupt was because Americans were illegally smuggling tea into the country. The Patriots felt oppressed because Britain got mad over this. Had the Americans not been illegally smuggling tea, the entire situation could have been averted.

The Patriots reasons for separation from the British in the American Revolutionary war were unreasonable. The British were being taxed much more than the Americans, a lot of Americans were either Loyalist or neutral and thus did not want to separate, and the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party were British retaliatory acts against the Patriots.