Originally the fighting
between Britain and France began in 1754 with a quarrel in North America. It had
two different names. In America it is known as the French and Indian War. In
Britain and Europe it is known as the Seven Years’ War, because the fighting
lasted from 1756 to 1763. A result of the French and Indian war was a British
decision to reconsider its relationship with its colonies. Prior to the French
and Indian War, Britain had loosely controlled its colonies. British leaders
regarded the colonial government as inferior. As long as only a few serious
conflicts between Britain and America occurred, the British government permitted
colonial assemblies to oversee the royal governors and to pass new laws that
suited to the needs of the colonists.
In addition, the British did not
always enforce their laws in the colonies. For example, the British Customs
Service, which was unproductive, understaffed, and open to corruption, did not
enforce the
Molasses Act of 1733. British leaders did not insist on strict
enforcement of this tax or other commercial duties because thriving American
trade was making Britain very wealthy and powerful nation.
British statesman
and political theorist Edmund Burke, a orator who successfully championed many
human rights and causes by bringing people to attention through his moving
speeches. Described his country’s policies toward the colonies as “salutary
neglect” because he believed their leniency was actually beneficial. As a result
of this salutary neglect, the colonists developed a political and economic
system that was virtually independent. They were loyal, although somewhat
uncooperative, subjects of the crown. (Encarta, 2k1)
The war in North
America was fought mostly throughout the Northern British colonies, and in the
closing stages Great Britain overpowered France. During the peace talks, Britain
gained French holdings in Canada and Florida from France’s ally, Spain.
Nevertheless, Britain amassed a large debt over the course of the war. To help
pay off the debt, Britain came up with the idea to use the American colonies to
generate lost money.
The French and Indian War changed the connection
between Great Britain and the colonies. Before the war, Great Britain had become
very wealthy from the colonies, after passing such acts as the Molasses Act in
1733, which imposed a tax on molasses. Molasses was used for a variety of things
including making rum and was very important to the colonies economics. During
the early period, the colonists had developed a nearly independent political and
economic system.
Because Britain had amassed large war debts; the British
Parliament passed the Stamp Act in 1765. The act was intended to generate money
from the colonies that would help pay for the cost to keep up a stable force of
British troops in the American colonies. All authorized documents, including
deeds, mortgages, newspapers, had to have a British government stamp, in order
to be considered legal.
Members of the Sons of Liberty, a patriotic secret
group, were mostly active in opposing the stamp tax. They led a course of
physical violence in which many official stamp agents were attacked by mobs and
their possessions and property destroyed and taken from them. Resolutions of
protest against the stamp act were adopted by a number of the colonial
assemblies. The Virginia House of Burgesses made five such resolutions offered
by Patrick Henry the American patriot. In resistance to the stamp act the
Americans formed a stamp act congress as a means to protest against the acts.
American Merchants agreed to stop bringing in British goods until the act was
abolished, and trade was considerably weakened. Rejecting to use the stamps on
official and business papers became common, and the courts would not punish if
the stamp was not on legal documents. British Parliament repealed the act on
March 4, 1766, Benjamin Franklin argued to the House of Commons. Franklin was
Pennsylvania's representative, in London. He turned out to be more of a
representative of the Colonies as a whole. Repeal was to go along with the
Declaratory Act, which declared the right of the British government to pass acts
lawfully binding the colonists.
The unity of the American colonists in their
dislike of the Stamp Act added significantly to the rise of American opposition,
and the argument between the colonists and the British government. The Stamp Act
of 1765 required the American colonists to apply tax stamps, like those shown
here, to all official documents, including deeds, mortgages, newspapers, and
pamphlets. The colonists convened the Stamp Act Congress to protest the act,
which they called, ”taxation without representation.“ The Stamp Act is often
considered one of the main causes of the American Revolution.
Then came the
Townshend Acts, measures passed by the British Parliament in 1767, affecting the
American colonies. The acts were named for their sponsor, the British chancellor
of the Exchequer Charles Townshend. The first measure called for the suspension
of the New York Assembly, thus penalizing it for not complying with a law,
enacted two years earlier, requiring the colonies to provide adequate quartering
of British troops in the New World. The second measure, called the Revenue Act,
imposed customs duties on colonial imports of glass, red and white lead, paints,
paper, and tea. A subsequent legislative act established commissioners in the
colonies to administer the customs services and to make sure the duties were
collected.
The Townshend Acts were tremendously unpopular in America. In
response to a published criticism of the measures, the British crown dissolved
the Massachusetts legislature in 1768. Subsequently, the Boston Massacre
occurred in March 1770, when British troops fired on American demonstrators.
These events brought the colonies closer to revolution.
