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Boston and the Breach with England

The breach with England that preceded the American Revolution fomented primarily in Massachusetts and New England, particularly Boston. In the early 1770s, colonial America was gripped by various tensions linked to increasing animosity between the colony and the Crown. Britain remained the only superpower after 1763, when the Treaty of Paris was signed and France gave up its ôrightsö to lands in North America, (Noble, 2005, p. 1). Believing in a moral right to self-governance and devoted to the increase of commerce and trade, Bostonians and other colonials grew increasingly resentful of a series of Acts passed by Great Britain that were aimed at raising sorely needed revenues.

Great Britain views itself as a mercantilist nation and all of its colonies as potential sources of new revenue. The Navigation Acts, the Molasses Act, the Sugar Act, the Quartering Act, and the Stamp Act were all passed as a means of increasing revenues by taxing the colonies. The Stamp Act would be the final blow, an Act that taxed about anything left untaxed by the other Acts, including things like dice or playing cards. On March 5, 1770, the Boston Massacre, in which British redcoats fired on a crowd of angry citizens and killed five men, took place. As Noble (2005, p. 3) maintains, ôTensions exploded in the Boston Massacre, a tragedy and embarrassment to the British government.ö The incident forced King George III to repeal the Townshend and Quartering Acts. Nevertheless, three years later, in 1773, 150 colonists from Boston dressed like Mohawk Indians engaged in the Boston Tea Party, during which they dumped new shipments of tea from Great Britain into the Boston Harbor. Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty, founded by him, played an instrumental role in this rebellion that would set the stage for forging a new and independent nation.

While significant individuals played a major role in the American Revolution that would follow three ye...

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Boston and the Breach with England. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 01:47, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1710586.html