Reasons and Causes of the American Revolution

[CPL.Luke]

proper historical inquery would be based on primary sources, (things written at the time) like has been said in the past. Howerver in this discussion I wouldn't necessarilly trust any of our interpretations to be correct. but anyway...

 

as to what was said before about Americans revolting because of slave laws, that would be highly incorrect. The south (primary users of slavery) was originally highly against revolution, I can back this up with accounts from the continental congress (the southern representatives were more opposed to revolution).

 

It should also be noted that almost all of the actions that led to the revolution occured in the north.

 

Also, it should be noted that the revolution started in 1775 (this was when george washington started leading an army and fighting the british)

[Pangloss]

In 1775 it wasn't a revolution yet -- just a rebellion. It wasn't until 1776 that they decided to actually declare independence.

 

Did you know that there was a common perception (based on fairly logical reasoning) that the British were responsible for making the South's economy dependent on slavery?

[-Demosthenes-]

How could the British be responsible for Making the South's economy dependent on Slavery? John Rafle (and then some others) planted tobbaco in Jamestown they make a bunch of money selling tobacco, and then Dutch sold two dozen slaves to Jamestown, then they are making a crap load of money, then everyone wants to do it. Maybe Dutch's fault, Probably Colonists, but not British (Well, the Colonists were British:P).

[Pangloss]

It's an intriguing point, isn't it? The general idea behind that particular bit of political spin (which is what it is) is that the British, even as they were abolishing slavery at home, had no compunction about instituting it in their colonies. The reasons were more or less logistical in nature. If you want to ship large quantities of goods for consumption back home, it takes a lot of people to run a plantation, and the indians weren't going to do it for them. The more labor they brought in, the more ships they could send back to Britain with full cargo holds. Everyone's making money, and there are no slaves in Britain, so everyone's happy.

 

It's also worth noting that Britain had done nothing about removing slavery from the colonies by 1776. It seemed quite content with the situation and would likely not have changed anything even if they'd managed to hang on to the colonies.

 

I don't think any of this really means anything on a moral level. I just think the politics of the time are interesting. They're much more complex and intriguing than people today generally realize.

[-Demosthenes-]

Well of course, the British became rich and powerful in part (a large part) from the sugar plantations using slave labor in the Americas (such as the West Indies). Tobacco and rice helped too. There wasn't much reason for the British to ban slavery in the Colonies from an economic standpoint, from what I've read I think they were moving toward outlawing slavery for moral reasons not related to the "rebellion" eventually, and sooner rather than later. But anyway, I don't think slavery have much to do with the revolution anyway, the North (where there was little slavery) definitely was the place where most of the rebellion came from.

[Pangloss]

Interestingly, if memory serves, New Jersey and New York had the second and third highest numbers of slaves in the revolutionary era (after Virginia).

 

Of course, these numbers are skewed by the fact that the population count in Georgia and South Carolina was still extremely low at that time.