Article Summary: The American Revolution

The American Revolution has been drilled into the heads of every middle school child in the United States. We learn the slogan, “Taxation without Representation” and that some oppressive British government was keeping us from basic human rights. We also learn that the Founding Fathers were saviors in starting this Revolution. To my surprise, many of these things were not true. Most of the Taxation was very fair and standard practice at the time, England was not that oppressive compared to other countries, and the Founding Fathers were not angels. After reading Carol Berkin’s article “Teaching the Revolution” and listening to Dr. Owen Stanwood’s lecture, “The Global Drama of the American Revolution” I have discovered many aspects of the war that I had been previously told the opposite, or that was not mentioned at all growing up. Three things I learned about the Revolution from these sources was England was not as oppressive as described in most history books, Native Americans fought largely on the sides of the British, and enslaved African …show more content…
This was not the case. England not only provided the colonies with protection, but they allowed the colonies a lot more independence then most other states would have allowed. Taxation was one main cause for tension in the American colonies, however not all of these taxes had a negative impact. For example, “the Sugar Act did not increase the duty on foreign molasses, it lowered it, slashed it in half in fact” (Berkin). What many colonies really got upset about was the Stamp and Townshend Acts. They were use to the status quo of England not playing a huge role in its’ own economy, however, these types of acts were common among empire states. The English had a right to impose this kind of law and it was an “assertion of authority that had long lay dormant”