1.The Change from English to American
When the American Revolution started in 1775, around two and a half million people lived in the thirteen colonies. The vast majority had emigrated from England or were descendants of English settlers. Most called themselves English and still felt a strong bondwith the customs and traditions of their faraway homeland. When war erupted, this connection was put to the test. Many saw the colonists’ reasoning behind their revolt but could not bring themselves to lift a hand against mother England; therefore, they tried to remain neutral. Others were so fiercely devoted to England that they instead formed loyalist groups that aided the English military forces.
2 Before the revolution, there was one major difference between an Englishman in England and one in America. Men with property in England had the right to vote for representatives in Parliament. Their grievances were heard, and they had the power to effect changes. This was not so in America as the American colonies lacked representatives in Parliament. The colonists had their own legislatures as well as some measure of autonomy, but even this power was subject both to British law and the rule of a local British governor. Thus men who considered themselves Englishmen in America were treated as American colonists by their counterparts in England.
Many American colonists were of the opinion that they possessed rights beyond what their supposed rulers in England were willing to grant them. The king of England, while subject to restrictions by Parliament, was still invested with the power to govern the British Empire. In essence, England was an aristocracy that ruled millions of people from afar and had little concern for what they desired. The majority of American colonists wanted to rid themselves of English rule and to form a republic to rule themselves. Calls for revolution