The American Revolution (II): The Origin and Nature of Colonial Grievances
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Description
The communication network for processing colonial grievances helped integrate the many different subjects and places in the Empire. Additionally, when the Empire was at war, metropolitan policy-makers and local governors were more willing to compromise with provincial interests. Throughout North America, colonists shared in a sense that the Imperial constitution was flexible and responsive to provincial claims. By the middle of the 1770s, however, the grievance network no longer performed effectively. Instead, the network had begun to operate selectively, binding particular provincial groups within each colony to each other and with similar groups in other colonies, while neighbors who had formerly worked together became unable to cooperate. Only then, in the middle of 1776 in the Declaration of Independence, were the many and sometimes inconsistent colonial grievances compiled into a one-sided list of indictments of the British king. The grievance network had become an instrument for civil war.
Source Publication
British North America in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
Source Editors/Authors
Stephen Foster
Publication Date
2013
Recommended Citation
Hulsebosch, Daniel J., "The American Revolution (II): The Origin and Nature of Colonial Grievances" (2013). Faculty Chapters. 906.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/906
