6 CAUSES OF THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE 13 ENGLISH COLONIES - HISTORY - 2025

The causes of the independence of the English colonies had mainly economic reasons, linked to trade, transactions and centralization of the market in London. To this is added the influence of the Enlightenment or the incipient desire for political independence.

The 13 English colonies were a group of colonies on the east coast of North America that, due to discrepancies with the English Crown, promoted an independence movement.

Benjamin Franklin's propaganda in favor of the struggle for the independence of the colonies

This led to the American Revolution, in which the colonies functioned as an alliance of autonomous provinces, forming the United States. They finally declared independence in 1776.

These colonies include the existing states of the east coast of America, such as New York, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Virginia, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Delaware, Rhode Island, Maryland, Connecticut and New Jersey.

In the independence movement promoted by these, at that time, colonies, names such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson participated.

By the time the English Crown had to reorganize its empire and impose stricter measures on its colonies, the American ones already had some autonomy in their policies and internal commercial relations. They rejected England's measure and exercised their right to perpetuate their freedom.

The independence of the 13 English colonies began the initial stage that would make the United States of America a sovereign nation, marking in history the actions that influence its present.

Causes of the independence of the British colonies

1- Commercial and economic precedents

During its greatest period of colonial regulation, almost a century before independence, the English Empire sought to centralize and supervise the commercial transactions of its colonies to enrich the kingdom alone.

The North American colonies, although not the most productive, did not escape this first series of impositions.

The centralization intentions of the larger colonies created the first differences between the colonists and Great Britain, resulting in the imposition of measures that harmed the new generations of working and merchant colonists, as well as made internal colonial procedures difficult.

At this time the first signs that would lead to independence are born.

2- Economic taxation of the English Crown

The 7-year war waged against France left the English empire in a very bad state socially and economically, unbalancing its internal relations and, even more so, those it maintained with its colonies in America.

The government tried to recover by imposing new and stricter measures to control the commercial relations of its colonies and supply the internal coffers.

To maximize income through the colonies, the Crown turned more pressure to its North American colonies, which had hitherto been recognized as among the least productive on the continent.

3- Internal freedoms

Both the colonies and their internal provinces had developed great economic and political autonomy, maintaining commercial relations between them without any type of intermediation from the English empire.

The cause of this lack of supervision over the North American colonies was due to the fact that they were not considered as productive as those of South America and the Caribbean.

The idea of ​​seeing their economic and political freedom undermined by impositions of the Crown, was reason enough to consolidate an organization that sought independence and recognition as a nation.

The colonies already had a history of political, economic and social relations that placed them in a position of greater consolidation in the face of a decimated English Crown.

This allowed a better control to be maintained over the territories won, although the internal division in the American continent between patriots and loyalists was quite marked.

4- Influence of the Enlightenment

The North American colonies were not isolated, and they were aware of the emergencies and movements that were taking shape in European lands, dominated by absolute monarchies, and almost all with a colonialist foot stuck in some region of America.

The Enlightenment would provide new conceptions of equality, justice and separation of powers.

The emergence of the first reflections about man and his rational capacity to dispel doubts around him, in a movement known as the Enlightenment, loosened the social control that the empire could have over the 13 North American colonies.

The members of these began to develop their own anguish as was the search for freedom.

Thus, as the French Revolution is considered to be the culminating moment of the Enlightenment, the reactions and movements that emerged in North America during the 18th century also complemented its consolidation.

5- The support and impulse of other countries

The colonies that would later make up the United States of America had been managing relationships autonomously with countries like France for some time, reaping relationships that would eventually prove beneficial.

This independence company would later win the sympathy of kingdoms such as Spain and Holland.

France took advantage of the precedent of the Seven Years' War against the English, and turned everything to its support to the fight of the North American colonies, declaring war again on the British Empire.

6- incipient political power

The colonies were considered settlements of very distant relations with respect to the English metropolis.

The need to have to develop practically by itself, led the nascent North American nation to find the necessary mechanisms for the consolidation of a society that should not depend entirely on the control of a general staff.

The low political reach of the higher-ranking colonists made it almost impossible for them to have a leading role or influence in imperial discussions on colonialism.

Its diplomatic remoteness would keep the North American colonies in a limbo in which they only had to submit to the new demands of the Crown.

At first, the independence of the 13 colonies was considered a movement that would result in the birth of a nation.

Qualified as a struggle with a very low level of violence, the independence declared by these colonies would start a series of conflicts that would encompass the process lived by the American Revolution, and that would develop over almost 20 years, with the recognition independence from Great Britain in 1783.

References

1. Bailyn, B. (1967). The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge: Belknap Press.
2. Egnal, M. (1998). New World Economies: The Growth of the Thirteen Colonies and Early Canada. New York: Oxford University Press.
3. Gordon, W. (1801). The History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment of the Independence of the United States of America: Including an Account of the Late War, and of the Thirteen Colonies, from Their Origin to that Period, Volume 2. Samuel Campbell.
4. Maier, P. (2012). American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence. New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
5. Nash, GB (1979). The Urban Crucible: Social Change, Political Consciousness, and the Origins of the American Revolution. Harvard Press.