Free Essay on Roots of Rebellion of England's 13 Colonies

The 13 colonies which currently form the USA were once a colony of England. England by far controlled the territories which were New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Maryland, Rhode Island, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia and Delaware (Middleton). The colonies later came to unite for a standard course and revolted against England's imposition of high taxation without representation. But the roots and reasons for their revolt have much to do with their experiences with Spaniards in the sixteenth century before the fall of Spain as once a global empire.

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Long before British setting their foot into America, Spain explores had discovered what they referred to as the New World. The discovery made Spain to advance its Empire to America in search of gold and silver, which were then shipped back to Spain. The wealth and control made Spain, which was once an emerging country to become a wealth and a global power country which would go after any exploration. As coined by its Latino motto which was invented by its ruler Felipe II in 1570 as "Non-sufficient orbit" which meant "the world was not enough", which implied that only Heaven would remain unconquered by Spain. But it is the mistakes made by Felipe II and his predecessor that saw the fall of Spain Empire and the rise of England's Empire, but the enlightenment made in the new world prior to and during the fall of Spain Empire came to be the roots of rebellion of the 13 colonies against England in the 18th century.

America had been explored before by Spain during the reign of Carol I who ruled from 1516-1556. During this rule, brutality and mass murder of Indians in America was the order of the day. In his claim to advance Christianity, Carol I had forced Indians to convert to Christianity or get killed. Historians estimate that Spaniards killed over 15 million Indians during this era. As a result, the two continents of North and South America, which were once occupied by Indians had become vacant areas with about 1.5 million people occupancy. Carol, I was succeeded by his son Felipe II who in an attempt to collect his father's mistakes, made more mistakes which enlightened the people of New World and which would later give them the power to rebel against any form of colonialism.

Felipe II lived to Spain's most ever influential leader. He advanced Spain Empire to global status, but his own country of Spain remained weak as the wealth he made through gold and silver were used for military purposes and control of the global foreign Empire. He brought the world's worst ethnic diversity through his treatment of Indians and other ethnic groups. After genocides ordered by Felipe II, he later began the process of culture breading between Indians and Spaniards.

The breading culture gave the room for Spaniards, Indians and other ethnic groups to intermarry in what was seen as an act of "cleaning blood." Felipe II believed that a person's ethnicity was in their blood. A Spaniard had a Spaniard blood; an Indian had Indian blood and any other. By inter-marrying an Indian with a Spaniard, Felipe II believed that would lead to an improved ethnicity by the third generation; the ethnicity would be fully Spanish as result children who were of mixed culture were born and is probably the birth of America as what is known today, a country of diverse culture.

Felipe II had passed laws to punish those who mistreated Indians in the Spanish Americas. Felipe II had ignited the debate about Red Indians shortly before coming to power in the 1550s, with intent to solve the Indians problems once and for all. The laws were barely enforced as they were being broken by the very people who were expected to implement them. The rules were also selective as they required Spaniards not to mistreat Indians who were ready to accept the call for becoming Christians. The laws were also written in the Spanish language, not known to many Indians, and thus most of these Indians in America faced their cruel death.

As Felipe II was holding debates about Indian's fate, to schools of thought existed. The first one was championed by Bartolome de las Casas, who is famously known as a defender of Indians, who held a belief that Indians were people of reason, born with the capacity to think (Seed 629-652). His school of thought was disputed by Juan Gines de Sepulveda, who maintained that Indians lacked and could not acquire the ability to think. Most of Spaniards held the second school of thought as evident by their complaints to Felipe II that unless they were allowed to punish Indians, Indians could not accept to work. But Las Casas solution for Spaniards complains was in Africa. He held the belief that, while Indians commanded respect Africans were a lesser ethnicity, not made of God's image. As a result of many Europeans influx Africa and took slaves to America, thus relieving Indians of slavery. Many Indians in the New World part of North America were left free, which would later propel them to revolt against British rule and Empire.

Spaniards had considered leaving America long before as they had concluded that the country was not fertile and that its habitats were poor. When they discovered a mountain of silver, their view over America changed and continued their stay but by "whitening" Indians through intermarriages to make them become Spanish. Spain had conquered America and turned to the Far East starting by Conquering Philippine. Though Felipe II was powerful, his lavish wealth, mistreating poor people of his nation and his hatred for other religions; Muslim, Jews, and mostly protestants, led to the fall of his Empire and brought England to world power under Elizabeth I.

Elizabeth I is the England ruler who strikes Spain from its world standing and made in reach to the corners of the world. Unlike Spain Empire, when England made roots to America, they went there intending to do business more than conquering and ruling over them. England was the world's largest exporter of wool, and it is in search of more massive tracks of land that the British went to America. Though England conquered America and extended its territory to the 13 regions of U.S., more so for agriculture, the freedom they gave the Americans, and the mistakes they had made back home long before their entrance of America, came to be the fuel firing their rebellion in the region (Bailyn 246-254).

Even before the rule of Elizabeth I, some Europeans had already fled to America to escape the brutality of Henry, England ruler who had founded Church of England after pope denying his request to divorce his wife after failing to bear a boy child for him. Following his brutality to Catholics, which was also advanced by Elizabeth I, Pilgrims fled to the Netherlands and later to America. When England colony then came to impose high taxations against Americans, their house was already divided as these pilgrims did not support their call.

The rebellion of the 13 colonies of England was as a fathomed long before their colonization. When Spaniards intermarried with Indians, giving birth to a new generation of mixed culture, and with their relative tolerance of Indians, they enlightened Americans to think independently. It is this philosophical thinking that later gave them guts to rise against England when they colonized them and brought oppressive rules.

Works Cited

Bailyn, Bernard. The ideological origins of the American Revolution. Harvard University Press, 2017. PP 246-254 Retrieved from www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674975651

Middleton, Richard. "Colonial America." A History (1996): 1565-1776. Retrieved from www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/12131347

Seed, Patricia. "'Are These Not Also Men?': The Indians' Humanity and Capacity for Spanish Civilisation." Journal of Latin American Studies 25.3 (1993): 629-652. Retrieved from www.jstor.org/stable/158270