Scholars have debated the causes of the American Revolution for years, with ideas ranging from it being an ideological revolution to one fueled by economic incentive, to more recent ideas of wanting to slave trade unregulated. Woody Holton, in his book Forced Founders, and T.H. Breen, in his book The Marketplace of Revolution, are two such scholars. By examining their two narratives, one finds that the main cause of the American Revolution was to regain economic control that the colonists were losing to British regulations in order to expand their land, trade unregulated, and stop paying high taxes, all to increase their personal wealth.

At a time when land was equivalent to wealth, the refusal of the Parliament to give the colonists land that belonged to the Indians decreased the personal wealth of the Virginian gentry and created an incentive to break free from the British to claim that land. Both Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, among others, were land speculators who wished to claim land in Indian territory to increase their wealth, but “The Cherokee Indians negotiated a treaty with the British government in which they retained every acre of land that Jefferson claimed” (Holton 5). This created a gap between the colonists who wished to claim the land and the Parliament who wished to preserve their treaty with the Indians and prevent war by not infringing on Indian territory. Gentlemen even wrote petitions to the government to change the treaties, but “the British government sided with the gentry’s opponents” (Holton 39). Holton finds that ultimately, the Parliament siding with the Indians produced “an imperial policy that protected their interests but at the same time poisoned the relationship between Virginian gentlemen and the government of Britain” (Holton 5). His argument as to the cause of the American Revolution makes more logical sense than many of the radical explanations scholars have proposed. By denying colonists the ability to purchase more land, the government was denying colonists a chance to increase their wealth and socioeconomic status, which at the time was tied to property rights. This stifled colonists’ control over their wealth and future. When looking at Holton’s argument, it must be acknowledged that it is very narrow, and he focuses only on the actions of the Virginian gentry rather than the colonists as a whole when he explains why they revolted. However, many of the members of the Virginian gentry, such as Jefferson and Washington, not only played starring roles in his argument about land speculation but went on to lead the revolution. Jefferson was even a signatory of the Declaration of Independence. Thus, even though Holton’s argument is narrow and addresses a minor sector of the U.S. population at the time, it can still be taken as a cause for the revolution because the gentry led the revolution. Overall, Holton’s top-down narrative focused on the Virginian gentry creates a solid economic incentive to rebel against the British in order to increase the personal wealth of the people.

Not only did the British stop colonists from land speculating, but they heavily regulated the tobacco trade, pushing many colonists who relied on it for income into debt, creating yet another incentive to revolt. Due to strict regulations on tobacco growth and where the farmers were allowed to sell it, “by the time the tobacco reached its destination, the person that owned it and profited from its sale was not a Chesapeake tobacco grower but a British merchant” (Holton 29). This led to a lot of bitterness among the colonists and tobacco growers, as they were the ones doing the hard work, but the British merchants were the ones who benefited from their labor. Ultimately, this “British monopoly of Virginia’s trade became a powerful incentive to part company” because the British had done nothing but taken advantage of the farmers (Holton 33). This gave colonists an economic motive to revolt against the British because they knew that “the only way they could ever enjoy the fruits of free trade would be to declare Independence from Britain”, a radical idea that tobacco farmers started to latch onto (Holton 27). This second argument Holton makes again links specifically to the gentry and the rich landowners who would have been at the top of the socioeconomic class in Virginia, and also the leaders of the revolution, making for a second convincing argument as to the main cause of the revolution linked to the wealth of individual colonists and their economic motives.

These two common negative experiences with British law united the colonists against the British and gave them a shared sense of identity to center the revolution around. All colonists had similar experiences with the British, and “most Americans who protested concentrated their attention on how the new policies cut into their purses” (Middlekauff 4). One constant that has stood from the 21st century to the very founding of America is that of human greed and the necessity for wealth. This shared experience “could be effectively translated into organized resistance, uniting anonymous consumers” under a single banner (Breen 20). While limits on land speculation and free tobacco trade are both reasons as to why colonists would be furious at the British Parliament, experiences like those are what united citizens across the thirteen colonies and brought them together for the revolution. Uniting under an economic banner is the most convincing explanation of the causes of the American Revolution because their “shared experience as consumers provided them with the cultural resources needed to develop a bold new form of political protest”, whether it be shared experience in land speculation, tobacco trade, or under unfair taxation (Breen 2). Breen’s argument differs from Holton’s in that while Holton’s argument is very narrow, and he focuses specifically on the Virginian gentry, Breen addresses the entire population of colonists and generalizes all of their experiences under one shared banner. While it makes for a more put together argument, Breen’s argument has less detail due to the broad scope of it. However, viewing the two together lets Breen’s broad argument be backed up by Holton’s specific examples, allowing the two to feed off of and support each other. The economic argument the two authors made is also more logical than any ideological argument because other authors are unable to thoroughly back up how these ideologies led to war in the same way. Bernard Bailyn, for example, in his book The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, says that “the American revolution was above all else an ideological, constitutional, political struggle” (Bailyn 2). He is not, however, able to explain how the ideology of freedom united the colonists as Breen does, or back up his claims with very specific examples from multiple sources as Holton does. The logical conclusion is ultimately that the colonists were economically motivated to rebel and that their similar experiences in the British market are what brought them together under a shared banner.

When examining different works on the cause of the American Revolution under a historiographical lens, the case that makes the most sense is that the cause of the revolution was colonists’ drive to regain economic control so they could expand their land, trade freely, and cease to pay high taxes: all in order to increase their own wealth and prosperity. At heart, the argument portrays the colonists in a more selfish light than many ideological origins, but it is also the most logical. Even further, examinations of both Holton and Breen’s arguments reveals that they are both top-down, meaning that the leaders of the revolution were all colonists with enough wealth to have been personally affected by the land speculation and tobacco trade regulations, among other strict laws, giving them all personal cause to revolt. Accepting that the American Revolution was driven by greed rather than an ideological need for freedom does not change much about how America is viewed. Society is still driven by human greed; whether it has made progress since the 1600s remains to be seen.

Bibliography

Agrawal, Nikki, and Miki Yang. 16 October 2020.

Agrawal, Nikki, and Sarah Willrich. 18 October 2020.

Agrawal, Nikki, and Thalia Renaker. 19 October 2020.

Bailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution: Bernard Bailyn. Mass., 1968.

Breen, T. H. The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence. Oxford University Press, 2005.

Holton, Woody. Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia. Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2000.

Middlekauff, Robert. The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789. Oxford Univ. Press, 2007.