CONTENT STATEMENT
- The ideas of the Enlightenment and dissatisfaction with colonial rule led English colonists to write the Declaration of Independence and launch the American Revolution
CONTENT ELABORATION
A chain of political, economic, and social changes that occurred during the Enlightenment helped to spur the American Revolution.
The ideas of the Enlightenment thinkers fueled the discontent felt by the American colonists with a series of actions instituted by the British government following the French and Indian War. The Enlightenment ideas include:
- rights of the citizen;
- natural law;
- reason; and
- idea of popular government.
Actions instituted by the British government that angered the American colonists include:
- Proclamation of 1763;
- Sugar Act;
- Stamp Act;
- Townshend Acts;
- Tea Act;
- Coercive or Intolerable Acts; and
- Quartering Act.
Enlightenment ideas also influenced the writers of the Declaration of Independence, with an emphasis on:
- natural rights;
- limitations on the power of the government;
- social contract; and
- consent of the governed.
EXPECTATIONS FOR LEARNING
Connect the Enlightenment ideas and dissatisfaction with colonial rule to the writing of the Declaration of Independence which led to the American Revolution.