King George III, and Debts

Meanwhile there had been a big change in England. King George III assumed the throne in 1760 (he ruled until 1820). He openly controlled Parliament, bribing men to do anything he wanted by placing them in positions of power. This significantly altered the face of Parliament, and the majority became much less sympathetic to the colonies. The ruling sentiment was that the colonies should be obliged to pay for their own expenses, rather than depending on the mother county (England). .

England felt that the colonists hadn't paid their fair share of the war expenses. To keep from spending any more money, England was eager to make peace with the Indians and stop fighting. England passed the Proclamation Act of 1763, forbidding colonists from settling west of Appalachians and forcing them to stop buying land from Indians. The logic behind the Proclamation Act was that as long as the colonists stayed in the colonies and had nothing to do with Indians, there should be peace. Little did the British know that peace would not last for long in the colonies, and that when war did break out again, it would be against the British themselves.

Tension Grows

The Proclamation Act imposed an enormous burden on the colonies. When it passed in 1763, 90% of the colonial economy depended on farming. Farmers needed land to grow valuable crops of tobacco, corn, rice, indigo, and wheat, but the Proclamation Act confined them to the land they already had in the colonies. The other 10% of the colonial economy involved fishing and whaling in New England and timber, but the overwhelming majority of colonists were farmers, and the Proclamation Act was detrimental to their growth.

The first true crisis began around 1763 when Parliament allocated money to maintain a standing army in the colonies. More than 1500 ships began to patrol American waters. This new vigilance on Britain's part was early evidence of her changing relationship to her colonies, foreshadowing the greater tension to come.

The first of these tax burdens was the Sugar Act. As its name suggests, this act imposed taxes on sugar, but it also imposed additional burdens. The Sugar Act placed stricter regulations on all shipping, stopped the colonies from importing rum, and lowered molasses tariffs that had been benefiting the colonies.

Colonists disliked these events, but only with the passage of the Stamp Act did they become truly angry. The Stamp Act was an undisguised attempt to bring the British more money, the first time Parliament directly taxed the colonies. It required that legal papers, cards, dice, newspapers, degrees, land documents, and appointments to office bear stamps (not postage stamps) showing that coin tax had been paid. Subtly, the British were suppressing vocal writers and lawyers by making their professions more costly. The public, and especially the media, was outraged.

A few months later, Britain passed the Quartering Act. The Quartering Act required colonial governments to house British troops at their own expense. The troops were to be housed in inns, abandoned homes, and government buildings. The Act mandated that "all such officers and soldiers ... be furnished and supplied ... with fire, candles, vinegar, and salt, bedding, utensils ... without paying anything for the same."

Anger by the colonists against the King, which existed before the Stamp Act and Quartering Act, rose to a fever pitch. The colonists held to a strong argument against England's oppression: taxation without representation. The colonists pointed out that they were not represented in British Parliament when these taxes were passed. The colonies could not elect anyone who was making these decisions. The colonists had no "say" in the matter. To confront the problems, nine colonies met with each other in the Stamp Act Congress in New York City in October 1765. This was the first time the colonists had come together to consider protesting. They sent a petition to the King. Later, a boycott of British goods was organized.

In Massachusetts, Sam Adams created the Sons of Liberty during July 1765. This group strongly protested the Stamp Act and forced British-appointed stamp agent Andrew Oliver to resign.

When stamp agents in the other colonies realized how unpopular they were, most of them resigned also. The few that remained were pressured to resign, and sometimes forced, as in the case of Jared Ingersoll. "They caught Ingersoll at Wethersfield and silently and pointedly led him under a large tree. They parlayed for hours ..., with Ingersoll squirming, arguing and refusing to resign. The crowds ... grew so large and threatening that finally Ingersoll read his resignation to the mob and yielded to the demand that he throw his hat in the air and cheer for 'Liberty and Property.'"

In 1767, Charles Townshend replaced William Pitt in Britain as leader in the British House of Commons. Pitt had been generous to the colonies, and quite popular in America. But Townshend viewed America as an opportunity for imposing taxes on the colonies in order to increase revenue for the benefit of the English government. His attempts to do this were a series of taxes called the Townshend Acts. They taxed paper, lead, paint, and tea in colonies to pay salaries of royal judges and governors..

Discontent with England grew. In 1768, Massachusetts wrote a defiant letter to the British and the letter was endorsed (co-signed) by New Hampshire, Virginia, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Georgia, and South Carolina.

A harsh response came from across the Atlantic in Britain, ordering Massachusetts to revoke their letter, and admonishing other states to have no part in stirring up resentment toward Britain. In June, more troops arrived from England.

Next, the colonists boycotted British goods. The boycott was very effective. British imports fell from 2,157,218 pounds to 1,336,122 pounds between 1768 and 1769.

Feeling the strength of the colonies once again, Britain repealed the Townshend Acts, but the tea tax remained. This tension would explode on the night of December 16, 1773, when the Boston Tea Party occurred.

Violence Begins

Bent on breaking the colonists' boycott of English tea, England next passed the Tea Act of 1773. A large British tea company, the East India Company, lobbied for and obtained monopoly (exclusive) rights from the England. The East India Company had a huge inventory of tea and received an exception from the tea tax. This enabled the East India Company to import tea from their huge inventory to Boston Harbor, where they planned to undersell colonial merchants. The Puritans of Massachusetts were outraged. They tried to have the tea turned back to England, but the royally appointed governor refused. On December 16, 1773, a group of colonists led by Samuel Adams disguised themselves as Indians and boarded the tea ships. They dumped all of its tea into Boston Harbor; this was the "Boston Tea Party." The task took an entire night, as the ships contained 350 chests of tea, costing about 1.87 million dollars in wasted tea (converted to today's dollars).

As punishment, Britain passed harsh laws, which were given pejorative names by the colonists: the Coercive Acts or, alternatively, the Intolerable Acts. These laws revoked Massachusetts' charter, closed Boston Harbor, installed a British general as governor, and repealed liberties like the right to hold town meetings. The closing of the harbor, in particular, was a sore blow to Massachusetts, whose economy was largely dependent on fishing and whaling.

In defiance, public sentiment turned violently against tea. Coffee gradually replaced it, and continues to be more popular than tea in America to this day. In Boston today, there is still no tax on tea as a tribute to the Boston Tea Party.

The British also passed the Quebec Act, which gave Canadians part of the Ohio Valley. This further infuriated the colonists. In addition, the Act gave the French more freedoms, such as freedom of religion for the Catholic Church. Colonists were angered because (1) they felt people in Quebec were getting more freedoms than they had and (2) they feared establishment of an Anglican Church in America.

Although many colonists remained loyal to the King and had hoped to keep peace, conflicts worsened and emotions boiled over.

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 779