rough draft

As the colonies begun to grow in size, the people begun to grow in confidence. When England colonized America they had no plan on how the colonies were to be governed. Britain was passing laws that helped themselves, without taking the colonies best interest into consideration. Many colonists began thinking in a new direction, independence from Britain. Unfortunately, many of the colonies were split over the issue of Independence. I on the other hand am standing up for what I believe in and am willing to do anything to regain my liberty and earn my independence.

One single act of greed can have a significant affect on the whole course of history. The British passed acts to tax the colonies in America to pay for the war; these acts taxed glass, lead, paint, tea, and paper which made a lot of colonists very upset. "The colonies refused to pay the levies required by the Townsend Acts claiming they had no obligation to pay taxes imposed by a Parliament in which they had no representation".(EyeWitness to History). British decided to make colonists pay taxes on tea, which everyone drank daily, they thought this was ridiculous some refused to buy tea, some started smuggling it to avoid paying the taxes.

The colonies in America relied greatly on the trade between them and Great Britain. For Massachusetts to agree upon not sending or importing anything from Britain was a huge step towards their revolution. The people in Boston came to an agreement, "That we will not, from and after January 1, 1769, import into the province any tea, paper, glass, or painters' colors, until the Acts imposing duties on these articles have been repealed" (Boston Non-Importation Agreement).

When Britain passed the tea act, they did not take how it affected the people into consideration. The colonists on the other hand were not fooled by Britain’s newest law put onto them, and were not going to easily except it. The new law caused two huge events to occur, one being the Boston Tea party when a group of colonists in Boston snuck onto a ship and dumped a significant amount of tea into the harbor to prove their point. This made the colonists feel like they had one, but only made the British resent Boston and pass laws to punish the colony. “In response to the destruction of the tea, the British Government adopted four Acts, these acts known in the colonies as the Coercive or Intolerable Acts, closed the port of Boston, redesigned the government of Massachusetts Bay to increase British Authority, provided for moving trails of British officials to another colony or to England when local opinion was inflamed, and permitted the housing of British troops in unused buildings” (http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=vPFVCXEKXvIC&oi=fnd&pg=PA195&dq=Intolerable+Acts+in+1774&ots=mAcVcHML_I&sig=OtEO4yRor4qJapCmWeGRxpO_Sig#PPP1,M1). The other being a more violent act, The Boston Tea Massacre where once again Boston colonies were protesting, throwing only snowballs at British soldiers, the soldiers in return killed five Boston colonists.

The spreading of Small Pox was a huge disadvantage during the American war for the patriots to succeed their revolution. The impact of the deadly disease almost caused all the American military strategies to fail. "This frightening disease affected the actions of the revolutionary army and its generals, reduced the American ability to attract and hold recruits, and influenced the controversial development of preventive medical polices" (Becker). Small pox was brought to the colonies by the English soldiers during the war. “Around the city, soldiers began to talk amongst themselves of a British plan to destroy the army through intentional infection” (Liu). It was never proved that the British purposely tried to infect the colonists but it was defiantly believed by many colonists.

The British sent their troops to America before the war had begun going there to take charge and control of the patriots. They were looking for the uprising, they went through peoples homes without consent, raided through everything, taking anything valuable, burning barns and homes and killing not only patriots but loyalist as well.

Citations:

Kindig, Thomas. "Boston Non-Importation Agreement." August 1, 1768 17 Nov 2008 .

"The Boston Tea Party, 1773," EyeWitness to History, www.eyewitnesstohistory.com (2002).