American Idenity Essay

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Throughout the entire revolution, American leaders such as George Washington and John adams feared that if the Continental Army were to suffer any major defeat from the British, the colonists would realize, “ that their glorious cause was, in truth a hopeless and waste of blood and treasure.” (153) In order to keep the colonists in the dark, Washington, “played down the debacle on Gowanus Heights, and provided an inflated estimate of British casualties, thereby conveniently obscuring the full scope of the military disaster and dispirited condition of the continental Army.” (Ellis 152) Even with the downplaying of the events, “the bulk of the residents (in New York ) where greeting the British Army as Liberators.”(Ellis 184) “Meanwhile over in New Jersey, a civil war seemed to be brewing, as nearly three thousand citizens including one signer of the Declaration of Independence, took up Lord Howe’s offer of amnesty and signed an oath of allegiance to George III.”(Ellis 195) If the colonists had actually formed a unique identity, Washington would not have been paranoid that any single defeat could end the quest for independence.

The British thought they where stopping the colonists from seeking independence, but instead they were making colonists want independence that they did not want before. If Brittan had not “transformed a constitutional argument into a military conflict” the colonist may have never sought out independence. When the colonists began to rebel against Britain because of taxation, the British reacted in the way that the colonist feared the most. King George, “froze all of the American assets in Great Britain, closed all of the British ports to the American ships, and urged a massive task force to crush the incipient rebellion with one decisive blow.” This approach was chosen because King George feared that the colonists had formed their own identity and where thinking of independence. He believed that if he showed the colonists the power of the British army, they would realize how lucky they where to be apart of the British Empire. But by undermining the “reconciliation agenda of the moderate faction of congress”(Ellis 13), he further alienated the colonists when. This aggressive approach was exactly what the colonists feared most and forced them to start thinking about independence. If Britain had considered reconciliation rather than aggression military action, they would not have not mad the colonists think about the possibility of independence.