American Evolution or Revolution?
The theme has been subject to excessive discussion over the course of more than two centuries encompassing the existence of the United States. Although it has been taught for as long in our schools and classrooms and all other educational institutions that the year 1776 Anno Domini marks the year of American Revolution, but amidst historians and intellectuals the dilemma to whether to call it a revolution or an evolution has never been out of question.
Reader! Doesn’t it enthrall one that a single word could bifurcate scholars and create factions amongst the erudite. ¿Por qué (why?) there must be a reason and there is! The answer is simple yet rational: Perspective. Albert Einstein, …show more content…
On the other hand Oxford dictionary defines an evolution as: the gradual development of something, especially from a simple to a more complex form. Let us decide upon the usage of the word Revolution, which one can venture out to say, could be dated from the year 1775 with its ignition being the battle of Lexington and Concord and culmination being the ratification of the constitution of the States in 1782. Seemingly easy doesn’t it? It doesn’t really respond to how fundamentally did the thoughts, ideals, ideology and mindset of a 2.5 million inhabitants change and led to the chain of events that became known as the American …show more content…
Let’s go back to the early 17th century when immigrations began to take place into the New World. Herds of folks comprising of German, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Jewish descent and not to mention the French Huguenots, began pouring into the lands in order to escape from the fetters of the Old World. They did not have any more an appetite for its rituals, its doctrines, its curbing of civil liberties, and mostly the cost of living in it. One can even say at this particular time, that they were revolting as a denouement of the evolution of the aforementioned causes. So it would be appropriate to say that a 17th century Europe was in revolution. Let’s go further with this theory and say that the immigrants reaching the New World were revolutionaries. Almost 150 years of Pax Americana (used strictly in context with the time period and not according to current usage) so to say was enjoyed by the colonists. During this time, some changes irrevocably did take place. This is evident from the fact that the language that the majority of the immigrants originally spoke had evolved into a different dialect. So from this we can also entrust upon the belief that alongside linguistics political and socio-economic changes did also take place. A political