Welcome to U.S. history!
(What led to the American settlers'
revolt?)
Some of the immediate causes:
1773
The East India Company's losses due to the Boston Tea
Party, was an immediate cause. Here in an act of vandalism white men dressed as Indians
dumped shiploads of tea into the Boston harbor thought to protest all tariffs on tea
imports. Such angered the British who closed the for the New Englanders most important
Boston harbor.
1774
Next the Coercive or "Intolerable" Acts
followed, a new version of the 1765 Quartering Act was enacted by the English Parliament
to provide housing for the British troops in occupied houses and taverns. Husbands worried
for their wives' and daughters' safety and there were reasons for such.
In a letter sent by Captain Francis Rawdon to his uncle
the Earl of Huntington he described: "...that he appreciated Southern women because
they did not publicly take issue after being raped by British soldiers. As for the women
of Staten Island, they were 'fair nymphs' for the British soldiers, who were 'as riotous
as satyrs. A girl cannot step into the bushes to pluck a rose without running the most
imminent risk of being ravished, and they are so little accustomed to these vigorous
methods that they don't bear them with the proper resignation, and of consequence we have
most entertaining courts martial every day.'" (Susan Brownmiller in Against Our Will,
under Riots, Progroms and Revolutions)
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last updated
02/19/07
