The tensions that led to the Revolutionary War began long before the first shot at Lexington and Concord. Colonists were seen as a drain on British economy and Parliament felt the colonists should help pay for the resources that the British had spent to defend them from the French and Indians during the French and Indian War. This economic crisis resulted in forty years of taxation of the colonists by the British geared towards paying for their “care” which resulted in the quest for independence giving birth to a new nation.
Conflict Between Britain and the French
Before 1660, there was very little conflict between the French and the British, but between 1689 and 1815, they fought a series of seven wars. The French and Indian War, 1754 to 1763, was one of them. Each country had conflicting systems of mercantilism that caused "fights" between the two countries over land and resources. Each country acknowledged the potential the Colonies had to grow and add to the population, society, and economic growth of both France and Britain.
By 1608, France had expanded her territory from Quebec to the farthest outreaches of the territory. After the death of the founder of Quebec, Samuel de Champlain, in 1635, the French territories expanded to include the St. Lawrence River and extended almost to the Great Lakes in modern Michigan. The Seven Years War was fought from 1756 to 1763 in Europe and extended to the colonies in the form of the French and Indian War from 1754 to 1763. The French and Indian War resulted in the taxation of the Colonists to pay for the costs of the French and Indian War eventually leading to a declaration of independence.
Taxation Begins
To help pay for the economic drain of defending the Colonies during the Seven Years War the British taxed the Colonists. One method Parliament utilized to tax Colonists in order to pay for their defense was a modified version of the Sugar and Molasses Act of 1738 which was passed in 1764. As a result of this act, the sale of rum and other perishable goods dropped drastically. Other acts included the Currency Act, the Townshend Acts, and the Stamp Act of 1765.
The Currency Act of 1764 required Colonists to pay their taxes and debts in British currency. The act provided another excuse for the British government to tax the Colonists in order to pay for their debts. According to this act, some Colonies had been making their own currency and trying to pay for their debts with unrecognized currency. The following year, the British imposed another act on the colonists in order to increase revenues for paying the cost of military soldiers protecting the colonies.
The Stamp Act of 1765 required a tax stamp to be on all legal documents, almanacs, newspapers and the like and resulted in a boycott of British goods and intimidation of stamp distributors who tried to impose the Stamp Act on the Colonists. With the enabling of this act, Colonists began to see that the British goals for the New World was not for the benefit of the colonies but instead to increase the economy of British society without seeming to show any concern for the Colonists who were paying the taxes.
The taxation without representation was the focus of the Virginia Resolves. The Virginia Burgesses stressed that they, the Colonists, had the right to be taxed by the "people or by persons" chosen by the people to represent them:
WE his Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the late representatives of the good people of this country, having been deprived by the sudden interposition of the executive part of this government from giving our countrymen the advice we wished to convey to them in a legislative capacity […] With much grief we find that our dutiful applications to Great Britain for security of our just, ancient, and constitutional rights, have been not only disregarded, […] by subjecting them to the payment of taxes, imposed without the consent of the people or their representatives; […] which act is, in our opinion, a most dangerous attempt to destroy the constitutional liberty and rights of all North America.
The next act that the British used to force the Colonists to pay for and serve their purposes was the Quartering Act of 1765, also known as Declaratory Act of 1765, which required Colonists to provide supplies and lodging for British soldiers. Colonists were required "to billet and quarter the officers and soldiers, in his Majesty's service, in the barracks provided by the colonies," wine or cider, food, and various other supplies as needed. The Townshend Acts of 1767 required duties be paid on glass, lead, paint, paper and tea being imported into the colonies. Two shillings for red lead, one shilling and two pence for green glass, two shillings for white lead, three pence for tea, the British taxed unmercifully the colonists to further their own economy.
With each successive act, the Colonists became angrier and grew closer to outbreak of war against the British. With each new act by Parliament to increase the economy of their society without giving the Colonists representation to help decide their fate, ignited their anger until it finally exploded in a glorious fight for Independence.
Source:
Thackeray, Frank W. Events that Changed America in the Eighteenth Century. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1998.
