The Cause of the American Revolution

Over two-hundred years after the fact, the traditional motivation for the American Revolutionary War was to escape the heavy hand of British rule. However, this traditional explanation overlooks the effect the Native Americans, especially the sovereignty of the Iroquois, had on the colonial population of the time. The truth lies in-between the two sides of the story, where the internal pressures against the Indians combined with the external pressures imposed by Britain gave birth to a nation.

There was more than one grievance held against England. The colonists felt that the ruling powers in England had been abusing their authority for a long time. They had tried to endure it, but had been unable to; such was the quantity of abuse they were suffering. Their most important grievance was their certainty that the King had provoked the Native Americans into attacking the colonists. Worse, they claimed to have tried to solve their disputes with England peaceably, and had been rebuffed.

The American colonists had been puppets of England from the beginning. A significant portion of the settlers had fled to North America seeking religious asylum. England did not embrace freedom of religion, but it did want colonies in the new world, so it allowed religious freedom in the colonies. The plan worked. Troublesome religious minorities, like the Puritans, happily emigrated, allowing England to gain colonies in the New World.

It did not end there. In 1689, King William's War, a European war to determine the ruler of the Rhenish Palatinate, spilled into colonial North America. The colonists had only been there for sixty years. The young third generation of colonists were forced to go to war with the French and their Native American allies because of a dispute in Europe. They were embroiled in a fight that had little to do with their own lives, but instead the desires of a faraway king. This trend continued, with 's War being followed by Queen Anne's War and King George's War. Both were wars of European succession involving the crowns of Spain and Austria respectively. It did not help matters when the French and Indian War started in America, causing more loss of life. While it was not a war of succession, it was almost worse. It was caused by the greed of two vast empires that hungered for more land, and the profits from it. They did not seem to care that it came at the cost of shedding the blood of its people overseas.

The same year that the French and Indian War ended, the British created the Proclamation of 1763, which restricted the American colonists from expanding over the western boundary of the Appalachian Mountains. The American colonists were understandably outraged at being ordered not to occupy the very land they had just fought a war to claim. They were being boxed in between the Atlantic, the Appalachians Mountains, and the Native American Indians beyond. With an ever growing population, this created an increasing internal pressure.

One of the reasons the British created the Proclamation of 1763 was to appease the Iroquois. Both the British and the French wanted to control the Ohio Valley, because it was the center of the fur trade network in North America and whoever controlled the trade received the wealth from it. The Iroquois knew this, and therefore had been using their sovereignty and geographic location as tools to pit England and France against each other, enabling them to retain control of the Ohio Valley. If a British delegate was too forceful, the Iroquois could act like they would side with the French, and vice versa. This gave them an incredible amount of power in North America, even though the Iroquois could not compete with the absolute military might of either Britain or France.

However, British protection of Native American goals caused tensions to grow between England and its colonists, since the Indians were viewed as enemies by the settlers. While England wanted the revenue from the fur trade, which required the friendship of Native American allies, the Americans wanted their lands. The two goals were mutually exclusive. While the British reaped the rewards of trade, the Americans were faced with the very hard facts of generations of empty places at the table where loved ones used to be, sacrificed in the name of wars to further British interests.

By the end of the French and Indian War, England and France had been fighting for over a century, off and on. Wars are expensive, and to recoup some of their financial loss, the British decided to begin taxing their colonies in the New World in order to receive a profit from them, which was the point of their existence in the eyes of England. To increase sales of British goods, the declaration known as the Sugar Act started enforcing taxes on molasses, as well as certain fabrics and wines. This was followed by the Currency Act and the infamous Stamp Act, both of which continued the trend of hurting the colonial economies to better England's finances.

Matters continued, with the American colonists doing their best to peaceably address the issues they were facing from Britain, as well as their own internal need to expand beyond their borders. It took six years after the Stamp Act before the Boston Tea Party occurred in Boston Harbor and then another year and a half before the colonists engaged British redcoats at Lexington and Concord in 1775. Both sides tried to gain Native American allies, but the British succeed for the most part: the soon to be Americans could not trust the 'savages', especially since they were blocking their expansion westward. They killed Native Americans indiscriminately, those that would have been their allies, and those who already were not, in accordance with their goal of settling a brave new continent. However, it caused the Native Americans to flock to the British flag, giving the British new troops with which to fight.

Before the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, the Americans were simply resisting acts of the British, not revolting against the Crown of England. In other words, the American colonists were initially protesting acts of King George, albeit violently. Afterwards, they were trying to set up their own nation. This distinction was important, especially to the French. To the French, a British civil war was helpful, but not what they needed. On the other hand, an independent colonial power that would trade with France was a great advantage. In order to gain France's help, America had to declare independence.

It is hard to blame the thirteen colonies. All they had known for generations was war with the French and the Native Americans who stood in the way of their expansion. It was inevitable that one day their thoughts would turn against the ruling country that governed them and kept them from pushing further westward. Between the pressures of England's endless appetite for money, the colonist's drive to expand, and the necessity of gaining an ally to win their fight, the Americans choose independence as their only avenue to freedom.