The American Revolution

The American Revolution

The American Revolution is a true reflection of the Age of Enlightenment, which emphasized human dignity, liberty, equality, democracy, and other progressive life’s fundamental principles. However, this wasn’t the case with the colonist America where the British Empire, through King George 111, imposed heavy taxes and trade deals that favored the British government while also being detrimental to colonists (Bailyn 123). These Acts included among others the Sugar Act of 1764, which saw duties imposed on the sugar and molasses, the Stamp Act of 1765, which demanded that the colonist should pay for such seals among other tyrannical acts that were repressive (Bailyn 119). Through these acts, the American colonist started to spread the ideology “No taxation without Representation” to the neglected masses of the American people. This discontent would then result in the war against the British, which would climax in 1781. With the help of French, the British would be forced to surrender to the defeat at Yorktown, Virginia in 1781.

The defeat to the British Empire placed the American Revolution as a historical reference to many nations, which would thereafter realize the possibility of breaking every chain of imperialism and the need for self-determination. As such, from the war, the birth of new ideas of democracy, equality, and human rights swept across the globe as there was discontentment with the British system of representation all over the world (Bailyn 163). In this regard, this paper’s central focus would be to examine the American Revolution not only as a historic event to the birth of a United States of America, but also as a revolutionary event that would later consciously awaken the oppressed, new perception about governance and instill new ideas of the enlightenment (Bailyn 235).