The colonists who
protested the taxes were able to distinguished between taxes designed to raise
money, which they strongly opposed, and tariffs intended primarily to control
trade, which the colonists had accepted, at least in principle, since the
imposition of the Molasses Act of 1733. They felt the distinction between
revenue and regulation was subtle if not artificial. And Charles Townshend, who
was a longtime critic of the American assemblies, misunderstood it. Townshend
belief was that the colonists were only objecting to internal taxes, such as the
Stamp Act, but not to external taxes. Therefore, he assumed that all the
colonists would accept the external taxes. The Townshend Acts, which were passed
in 1767, placed duties on colonial imports of lead, glass, and other
necessities. This act also specified that the tax money be to be used not only
to support British troops in America but also to provide salaries for British
officials who would the collect taxes. Such monies would make these tax
collectors financially independent of other colonial assemblies.
This
attempt was to raise revenue through trade tariffs and to circumvent American
control of imperial officials which greatly angered many colonial officials.
John Dickinson argued in his influential Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania
(1767) that the Townshend duties were “not for the regulation of trade ... but
for the single purpose of levying money upon us.” Bolstered by such arguments,
the colonists opposed the taxes, not with the violence of 1765, which ended with
the repeal of the Stamp Act, but with a new boycott of British goods, the Second
No importation Movement. (Encarta, 2k1)
The Americans’ unwavering resistance
to the Townshend Acts resulted in economic and moral upheaval. The colonial
economy before 1754 allowed the colonists to earn enough from their exports to
pay for their imports from Great Britain. By the British military spending in
America for the duration of the French and Indian War strengthen the incomes of
many colonists and unleashed a wave of free spending. British creditors aided
this free spending by allowing the American traders a full year’s credit,
instead of the traditional six months. The colonists soon became overextended
and had gone deeply into debt.
By wars end in 1763, the good times came to
an abrupt end. A recession after the war brought bankruptcy and disgrace to
those Americans who had overextended them selves and brought hard times to
nearly everyone else. This economic hardship generated even greater opposition
to the Stamp Act in 1765, especially among tradesmen and craftsmen. This
opposition to the stamp act was brought upon from the competition of low-priced
British goods and now feared higher taxes. Comparable economic stresses fueled
quarrel to the Townshend Acts of 1767.
Such incidents as the Boston Massacre
helped to fuel the American Revolution. Encounter on March 5, 1770 the Boston
Massacre, five years before the beginning of the American Revolution, between
British troops and a group of citizens of Boston (then in the Massachusetts Bay
Colony). British troops were quartered in the city to discourage demonstrations
against the Townshend Acts, which imposed duties on imports to the colonies.
Citizens constantly harassed the troops, and during a demonstration, rocks
thrown by the colonists struck a squad of British soldiers. The soldiers fired
into the crowd and killed five men, including Crispus Attucks, who was leading
the group. The eight soldiers and their commanding officer were tried for murder
and were defended by John Adams, later president of the United States, and
Josiah Quincy. Two soldiers were declared guilty of manslaughter and, after
claiming benefit of clergy, were branded on the thumb; the others, including the
officer, were acquitted. The American patriot Samuel Adams to create
anti-British sentiment in the colonies skillfully exploited the incident.
(Encarta, 2k1)
Next in line leading to the revolution was the Boston Tea
Party, a popular name the action taken on December 16, 1773, by a group of
Boston citizens to protest the British tax on tea imported to the colonies.
Although most provisions of the Townshend Acts, taxing imports to the colonies,
were repealed by Parliament, the duty on tea was retained to demonstrate the
power of Parliament to tax the colonies. The citizens of Boston would not permit
the unloading of three British ships that arrived in Boston in November 1773
with 342 chests of tea. The royal governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson,
however, would not let the tea ships return to England until the duty had been
paid. On the evening of December 16, a group of Bostonians, instigated by the
American patriot Samuel Adams and many of them disguised as Native Americans,
boarded the vessels and emptied the tea into Boston Harbor. When the colonists
of Boston refused to pay for the tea, the British closed the port. (Grolier, 98)
Another way the colonists found very effective for scaring tax collectors,
who were hated so much, was using a method called tar and feathering. This was
done by removing clothes of the person and then applying hot tar, which in most
instances was very painful. Then well the tar was still hot right after applying
it, they would proceed to sticking and dumping feathers all over the persons
body. Over all it would make them look like a big bird, and was painful. A real
life account tells the story.
[In the spring of 1766, John Gilchrist, a
Norfolk merchant and ship-owner, came to believe that Captain William Smith had
reported his smuggling activities to British authorities. In retribution,
Gilchrist and several accomplices captured Smith and, as he reported, "dawbed my
body and face all over with tar and afterwards threw feathers on me." Smith's
assailants, which included the mayor of Norfolk, then carted him "through every
street in town," and threw him into the sea. Fortunately, Smith was rescued by a
passing boat just as he was "sinking, being able to swim no longer."] (1)
(1) Captain William Smith to J. Morgan, Apr. 3, 1766, in William and Mary
Quarterly, 1st Ser., XXI (1913), p. 167. from sight :
http://revolution.h-net.msu.edu/