British Policy and The American Colonies Essay

One might think that all of the British colonies in the new world were all the same. This is not the case though. The colonies, although they were all British they had some similarities but mainly they had differences. The Southern, New England and Middle colonies clearly show theses similarities and differences, particularly in terms of land, labor, religion, and native relations.

The British had sent more than 10,000 troops to North America by the end of the French and Indian War. The British felt like they had spent a great deal of money in protecting the American colonists. They were in debt around 140 million pounds. To pay off all of their debt the British decided to increase the enforcement of existing taxes on the Colonists and impose additional taxes. The British issued The Proclamation of 1763 which meant the colonists couldn’t cheat the Indians out of land. They also establish a border in where they could not buy land. This made the colonist mad because it made them feel like the British were interfering and trying to limit their economic growth.

“Despite the view of some historians that the conflict between Great Britain and its thirteen North American colonies was economic in origin, in fact the American Revolution had its roots in politics and other areas of American life.” Great Britain and the American colonies had a relationship impacted with many hardships. I believe that there was a political struggle between the two groups, but that Great Britain and the American colonies used economics as a chance to show how much control they had. Multiple Acts written by Parliament, the colonies' Committees of Correspondence and Continental Congress created political friction between Great Britain and the American colonies.

As generations grew up in America, nationalism within the colonies grew towards their new country. These settlers slowly lost their patriotic tie to Great Britain and it’s ruler, King George III. So when the French and Indian War ended in America, and the indebted England needed some compensation from American settlers in the form of taxes, the colonists questioned the authority of England and their ability to rule them. British imperial policies such as the Sugar Act of 1764 and the Townshend Tea Tax caused uproar within the colonies against British rule without

Chapter 2: The Thirteen Colonies and the British Empire. 1607-1754 The first permanent English colony was Jamestown; poor and landless people wanted to leave England and make a life in the Americas. However, Jamestown barely survived the first five years but it did lead to settlement of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay. Both of these colonies were settled by English Protestants who faced religious persecution in Europe, a factor that drew many to the colonies.

This was to serve as reimbursement for the British military’s protection of the colonies. What was taxed such as wills, bills, deeds, newspapers, and even playing cards became too long of a list. In hopes for an end to these taxations, a stamp act resistance rose. Protests included the making of stamp agents or tax collectors’ effigies (look alike dummies) to be burned in the towns. This was successful only to an extent. The stamp act was repealed in 1766, but the government created the Declaratory Act which professed parliament’s full authority to make laws, binding the colonies in whatever cases they determine fit. The British government was now allowed to intercede

These acts then led to the long string of others given out by King. In 1765, Parliament passed the Quartering Act, which required colonists to provide barracks and supplies to British soldier and also the Stamp Act that required stamps to be placed on paper products such as playing cards, pamphlets, almanacs, and newspapers. Unlike the acts before it, the Stamp Act was a direct tax on the colonies and made many believe "the passage of it was not merely an impolitic and unjust law that threatened the priceless right of the individual to retain possession of his property until he or his chosen representative voluntarily gave it up to another; it was to many, also, a danger signal indicating that a more general threat existed" [3]

This offended the English as they needed territories more distant West than the Mississippi

Parliament decided that the colonies should help pay towards the cost of the recent war debt and for future defense. The first step towards this was the Revenue Act of 1764, generally referred to as the Sugar Act. The Sugar Act was also known as “an Act with Teeth,”(Mass Historical Society) symbolizing that it was an act with depth or of importance. The Act itself was divided into two sections. First, it was intended to raise money from trade between the British colonies in America. It levied import duties on a list of raw materials including: sugar, coffee, indigo, wine, rum, lumber, and various cloths. The Sugar Act made the Molasses Act of 1733 perpetual. Although it cut the tax on molasses in half, from sixpence to threepence per gallon, to discourage smuggling and to make the tax attractive. Second, the Act revamped and reinvigorated the customs service, which managed the collection of these import duties. For the first time, colonists argued that Parliament was depriving them of a fundamental constitutional right to have these goods duty free.

One of the acts was the stamp act. This was a way to force the colonies to help pay off the war debt. The British pushed the Stamp Act through Parliament in March 1765. This act required Americans to buy paper, newspapers, playing cards, and legal documents such as wills and a marriage license strictly from

An argument of both the historians Carl Degler and Fred Anderson, is that the Victory over the French by the British in the Seven Years’ War enabled the Americans Revolution by removing the Threat of the French the American colonist

Beginning in 1764, Great Britain began passing acts to exert greater control over the American colonies. The Sugar Act was passed to increase duties on foreign sugar imported from the West Indies. A Currency Act was also passed to ban the colonies from issuing paper bills or bills of credit because of the belief that the colonial currency had devalued the British money. Further, in order to continue to support the British soldiers left in America after the war, Great Britain passed the Quartering Act in 1765. This ordered colonists to house and feed British soldiers if there was not enough room for them in the colonist’s homes. An important piece of legislation that really upset the colonists was the Stamp Act passed in 1765. This required stamps to be purchased or included on many different items and documents such as playing cards, legal papers, newspapers, and more. This was the first direct tax that Britain had imposed on the colonists. Events began to escalate with passage of the Townshend Acts in 1767. These taxes were created to help colonial officials become independent of the colonists by providing them with a source of income. This act led to clashes between British troops and colonists, causing the infamous Boston Massacre. These unjust requests and increasing tensions all led up to the colonist’s declaration as well as the Revolutionary War.

Soon the Quartering Act was passed, directing the colonies to provide quarters for British soldiers. Americans found this oppressive because it meant that soldiers were placed in colonial homes. In 1764 Parliament passed the Stamp Act, putting a duty on most printed materials. This was a normal tax for the British as it had been going on in Britain for a long time, and it made sense that the rest of their empire would pay the same tax. This placed a burden on merchants and the colonial elite who did most legal transactions and read the newspapers. Also passed in the same year was the Declaratory Act, which stated that the colonies were subject to the will of Parliament. This made a lot of sense to the British, as Parliament was their ruling body, but, to the colonies who had become used to their own government during the years of salutory neglect, this was a direct threat to their way of life.

The relations between England and the British North American colonies could always be considered precarious. Prior to 1750 British essentially followed a policy of benign neglect and political autonomy in the American colonies. (Davidson p.97) The colonies were for the most part content with benign neglect policy, relishing in a “greater equality and representative government”(Davidson p.95) within the colonies. Competition among European Imperial nations began to effect British policy toward North America colonies causing rapid shifts from 1750 to 1776. During this period, the British Empire made a series of policy decision that sealed the fate of the British North American

     In order to understand how the relationship between Britain and the American Colonies became so strained, we must first examine the nature of Britain’s imperial authority. Economic relations between the two entities were