TOWARD INDEPENDENCE

By Joseph Eulo

At the conclusion of the ‘Seven years war’ in 1763 British contempt for the American colonists came to a fever pitch. They were, dissatisfied with the colonist performance in the conflict and dismissed their role in the effort to defeat the French and the Indians in North America. They thought of the colonist as ungrateful, and took full credit for the victory (Reilly). Their scornful attitudes toward the American colonists multiplied as a result of the illegal trade between the colonists and the French. American merchants traded animal pelts with the Indians and smuggled molasses with the French during the war. American merchants did so to avoid paying the six pence per gallon tax imposed by the Sugar and Molasses Act of 1733. British leaders were angry with this and looked upon colonists and smuggling as treasonous. They utterly believed that it was the root cause of extension of the war and reason behind a £123 million war debt (Roark 139).

This huge debt compounded with the dramatic change in British attitudes toward the colonist provided a series of British Parliamentary leaders throughout the 1760s with justification to exert control over the colonial legislature and institute policy that coerced colonists to pay the growing debt (Reilly). The colonist thought differently, spoiled by Briton’s fifty year policy of ‘Salutary Neglect’ they became bold and defiant to British demands (”History of Colonial America“). Colonist believed that their rights and liberties as British subjects were being violated (Roark 139).

In 1760, George III became king; he was young and naive and did not know who he could trust. So he appointed the Earl of Bute, his Scottish tutor, as his Prime minister (Roark 138). Bute also inexperienced made mistakes and the one that is engraved in history is his decisions to keep British Troops in North America after the last battle in 1760. Bute’s decision started a chain reaction that eventually led to the American Revolution. Bute’s excuse for the presence of Troops in the colonies was to keep an eye on French leftovers in Quebec (Reilly) and to respond to the Indian threat (Roark 137).

Bute’s decision was vindicated in 1763 three months after the “Peace of Paris” was signed (Reilly). Pontiac the Indian chief of the Ottawa tribe of northern Ohio led an attack against a British fort near Detroit. This sparked off a series of attacks that involved other tribes from New York, the Ohio Valley, and the Great Lakes region on British forts and frontier settlements. When it was over some 2,000 British soldiers, traders, and settlers were dead (Roark 138). Although ‘Pontiacs Uprising’ was put down by the end of 1763 by colonial and British soldiers, the tension between American Indians and the ‘white man’ were still high (Reilly), and led King George III to issue the Royal Proclamation of 1763 (”American Revolution”).

The royal Edict prohibited colonists from settling on the west side of the Appalachian Mountains (Roark 138) and required all lands within the Indian Territory occupied by Englishmen to be abandoned. British leaders wanted to establish a policy toward Indians before settlers settled there, and decide what they were going to do with the Indians (”Royal Proclamation of 1763″). The Proclamation was meant to separate Indians and settlers and minimize the violence between the two groups (”Royal Proclamation of 1763″).

The Proclamation also outlined a list of illegal activities and provided for enforcement of new laws (Reilly). It restricted trade with the Indians only to licensed traders appointed by colonial governors, and outlawed the private sales of Indian land. It was also a means for the British to control the settlers and keep them on the east coast, so they would be easier to supervise. The Proclamation Irritated colonist some obeyed the Edict and moved back to the east side of the Appalachian Mountains and some stayed knowing full well that had no protection (Reilly). Land speculators did not want to give up their claims to these lands and wouldn’t lose the chance to make a profit from the sale of land to surging population looking to buy it up (Reilly).

British officials had to address the huge debt incurred by the war and fund the standing army in the American colonies. They knew they were going to have a hard time raising the money to reduce the deficit. At the time citizens in England were already heavily taxed. They knew it would be difficult to get them to pay more (Reilly), and needed to find another way to raise the capital if they wanted to pay down their debt. They also needed to deal with the smuggling problem they were having in North America. They felt smuggling cost them money because people smuggled to avoid paying taxes (”Stamp Act”). Especially for molasses, because it was cheaper to bribe officials and smuggle then to pay the six pence per gallon tax.

King George III turned to a series of prime minister to address a huge war debt, an ongoing expense of supporting a standing Army in the colonies, and an empire wide smuggling problem (Reilly). In 1763 George Grenville replaced the Earl of Bute and attempted to tackle England’s financial woes with ‘The Revenue Act of 1764′ also so know as the Sugar Act. Greenville’s Sugar Act modified the Sugar and Molasses Act of 1733. It reduced the tax on molasses from six pence per gallon to three pence per gallon (Reilly) and improved enforcement by increasing the amount of paperwork needed to prove cargo was legal. ‘The Sugar Act’ also raised penalties for smuggling, if a merchant was caught with smuggled sugar they would lose their entire cargo, and would be tried at a Vice Admiralty court in Nova Scotia (Reilly). The idea was to make smuggling difficult, expensive and a nuisance so that merchants would stop smuggling and just pay the tax (Reilly).

Grenville’s Sugar Act also increased the length of the Navigational Acts enumerated products list which included certain wines, coffee, pimiento, and fabrics, and even regulated the export of lumber and iron. Under the Navigational Acts products shipped within the British Empire had to be shipped to England first, and then shipped to other colonies (”United States History”). This was a way to restrict trade that benefitted English merchants and increased the amount of money the British received in taxes, a way for them to double dip (Reilly). This enforcement of taxes on molasses caused an instant drop in business for the rum industry in the colonies.

