The development of the American colonies throughout the 1700s led to the American Revolutionary War and the colonies declaring freedom from Great Britain. The colonies were thriving and succeeding under their own establishment and own sense of leadership. While each colony developed their own system of jurisdictions under Great Britain, they each develop differently. The individuality of each of the colonies allowed them to progress and eventually work together from the obscure laws of England. The Virginia and Massachusetts colonies influence the American people to fight for their rights against Britain. Great Britain’s irrational jurisdictions placed on the colonies such as the Sugar Act, Stamp Act, and virtual representation led Virginia and Massachusetts to undertake American soil as their own. First, the establishment and development of the Virginia Colony will have greater influence in the movement to freedom. Jamestown was “the first permanent English settlement in North America, establish in 1607…by the Virginia Company” (Roak 53). The settlement of Jamestown gave birth to the Virginia Colony and through this giving birth to a house of government. The House of Burgesses was the mecca of government as “…an assembly of representatives (called burgesses) elected by the colony’s …show more content…
The Stamp Act and the Coercive (Intolerable) Acts was what pushed the Massachusetts Colony to seek freedom from England. “The Stamp Act imposed a tax on all paper used for official documents…”(Roak 141). This placed greater taxation on the people which revenue was primarily sent to England for profit. Massachusetts was not going to serve as an example of exploitation from England. They decided to act upon the irrational laws against England. The second act under the Coercive Acts, established “…underscoring Parliament’s claim to supremacy over Massachusetts” (Roak
Leading up to the time of the Revolutionary War, seven policies were passed by Britain in hopes of controlling the colonies. These acts culminated in the Quebec Act which persuaded many Americans into supporting the revolutionary effort. The Proclamation of 1763 was the first policy passed by the British. This forbid any settlement west of Appalachia because the British feared conflicts over territory in this region. The proclamation, however, infuriated the colonists who planned on expanding westward. The Sugar Act was passed shortly after in 1764. This act sought harsher punishment for smugglers. The next act to be passed was possibly the most controversial act passed by Britain. The Stamp Act passed in 1765 affected every colonist because it required all printed documents to have a stamp purchased from the British authority. The colonist boycotted British goods until the Stamp Act was repealed but quickly replaced by the Declaratory Act in 1766. The British still held onto the conviction that they had the right to tax the Americans in any way they deemed necessary. The Declaratory Act was followed by the Townshend Acts of 1767. This imposed taxes on all imported goods from Britain, which caused the colonies to refuse trading with Britain. Six years passed before another upsetting act was passed. In 1773, the Tea Act placed taxes on tea, threatening the power of the colonies. The colonies, however, fought back by pouring expensive tea into the Boston harbor in an event now known as the Boston Tea Party. The enraged Parliament quickly passed the Intolerable Acts, shutting down the port of Boston and taking control over the colonies.
In the 1760s King George III enacted the Sugar Act and the Stamp act to gain extra revenue from his colonies. King George III decided to enact heavier taxes to put money back into the empire that had been lost after the French and Indian War. This act levied heavy taxes on sugar imported from the West Indies. The Stamp Act in 1765 required that many items have a stamp to prove that the owner had payed for the taxes on the item. The problem the colonists had with it was that it increased the presence of English troops in the Colonies and they felt it was unneeded and only meant to put more control into Great Britain's hands.
Without colonial consent, the British started their bid to raise revenue with the Sugar Act of 1764 which increased duties colonists would have to pay on imports into America. When the Sugar Act failed, the Stamp Act of 1765 which required a stamp to be purchased with colonial products was enacted. This act angered the colonists to no limit and with these acts, the British Empire poked at the up to now very civil colonists. The passing of the oppressive Intolerable Acts that took away the colonists’ right to elected officials and Townshend Acts which taxed imports and allowed British troops without warrants to search colonist ships received a more aggravated response from the colonist that would end in a Revolution.
In order to have successfully emerged into mercantilism, both colonies had to have been economically self- sufficient, equally balanced within trade, held possession of merchant fleets, and functioned under the control of England 's regulation of trade. Both the Northern and Southern colonies are similar in regards to having attained all of the following characteristics necessary for mercantilism. However the royal English trade and navigation laws towards shipping, buying, selling, and manufacturing ultimately hindered both colonies from fully succeeding financially. Thus, the colonies identically suffered from instability as a result of unfair royal authority. Through parliaments bias passing of the Sugar Act, Stamp Act, and other numerous laws that were merely employed in order to garner money for England, the colonies acknowledged such illogical notions and protested. Thus, the colonists united together against the King of England and his tariffs and sought their independence away from the crown. However, it was only through the success of the American Revolution that both colonies diminished their individual forms of governing, and in turn established a singular democratic society. Initially, the relationship between the colonies was limited and nonexistent. Nevertheless, England’s unfair ‘taxation without representation” fundamentally integrated the colonies and empowered their relationship with each
Between 1607 and 1733, Great Britain established thirteen colonies in the New World along the land’s eastern coast. England’s colonies included Virginia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maryland, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, North Carolina, South Carolina, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Georgia. Though the colonies were classified as New England, middle or southern colonies, the colonists developed a unifying culture. With this new American culture, the colonists throughout the colonies began to think differently than their English cousins. Because colonial America displayed characteristics of a democratic society and, therefore, deviated from England’s monarchic ways, it was established as a democratic society.
