One step behind exposes the down falls in America in relation to the environment, including pollution and other information. It also covers portions of the history of America.
April 19, 1775 marked the beginning of the Revolutionary War. With the ride of Paul Revere and the Battle of Concord and Lexington, the Americans took a giant stride toward their independence. Of course, no battle starts without provocation, and citizens don't rise up against their leaders unless they feel they are justified in that action. So what started the Revolutionary War? What would cause a group of people to break away from the motherland? The answer is that it wasn't one simple thing. It was a series of events that escalated until war finally broke out.
The seeds of a colonial revolution were planted in the 1760's when the British monarchy began implementing new taxes and regulations without the consent, or even input, of the colonials. The first new tax was the Sugar Act of 1764. This act increased the taxes on luxury items such as coffee, specific wines, and indigo. It also made the importation of rum and French wines illegal, and created a three cent tax on foreign sugars.
The next famous act of the 1760's was the Stamp Act, which was created in 1765. This was Britain's first real attempt to gain governmental control over the colonists. Through this new law the colonials were required to have a British stamp on everything from their mail sent through the postal system, to their wedding certificates. If it was a public or legal document, it had to have a stamp. This act upset the colonials for two reasons. First, they had no input in the decision, and second, they had been creating legal and public documents for years without paying a dime. They got angry when they suddenly had to pay for an unnecessary British stamp. With Britain trying to assert authority over the colonies, the colonists realized they were going to have to push back to keep their freedoms.
With that in mind, they were soon arguing against the new laws. They felt that these acts were a violation of their rights as British citizens, and they were very vocal in their attempts to get them repealed. Although the colonists did not have an official government, each state had its own governing body, such as the Virginia House of Burgesses. When the Stamp Act went into effect, many of the members of these governmental bodies tried to fight it through their speeches and resolutions that they had the House implement. One of these great orators was Patrick Henry. His famous words "Give me liberty, or give me death!" come from a speech given in response to the Stamp Act. Another significant reaction to the stamp act was the forming of an American group known as the Sons of Liberty. This group believed in freedom and was willing to fight to get it. They would later play a role on the road to war.
Because the colonists reacted so vocally and vehemently against these new Acts, the British monarchy decided it was best to repeal them. However, they did not give up control of the American colonies. The Sugar Act was replaced by a lesser tax known as the Revenue Act of 1766, and the Stamp Act was replaced by the Declaratory Act, an act which gave Britain complete control of the colonies. The following year Great Britain passed more laws, knows as the Townshend Acts. These laws placed taxes on many necessary items such as glass, lead, paper, and tea. Again, the colonists fought against this law. Most of it was repealed. The tax on tea, however, remained.
With the passage and repeal of each new law, the colonists slowly became more and more disgruntled with the British monarchy and the control it was trying to establish over them. The monarchy was aware of this growing unrest, and slowly increased the number of troops stationed in the colonies, preparing to handle things through force if necessary.
Through the colonists quickly escalating anger and the sudden troop surge, the stage was now set in America for conflict to break out. On March 3, 1770, the live wire stretched taut between the colonists and the British soldiers, finally snapped. A crowd of Boston citizens, already angry with Britain, began taunting a group of British soldiers. The jeering began, snowballs were flung, and a British soldier was hit… with a snowball. The British had been ordered not to fire their weapons, but when the soldier was hit they disregarded their orders and fired into the angry mob. Five Bostonians were killed. This massacre was a major turning point for the colonists. Because of it many more joined the cause for freedom and united against Great Britain. The seeds of war had already been planted when Britain passed the Stamp Act. On March 3, those seeds sprouted and began to grow. America was headed straight for a revolution.
One of the most memorable events leading up to the Revolutionary War is known as the Boston Tea Party. Although Britain repealed nearly all of the new taxes, the tax on tea remained. The colonists were angry that Britain wouldn't repeal this tax so on December 16, 1773 a group of Boston citizens disguised themselves as Mohawk Indians. This group was part of the Sons of Liberty. They boarded three British ships anchored in Boston harbor and dumped over three hundred crates of tea into the sea. This was a blatant act of defiance against the British crown, showing Britain that the colonists would not submit to her rule without a fight.
From that point on things began to escalate. The thirteen colonies knew that Britain would continue to try and assert unlawful authority over them, until they simply broke off. They began to entertain the possibility of forming their own nation. The Continental Congress met in September of 1774 to discuss the liberties they believed they should have. This group of men would later become a major factor in uniting America as a nation, rather than a group of colonies.
After dealing with the colonists and their demand that Great Britain repeal the unnecessary taxes, and later after facing the outright defiance of those colonists, Britain decided it was necessary to handle the colonial problem through coercion. The colonists had been preparing themselves for a British offensive, knowing it may come to that. The local farmers trained as Minutemen (known as such because they could be ready to launch a defensive in a very short period of time). They were not a real army, or even an organized militia, but they had something on their side that the British didn't. They had a sincere, burning desire to live free, independent lives, and to give that life to their children. They would fight with an intensity not matched by the British army.
The Revolutionary War finally began on April 19, 1775. The night before, Paul Revere and Dr. Samuel Prescott rode through the countryside warning the colonists, the Minutemen, that the British were coming. Throughout the night the men prepared. When the British came the morning of the nineteenth, they were met with a powerful resistance, one they did not expect. The first shot, the "shot heard 'round the world" was fired. The Revolutionary War, the war that won American her independence, had now begun.
The biggest factor in the cause of the American Revolution was not the Boston Massacre or the Stamp Act. It was the unyielding desire of the colonists to be free men, to live lives that were not ruled by a tyrannical government or a single monarch. These men understood the importance of freedom, and they were not afraid to do what was necessary to get it. The laws passed by the British monarchy, and the events in Boston were merely stepping stones to a war that would have occurred sooner or later, because the founding fathers were free men in their hearts, and couldn't live if they didn't have the freedom they believed in.