English Colonies Dbq Essay

As the English colonies developed across the 17th and 18th centuries from British ruled lands to colonies yearning for freedom, many factors of the past came into play to influence and unite the many colonies into igniting a revolution that would change the Atlantic World forever whether it was through violence or peaceful means.

Anglicization of the Britain’s American colonies was a big event for the course of not only American or British history, but world history. The colonists adopting many British ways and becoming very patriotic towards the “mother country” had a large effect on the events that unfolded in the late 18th century. While it is true that the American colonists were incredibly British during the beginning to the mid-18th century, the colonies had been around long enough to develop their own culture and way of doing things. The series of events and acts that were imposed on the colonists post French and Indian War got the ball rolling on what came to be known as the American Revolution. The colonists were so fed up with the way in which the British were tightening their hold on the colonies to the point where they were driven to rebellion. The combination of British and underlying American ideals in the pre-revolution era were a necessarily pre-requisite and important component of what would become the American Revolution.

The biggest reason that colonists were becoming disgruntled with their mother country, Britain, was Britain’s heavy debts that Britain had accumulated while fighting wars with France which needed to be alleviated. As with all governments, Britain had to tax its people to procure the funds needed to pay these debts. Britain saw their colonies as thousands of British citizens that they had not taxed satisfactorily. After realizing this, Britain imposed several new taxes on goods imported and exported to and from the colonies. The colonists were livid over the new taxes. After all, Britain had practiced salutary neglect for almost 100 years. Salutary neglect is the practice of leaving one’s foreign acquisitions to their own devices with little to no interference of their government, social, or economic aspects. The colonists immediately began to petition these new taxes. Their logic: “No taxation without representation.”

There were many events that led up to the American Revolution. After the British defeated France and the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1763, Parliament began enforcing colonists to help pay for debts that were accrued during the war. George Grenville, Britain’s chief minister, constructed laws such as the Stamp Act, Sugar Act and Quartering Act. These new policies that set in place tariffs on imports, exports, and regulations on trade, infuriated colonists (Tindall & Shi, pg. 121). Colonist did not want to allow such imposed taxes because the people themselves were not represented as equal British subjects. “The issue of taxation became a question of the colonist’ place in the imperial system” (Calloway, pg. 14). Also, after the British victory in the Seven Year war settlers were eager to expand west. British government wanted the colonist to stay east where trade was a major profit, and to navigate to the north or south. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 establishes the Appalachian Mountains as the boundary line between British and Indian lands. This was in part to keep Indian alliances and to keep control on the settler’s expansion. Henry Ellis, Governor of Georgia, spoke of

The French and Indian war caused debts among the British. The British realized that during the war the income from the colonies was insufficient (document F). After the war, the British needed certain ways in which to gain revenue. They imposed taxes on the Colonists. These taxes, in turn, caused a stir among Americans. The Stamp Act was a tax imposed on the colonists without representation (document H). Their liberties as English citizens were being denied. Radical Whigs would go as far to say it

Economically “In 1763, the average Englishmen paid 26 times as much in taxes each year as the average American colonist paid.” (Shi, Tindall, 120) These taxes were raised because of the war. This money that was coming from the British citizens and was going to “maintaining and defending” (Shi, Tindall, 34) the colonies, and because of this “British leaders thought it [was] only fair that the Americans should pay more.” (Shi, Tindall, 120) So, after all the complaining the Britain’s did British leaders tried to enforce many different taxation “acts” that would lessen the taxes on Britains and raise taxes on colonists. These acts such as the Stamp Act, the Currency Act, and the Sugar Act all ended up falling because the Americans revolted and boycotted the Britain’s in many ways such as, “Thousands signed nonimportation

From the 1650s to the 1750s, the British colonies in America economically thrived under salutary neglect. The British crown would turn a “blind-eye” to merchants and sailors trading with foreign nations– outlawed by Parliament. During this period, the colonists felt as if they had control over the respective state governments and the taxes they paid. However, in the mid-1700s, the period of salutary neglect by the British ended, resulting in greater Parliamentary control and the imposition of many direct taxes, such as the Sugar act of 1764 and the Stamp Act of 1765. These direct taxes angered many colonists, as previously they had been paying indirect taxes, but these direct taxes where place without any direct representation in Parliament.

The Policy of Salutary Neglect gave colonial merchants the opportunity to violate the Navigational Acts due to the fact that there was no enforcement there to stop them. Colonial merchants actually did violate the Navigational Acts by trading with different countries directly such as France and

The French and Indian was a turning point in the American Revolution, and involved various countries around the globe. Many changes in the political lifestyle helped changed the colonies immensely. America wanted its independence more than ever after events that sparked a great shift between the 13 colonies and its mother country. Economic affairs were increasing because of the war and the need for products that the Americans were able to produce. The idea of wanting its independence from Britain was forced upon them after the French and Indian War when Americans felt that they were receiving unfair treatment from Great Britain. The French and Indian War altered British and American relations by changing the colonist's beliefs in

Before 1763, the only British laws that truly affected the colonists were the Navigation Acts, which monitored the colony's trade so that it traded solely with England. As this law

The French and Indian War, a colonial manifestation of the same forces and tensions that erupted in the European Seven Years' War, was, quite simply, a war about imperialism. The French and the English were competing for land and trading rights in North America; these strivings resulted in a great deal of disputed land, particularly that of the rich Ohio Valley. Each nation saw this territory as vital in its effort to increase its own power and wealth while simultaneously limiting the strength of its rival. Although the war itself therefore stemmed from a fairly simple motivation, its consequences were far- reaching. The English victory in the war decided the colonial fate of North America, and yet at the same time sowed the seeds of the eventual colonial revolution. After the war, the British ended their century-long policy of salutary neglect, attempting to keep the colonials under a more watchful eye. The British also raised taxes in an effort to pay for the war. Both of these postwar policies resulted in massive colonial discontent and added to the budding nationalism that eventually exploded in the Revolutionary War.

The historical fact is, new lands attracted thousands of Europeans to North America the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Many left for religious reason and to start their own colonies. Butt most had to earn their freedom with sacrifice and hardships.

The colonists who originally came from England in the early colonial century, faced many acts that took away their rights to make a sturdy profit and acts that taxed them to an extent that was not even reasonable for the people. “Imperial reorganization, many people in England claimed, would increase the profitability of the colonies and the power of the English government to supervise them.”(60) Colonists found it easy to trade with the French, and Dutch for goods that the Mother Country would not supply them with. A good trade relationship formed with the colonies and their foreign trade partners. “For a time, the English government made no serious efforts to restrict this challenge to the principles of mercantilism.”(61) England in 1650 then started passing laws that would regulate colonial trade. The government passed a major law that would keep the colonists from trading with the

Changes in British policies toward the colonies between 1750 and 1776 played paramount in the evolution of relations between British North America and Mother England. Tension between England and the colonies mounted from the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War to the signing of the Declaration of Independence as a result of the several implemented changes imposed by Parliament for the purpose of increasing income and tightening the grip on America.

The outcome of the French and Indian War influenced colonial power in North America, by causing the French to Leave North America Since the French lost the war to the British. British and Spanish colonies gained more land, but even if the war was one and the treaty of Paris was signed by France. Britain needed to pay back the money they were loaned from other countries, in order to win the French and Indian War. So, the King of Britain decided to tax his American colonies to get the extra money they needed. So, he declared three taxes the sugar act taxing sugar and syrup which only affected a small number of colonies, stamp act taxing almost all printed documents, newspapers etc., and the Townshend act which was a tax on imported goods like