gers of agitating the common people, these wealthy patriots now endorsed the active involvement of the poorer farmers, a regularly constituted continental assembly, commercial nonintercourse, and the creation of armed forces" (Egnal 271).
The expansionists began their renewed effort with a strategy designed to turn the common people in the Colonies against the non-expansionists (Egnal 272). Once the tide had been turned against the non-expansionists, the expansionists directed their energies toward a reduction in any leadership role for members of the merchant and lower classes, together with a muting of any future egalitarian control of economic resources, while simultaneously retaining the support of the merchant and lower classes in the struggle against Britain.
The American Colonists were united only in their opposition to insensitive and what they perceived as unfair actions against the American Colonies by the government of the United Kingdom (Christie 14-20). The great majority of the American grievances were economic in character. What divided the American colonists was the preferred approach to settle the grievances. To prove the thesis that the motivations for the American Revolution were economic in character, evidence is required to both document the development of economic grievances by the American colonists, and to show that British responses demonstrated that independence for the American Colonies was perceived as the best way by the American colonists to settle those grievances.
ECONOMIC MOTIVATIONS FOR THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION: OUTLINE
B. Thesis: The American Revolution was fought for economic reasons.
I. The roots of American dissatisfaction.
A. Objectives of British colonization.
C. Constitutional protection for North American Colonies.
II. The economic character of the American Colonies.
F. Effects of constitutional protection on the economy.
C. British actions against th...