The 1999 DBQ essays

The 1999 DBQ essays The American Revolution did not happen overnight. There were many events that led up to the Revolution, and in the process the colonists united more and more against a common cause (i.e. freedom from English rule). This does not mean that the colonists were completely united, because they were not, but in the end they were united enough to overcome the British rule and become independent. The colonists were a different breed of people found nowhere else, and they defined themselves as Americans, not English. There were many factors that incited the revolution. Major factors include taxation, lack of the equality under the law with Englishmen, and the presence of the British army in their midst. The colonists were a very different group of people than the people of their mother country. In Document G, Hector St. John describes the new American. He describes a person whose grandfather is English, wife is Dutch and whose son married a French woman. He is an American who has forgotten the bad things about his past, the poverty, and taken up a completely new life. But this alone is not enough to unite all the colonists together and think of themselves as Americans. The Colonists really started to unite after the French and Indian War. When the war was over the colonists thought that they would get more respect from the British along with an end to higher taxes, and colonists being able to settle in the fertile Ohio Valley. None of this happened. The colonists were not allowed to settle in the Ohio Valley because the British did not want any more trouble with the Indians. After the war the British had a huge war debt and the only way to get rid of it was to tax the colonies. The colonists united when Parliament declared the Sugar Act. Colonists saw that if only one colony was against the Sugar Act, that the British would strike them down and make even worse regulations for everyone. ...