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Riches, Real Estate, and Resistance: How Land Speculation, Debt, and Trade Monopolies Led to the A merican Revolution
Author(s) -
Curtis Thomas D.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
american journal of economics and sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.199
H-Index - 38
eISSN - 1536-7150
pISSN - 0002-9246
DOI - 10.1111/ajes.12080_2
Subject(s) - speculation , monopoly , politics , debt , estate , settlement (finance) , real estate , independence (probability theory) , investment (military) , economics , resistance (ecology) , market economy , economic history , economy , law , political science , finance , ecology , statistics , mathematics , payment , biology
Why did the colonies of N orth A merica rebel against E ngland in 1775? More than ideas of political freedom were at stake. It is unlikely that the colonists would have demanded independence if powerful land speculators, merchants, and urban artisans had not joined forces to protect their economic interests. E ngland had levied taxes on the colonies, and the colonists had successfully overturned those measures. Taxation was a superficial problem. But in 1773, when England imposed a commercial monopoly on tea sales, and in 1774, when it cut off settlement in western lands, the colonists saw no choice but to rebel and create their own nation. G eorge W ashington, T homas J efferson, P atrick H enry, G eorge M ason, R ichard H enry L ee, and other wealthy V irginians who led the A merican R evolution stood to lose their huge investment in potential land sales if E ngland maintained control of the colonies.