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American Revolution Dbq

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Many claim the American revolution to be conservative; however, evidence suggests otherwise. Throughout the Eighteenth Century, short term and long term changes occurred within Colonial America. Some of the rapid changes include, and are not limited to, the change of government, the mobility of social status to even the poor, and how mercantilism rapidly changed into capitalism. A main reason for the revolution was the influence of the form of government on its people. For America, it was the change from a monarchy to a republic. The freedoms of the citizens in the colonies felt they were being denied what was rightfully theirs. This was the main reason for the switch to democracy. This allowed for the people to a choice in how they were governed and by whom. This was a radical change from the monarchal government of Britain because before taxes and laws were pushed onto these citizens they had a luxury of not being taxed prior French and Indian War. Although this became the case, many rich prior Revolution stayed in power, an example of these influential people are the plantation owners and wealthy families. Power was often derived from money in the colonial times, and this was proven to be true as people like Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and much more were influential in …show more content…

The idea of this republic lead to mercantilism being dismantled, and the idea of capitalism being installed in its place. This allowed for a free market, fewer taxes, and most of all the formation and approval of the colonies to manufacture goods. These things created an opportunity for low-class citizens to climb the social pyramid. Even in this wake of new opportunity, the economic distribution of resources remained the same. Land, timber, food, rum, all became leading industries in America, but it was still lead by the people who were a rich prior

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