The overall effect of the new duties sharply reduced trade with the Canary Islands and the French West Indies, which were important destinations for American made products. Grenville’s Sugar Act disrupted the colonial economy by reducing colonial access to markets for their products and made British goods too expensive to buy (”Sugar and Molasses Acts”). The American colonist reaction to the Sugar act varied (Reilly). Southern colonists were not concerned as much as their Northern neighbors mainly because smuggling was not as widespread there as it was in New England (Reilly).

Smuggling was a lucrative part of the shipping business In New England and New Englanders responded with a non-importation movement (Reilly). New Englanders argued that once the British parliament realizes they can tax them and get away with it they will do it more and more; gradually shifting the tax burden from the voters in England, to whom they are accountable, to the colonist who can’t vote them out of office (Reilly). American merchants insisted it wasn’t the smuggling they were griping about, it was the way of taxing them, they were complaining about and it was not fair. Grenville’s Sugar Act and the Currency act that followed catalyzed and unified American attitudes towards defiance when the news of the Stamp Act reached the colonies seven months before it was enacted.

Greenville’s Sugar Act failed to make any significant impact on the England’s national debt, so in an attempt to generate other revenue the Stamp Act was passed In February 1765. The Stamp Act of 1765 required the American colonists to apply tax stamps to all official documents, including deeds, mortgages, newspapers, and pamphlets which angered publishers and affected the most powerful of colonial society (”Stamp Act”). News of The Stamp Act arrived to the colonies seven months prior to its effect (Roark 142). Many colonists were dissatisfied with parliaments attempt to imposed this tax especially when the tax would be imposed during an economic downturn in the colonies.

Colonist argued that the stamp act was worse than the Sugar Act. In response a secret patriotic society called the Sons of Liberty was established. Samuel Adams led the group to oppose the Stamp Act. The Sons of Liberty was made up of men mainly shopkeepers, craftsman, dockworkers, and laborers. They protested in the streets and incited mobs to attack official stamp agents and destroy their property (Roark 143).

A number of the colonial assemblies adopted resolutions that officially protested the act. The House of Burgess in Virginia was the first to pass a series of resolutions on the Stamp Act that came to be known as the Virginia Resolves (Roark 142). Newspapers from all over the American colonies published the resolutions and stoked the fire of American opposition to the Stamp Act. Other Colonial assemblies followed suit and began to question Parliament’s authority to tax them, they distinguished between internal and external legislation intended on creating taxes.

In October, one month before the Stamp Act was to go into effect, the Stamp Act Congress met in New York to discuss ways of protesting the tax. Colonial merchants agreed to stop importing British goods, Colonists would refused to use the stamps on business papers, and courts would not enforce their use on legal documents. No ‘taxation without representation’ was their battle cry (Reilly).

The loss of trade and fears that the colonies would not pay their debts stirred up opposition to the Stamp Act among the British merchants. They complained to British Parliament and in 1766, the Stamp Act was rescinded. However the British government passed the Declaratory Act, which asserted Parliaments right to tax the colonies. The resistance to the Stamp Act unified American colonists and gave them the confidence to demand more political control over themselves.

After the Stamp Act was abolished in 1766 a group of men known as the Sons of Liberty pushed to shift united attitudes of protest against unjust taxation, towards independence. The Sons of Liberty had many local chapters, and formed Committees of Correspondence to encourage resistance to tyrannical British economic and political actions. They also helped enforce the policy of nonimportation, by which American merchants agreed to refuse to import goods carried in British ships. In 1774, this group of men took part in assembling together a meeting of representatives from all the American colonies to form the Continental Congress.

The Declaratory Act of 1766 reasserting parliamentary authority and claimed that parliament had the right to pass any legislation it chose for the colonies. Many colonists celebrated March 18th as a holiday the day the stamp act was appealed. They ignored the declaratory act and its significance and became bolder, more unrepentant, and undisciplined. Americans felt they had won and forced parliament to back down and could do it again if they wanted to. The relationship between the colonies and England would never be the same; both sides were steadily becoming more suspicious, hostile, and stubborn in their positions.

1763 marked a major turning point in the relationship between the American Colonies and the rest of British Empire. The huge debt created as the result of the ‘Seven years war’ was blamed on the colonist because of their smuggling. The contempt for the colonist evolved into justification to strengthen the Empire’s grip on them. Fifty years of ‘Salutatory Neglect’ gave the American colonists an opportunity to grow politically and economically. It permitted them to develop their own identity separate from England and give them justification to rebel against British attempts to manipulate, control, and tax them. The end of the conflict against the French in North American and the huge debt incurred combined with the Proclamation of 1763, the Sugar Act led to escalation of American rebellion against many British attempts to tax, punish, and control them. The Sons of Liberty unified the American colonies and focused their attention towards Independence.

Works Cited

“American Revolution “ Microsoft Encarta 2007. 16 ed. CD-ROM. Redmond: Microsoft Corporation

“History of Colonial America.”Microsoft Encarta 2007. 16 ed. CD-ROM. Redmond: Microsoft Corporation

Reilly, Gretchen Ann. “American History before 1870.” Podcast. Dr. Gretchen Ann Reilly. iTunes. August 2007. Temple College Temple, TX, 2006. <http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=212324647>

Roark, James L., et al. The American Promise: A Compact History, Third Edition. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007.

“Royal Proclamation of 1763.” Microsoft Encarta 2007. 16 ed. CD-ROM. Redmond: Microsoft Corporation (”Stamp Act”) Microsoft Encarta 2007. 16 ed. CD-ROM. Redmond: Microsoft Corporation (”Sugar and Molasses Acts”) Microsoft Encarta 2007. 16 ed. CD-ROM. Redmond: Microsoft Corporation

“United States History.” Microsoft Encarta 2007. 16 ed. CD-ROM. Redmond: Microsoft Corporation