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Riches, Real Estate, and Resistance: How Land Speculation, Debt, and Trade Monopolies Led to the American Revolution

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  • Thomas D. Curtis

Abstract

Why did the colonies of North America rebel against England 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. England 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. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, George Mason, Richard Henry Lee, and other wealthy Virginians who led the American Revolution stood to lose their huge investment in potential land sales if England maintained control of the colonies.

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  • Thomas D. Curtis, 2014. "Riches, Real Estate, and Resistance: How Land Speculation, Debt, and Trade Monopolies Led to the American Revolution," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(3), pages 474-626, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ajecsc:v:73:y:2014:i:3:p:474-626
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Beard, Charles A., 1913. "An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, edition 127, number beard1913.
    2. Nettels, Curtis P., 1952. "British Mercantilism and the Economic Development of the Thirteen Colonies," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(2), pages 105-114, April.
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