American patriotism


American patriotism is patriotism involving cultural attachment to the United States of America. Identified as related to American nationalism.

History

At the end of the French and Indian War, which was the North American theater of the Seven Years' War, the Parliament of Great Britain passed the Stamp Act of 1765, which imposed a direct tax on the British colonies and plantations in America. The purpose of the tax was to pay for British military troops stationed in the American colonies, but it was bitterly opposed by the colonists as a violation of their right as Englishmen to assent to such taxes through parliamentary representation.
Their fierce opposition made the tax uncollectable, and caused direct harm to papermakers in England. This caused Parliament to repeal the act. The colonial opposition, led by Samuel Adams, "created Committees of Correspondence in the various Colonies to begin the long, slow work toward gaining independence from England."
The British Parliament passed the Tea Tax in 1773 which aggravated the majority of the Colonists. Samuel Adams took this chance to rally the Boston Tea Party: "The taxes of Americans were being increased without any comment or input from the Colonies. Cries of 'Taxation without representation!' rang loud and clear from Savannah to Maine" The wiser of the radicals wanted nothing more than to dump the tea into the harbor, to avoid bloodshed, which they did successfully. However, some younger radicals, such as Thomas Moore, sought a more violent reaction. The aftermath included many American ports rejecting incoming tea; though some shipments were offloaded, no one wanted to claim the tea. Resulting rotten tea after 3 years of sitting on the shore, the tea was dumped into the harbor. Ports in Philadelphia and New York refused to unload the shipments, causing the ships to turn back to England.