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For the English colonies, the French and Spanish colonies were an hindrance to westward expansion, trade and cooperation with Native Americans. They saw the French and Spanish as a potential military threat in the new world. The English, who where mainly protestant, thought of the French and Spanish colonies as a bastion of Roman Catholic Christianity, which bothered them greatly. In 1739, Great Britain declared war on Spain in what was known as the War of Jenkin’s Ear, which was fought mostly in the New World. Then this war merged into the much intenser and larger war of the Austrian Succession, which saw Great Britain and France as opponents. This war started in 1744 and lasted until 1748. The war had turned out to be a draw but intensified British and France rivalry, and both kingdoms increased its military and fortifications in the New World. The population growth of the British continental colonies proved to be a source of tension. In 1700 the population was 250,000, it grew to 1.75 million in the 1760s. The colonists saw the colonies as a very dense populated area even though by today’s standards they are considered to but very low density areas. The colonist decided to push west into the Appalachian Mountains and beyond. They had started to creep into areas already claimed by France. The first people to start the march were fur traders and land speculators. The first people were getting rich because they would get land at a low cost on unsettled land and then would turn around and sell it as a high price to people that would arrive later on. One of these spectators would become very famous, George Washington of Virginia. The English were moving into an area that was claimed by the people who had been there for hundr... ... middle of paper ... ...a lot of colonists think the same way toward the British. Also the congresses that were formed and called upon the colonies to come together to solve certain problems. And finally lead to the 13 colonies to declare war on Britain in a compacted way. Historical Text Archive - Coming of the Revolution, 1754-1775 September 25, 2008 http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=651 History Central - The Quatering Act September 25, 2008 http://www.historycentral.com/Revolt/students/aterms.html CliffsNotes.com. Discontent in the Colonies. 25 Sep 2008 . Nash, Gary B. and Jeffrey, Julie. The American People Creating a Nation and a Society, Fifth Edition. Printed in United States: Copyright 2001. Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc.
During the 18th century, the acts and policies Britain enforced on the colonists strengthened their resistance to British rule and their republican values. The British began to continuously abuse their power over the colonies. As a result, the colonies united against the British and started to fight against their rule.
The relationship between Britain and her Americans colonies slowly deteriorated between the 1750s and the beginning of the American Revolution. When the first British immigrants settled in America, the relationship of the colonies and their mother country was somewhat peaceful. In the following generations, however, their relationship became tenser as Britain imposed policies and taxes on unrepresented American colonists. The British believed they were right in doing so because they had large debts to pay from ongoing wars with France. These taxes caused uprisings among colonists which contributed to British occupation in America, leading to more rebellions. Eventually, the rift in the relationship between the colonists and the British led to the Revolutionary War and the formation of a new country.
Justification of the Colonists' Declaration of Independence from England Were the colonist justified in declaring independence from England? I feel that they had plenty of just cause to separate themselves. England was taxing the colonies without fair representation in Parliament, the British also took away the right to assemble, and they were using different tactics to attempt to intimidate the colonists. One of the greatest thing that angered the colonists was the taxation without representation. The British government had good reason to tax the colonies, because they just went to war to defend them.
Boyer, Paul S. The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People. D.C. Heath and Company, Mass. © 1990
Some say that the Revolution was destined to happen ever since Settlers set foot on this continent, others argue that it would not have happened if it weren't for a set of issues that finally drove the colonists to revolt. Ultimately, Britain lost control in 1765 when they gave in to the Stamp Act Congress’s boycotts against parliamentary taxation and gave them the idea that they had the power to run a country. To a lesser degree, Salutary Neglect led to the conception of a legacy of colonial religious and political ideals which set in motion an eminent conflict. During this period, England “forgot” about the colonies and gave them colonists a taste of independence and suspicions of individual political theories. Through Parliament's ruthless taxation without representation and a near opposite religious and political mindset, Britain and the colonists were heaved into a revolutionary war.
Brinkley, Alan. The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010. Print.
An oppressed people will eventually rise against the oppressor regardless of loyalties they may have had in the past to their oppressor. Humans can only withstand so much oppression before eventually reaching a breaking point-a fact the British Empire failed to realize when they took oppressive actions on their colonies that would cause conflict and culminate into the American Revolution. After claiming victory in the French-Indian War, the British decided to implement policies and taxes in the colonies the colonists that the colonists considered illegal due to lack of their consent. While initially, the colonists did attempt more peaceful and logical alternatives to resolve their discontent with the British Empire, eventually more oppressive taxes and violent events culminated to a full Revolution. Before the revolution, the British had incurred debt from the French-Indian War and needed to raise money: they turned to the colonies as a source of income.
By the time the colonists had settled into their new land they had established some order such as small governments to keep the colonies in line. The ocean separating England and the colonies made it difficult though for England to guide the colonists successfully the way they had wanted. The main thing the British tried was implementing taxes, but they also went so far as letting the colonies on their own for awhile and using military to keep them in place. On the other hand, the colonists saw that the British were stalling their attempts at self-governing so they worked together to disregard any British policies. By the eve of the Revolution, colonists had developed a sense of their identity and unity as Americans that was brought about by the British parliament. Exasperated by British efforts to hinder their growing self-reliance, colonists began pushing them away by doing various things such as rioting, boycotting, or voicing their opinions on paper.
“Is there a single trait of resemblance between those few towns and a great and growing people spread over a vast quarter of the globe, separated by a mighty ocean?” This question posed by Edmund Burke was in the hearts of nearly every colonist before the colonies gained their independence from Britain. The colonists’ heritage was largely British, as was their outlook on a great array of subjects; however, the position and prejudices they held concerning their independence were comprised entirely from American ingenuity. This identity crisis of these “British Americans” played an enormous role in the colonists’ battle for independence, and paved the road to revolution.
By the 1760's many Americans were beginning to become dissatisfied with their mother nation and were waging a war of resistance against the British colonial government.
The French and Indian War, otherwise known as the Seven Years’ War was an imperial war conflict between Great Britain and the French. “The French
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 connection between Britain and the English colonies was that of the ruling of the colonies by the king of Britain, King George III and his parliament. The king’s ruling was very unfavorable for the colonists because of his tyrannic dictatorship and unjustly taxations. The mere thought of an island ruling an entire continent thousands of miles away with poor communication and lack of supervision of the colonies by the king, did not work in favor of the colonies nor for Britain. Three contributing factors for the outbreak of the American Revolution were (1) the king’s taxes, (2) neglect of the 13 colonies and (3) England’s mercantilism policy. King George III and his decisions were one of the major causes that had the English colonists fumed with anger towards Britain and this eventually led to the American Revolution.
After a brief season of peace, the colonists were obliged to face another long and murderous war. Queen Anne's War was the second in a series of four wars fought between France and Great Britain in North America for control of the continent.
Nash, G. B., Jeffery, J., Howe, J., Winkler, A., Davis, A., Mires, C., et al. (2010). The American people: creating a nation and a society. (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Education