The Grievances of the Colonists

The Navigation Acts, or the Acts of Trade and Navigation, were a series of laws passed by the British Parliament over a number of decades that regulated how colonists were legally allowed to trade...

There were many ways the colonists protested against the British between 1763-1775. One way the colonists protested was by disobeying laws. The Proclamation of 1763 prevented the colonists from...

Regarding a question such as this, it is worth noting that there were divisions among the colonists themselves (and a significant loyalist contingent wished to remain with Britain). Regardless, the...

Actually, the major complaint of the colonists was that they were denied their "rights as Englishmen" as guaranteed under Magna Carta and the English Bill of Rights of 1688. They DID NOT want...

To answer this question, it is necessary to look at a number of issues. Let us look at a few. First, one must consider the justice of the claim most often associated with the revolutionaries, which...

For many generations, most English colonists in North America were happy to be subjects of the British Crown. Even in the years leading to independence, many never dreamed of separating from the...

The Americans wanted independence for many reasons, however the most important one was the fact that the British Parliament and the king were adamant about imposing unreasonable taxes and...

We can generally say that there were four main causes of the American Revolution. These causes mostly came into being after the French and Indian War. It was only after this war that relations...

The colonists felt that the British weren’t treating them fairly. The colonists were very concerned about the tax laws that were being passed. The colonists were upset that the British Parliament...

In terms of the Revolutionary War, the ultimate expression of colonial rebellion, there were several reasons why it was waged. Great Britain had defended the American colonies during the French and...

The Townshend Acts were important because they were another example of new taxes levied by the British government in an attempt to raise money to help offset the cost of running the colonies. The...

Refusing to trade may hurt you, but if you've got nothing to lose, it may convince the other party to change their ways if they're suddenly losing lots of money. Charles Boycott (1832-1897) was an...

According to Jefferson, a people being oppressed have a moral obligation to rebel against their oppressors. The question is really whether or not the US would have been better off staying...

In some ways, the American colonists felt that the British were oppressing them because the British actually were doing so. One example of this would be the Massachusetts Government Act, in which...

The colonists' grievances were pretty clearly defined in some of their statements. Stemming largely from taxation, the colonists' believed they were being taken advantage of—and truthfully, they...

The colonists were angry about taxes because Great Britain for many years had practiced a policy called "salutary neglect" in which they did not collect the taxes and tariffs that they were legally...

The colonial reaction to the Quartering Act was negative, to say the least. Basically, the colonists didn't take too kindly to the act at all. To them, it was an infringement on the 1689 Bill of...

To answer this question, first you need to define and understand what the term tyrant means. A tyrant is typically described as “an absolute ruler unrestrained by law or constitution.” These types...

The Tea Act of 1773 was a decisive event. It helped cause the American Revolution (1775–1783). Colonists opposed it for many reasons. The colonists viewed the Tea Act as another of Lord North's...

The unprecedented arrogance demonstrated by King George and failure by the British Parliament to dialogue with the American representatives led to the eventual hostility between Britain and the...

The colonists had been growing increasingly upset with the British government since the French and Indian War ended in 1763. Several actions occurred in the year before the Declaration of...

The Americans were justified in fighting the British. There are several reasons why this is true. One reason was that the British began to violate the rights of the colonists. When the British...

The primary reason the colonists revolted was that they believed--correctly--that they had been denied their rights as Englishmen. There is some argument that after the French and Indian War,...

As to whether the Sons of Liberty were justified in their actions, I must leave that to you to decide. Since the other educator has already addressed the Boston Tea Party, I will address other...

There were many factors that led American colonists to rebel against the British, but the French and Indian War (1756–1763)—or the Seven Years War for Europeans—is a good starting point. American...

British attempts to reform imperial policy became urgent following the Seven Years War (the French and Indian War in the colonies.) The main reason for this was the expense of the war, which ended...

The main reason why the American colonists protested and opposed all of the actions of the British Parliament that you mention is because the colonists wanted to have autonomy. All of these...

It's an interesting question, though I should add that the American colonists viewed themselves as British for most of their history. The colonies were an extension of Britain. With this in mind,...

In any conventional military struggle, the British army would have had a powerful advantage over the colonials during the Revolutionary War. The British army was better trained and supplied, being...

When the colonies were first established, they were still considered under King George's rule. Britain still controlled the colonies' trade, and the colonists were still forced to follow many...

The colonists felt that the tax laws were unfair largely because the colonies did not have sufficient representation in Parliament. This meant that it was difficult for the colonists to make...

No, the Colonies did not have actual or direct representation in Parliament. It is important to note, however, that many citizens who actually lived in England at the time did not have...

Quakers, many Germans (because of the German connection of the House of Hanover to which George III belonged(although ethnic Germans fought on both sides of the revolution), recent Scotish...

The American colonies revolted over what they perceived to be a lack of disrespect for their rights as British subjects. Britain practiced salutary neglect towards the colonies for years, thus...

It's not so much that the colonists were unfairly represented in Parliament; they weren't represented at all, and this was a major point of contention between the Americans and the British. A...

Perhaps the best place to look for the answer to this question is the Declaration of Independence. It provides an explicit justification for breaking away from Great Britain (which, by the way,...

An external tax was one imposed on imports into the American colonies. A prime example of this would be the Sugar Act of 1764, which was imposed by the British to raise much-needed revenue to help...

Some of the social factors simply grew out of the colonies and their inhabitants beginning to lose the ties to their "mother country" as they spent more time and more generations were begun in...

Perhaps the biggest grievance was that the American colonists were subject to taxation, yet were denied political representation in British Parliament. Americans didn't think it was fair that taxes...

There were three major arguments that the colonists used when objecting to the new taxes imposed by the British in these years. First, they argued that they should not be taxed by a legislature in...

First, we should realize that not all the colonists wanted to break away from Great Britain. There were many who wanted to remain loyal to what they viewed as the mother country, and even many...

The end of the French and Indian War brought about the end of the salutary neglect relationship between Britain and the American colonies. Between 1660 and 1763, Britain passed laws governing the...

Jefferson and Congress do not use the term "natural rights." In the context of the Declaration, the closest approximation to this concept is contained in paragraph 2 with the famous words, We hold...

There were two major changes in British policies that led to the Revolutionary War. One change was the British decision to begin to enforce some of the trade policies that they had generally...

Hey lilstunna, I think Akannan did a good job with his answer and I would like to add on to it. I am assuming you mean the causes of the revoultion when you are referring to "response to British...

The goals of the American Revolution were pretty basic. The first goal was to become free from the rule of the British. We were unhappy with how we were being treated by the British and felt we...