The imperial tactics of the British Empire were exercised on the colonists through heavy taxes trade restrictions because of their mercantilist economy. The Stamp Act taxed the colonists directly on paper goods ranging from legal documents to newspapers. Colonists were perturbed because they did not receive representation in Parliament to prevent these acts from being passed or to decide where the tax money was spent. The colonists did not support taxation without representation. The Tea Act was also passed by Parliament to help lower the surplus of tea that was created by the financially troubled British East India Company. The colonists responded to this act by executing the Boston Tea Party which tossed all of the tea that was imported into the port of Boston. This precipitated the Boston Port Act which did not permit the colonists to import goods through this port. The colonists protested and refused all of these acts which helped stir the feelings of rebellion among the colonists. The British Mercantilist economy prevented the colonists from coin...
The Early British colonies in America were founded and developed by people with different ideas and beliefs. Through their development they enjoyed freedoms and opportunities that would not of been available in England. When colonies felt these freedoms were infringed upon they resisted against British rule, ultimately realized the best way to resist was to do so cooperatively.
Although put into effect only a year after the less-contested Sugar and Currency Acts, Parliament received more significant pushback on the passage of this tax when colonists formed the Stamp Act Congress in October of the same year. At the Stamp Act Congress, delegates expressed frustration about another tax levied by Parliament and stated, “it is inseparably essential to the freedom of a people, and the undoubted right of Englishmen, that no taxes should be imposed on [the people], but with their own consent, given personally, or by their representatives.” This reaction to the tax was the most active resistance colonists expressed to Parliament, but this also showed the deepening divide between how colonists’ view of their rights and Parliament’s view of the colonists’ rights. Colonists started viewing Parliament’s taxes as an infringement upon the rights entitled to them as British subjects, yet the lack of revolt against the Sugar and Currency Acts showed Parliament could justify taxes levied against the colonists without their consent. To placate the colonists, Parliament repealed the Stamp Act in March of 1766 but reminded colonists of the sovereignty they held over and ability to tax them with the simultaneous passage of the Declaratory Act. Colonists felt elated and empowered because of their success in achieving the Stamp Act’s repeal. They believed they fought against taxation without their consent, yet the Declaratory Act quickly reminded colonists that they held little political power in the empire. The act was a turning point in the ever-growing division between Parliament and the British American colonies. Parliament saw a need to reassert their authority across the Atlantic where recent successes with rebellions planted political confidence and a colonial political identity began taking
The tyranny of the Crown created turmoil politically. Its restriction of legislative power of the colonists further separated the two. The friction between Massachusetts and the Crown for legislative power is a prime example of this. The Parliaments political platform throughout the course of the rising nation did not sit well with the settlers. And thus, added to the struggle for independence. The Virginia Company’s attempt to gain the local Natives failed, and cause a separation between the two. This was mended with the creation of local economies boosted by
American colonies have been building themselves from the ground since day one. However, Great Britain thinks that the colonies are how they are now was all thanks to the supports of England. After the war French and Indian War, the Parliament believes that it is the colonies’ duties to help Great Britain with the enormous debt. As a result, the Stamp Act is passed in an unfair and unjustified manner. In fact, the colonies did not have any saying in the matter of passing the Act. Therefore, the Stamp Act, as the very least, should not be applied to them.
The colonies and Great Britain had different notions about the nature of their relationship. The British believed that the colonies were an extension of the mother land but did not hold the same prestige since the colonies were to serve a need, not the other way around. The Declaratory Act said, “…That the said colonies and plantations in America have been, are, and of right ought to be, subordinate unto, and dependent upon the imperial crown and parliament of Great Britain…” (Pickering). This was written by the British Parliament demonstrates that the colonies were never meant to operate independently but under the direct control of the crown. If Britain was the market place, the colonies were the factories that the British government started.
Self-government and individual freedom were not easy things to accomplish for the colonists in colonial america but they were what they needed to live the life they wanted. They wanted to be allowed citizens to take part in decision that have to do with the wellbeing of the country. As a self-governing colony they were entitled to elect rulers who do not have to answer to England or another imperial power. The people they voted for would be part of a council where rules were made to control the colonies. Individual freedom and self-government were major parts of the revolution and greatly influenced what America is today.
So the government decided to place taxes in. The Stamp Act was taxes, the Stamp Act it states, “Right and Power to lay Taxes and Impositions upon the inhabitants of this Colony.” It was hard for the merchant to trade because they had to pay taxes to people. In Zinn it said that merchants helped start a protest against the stamp act, “A political group in Boston called the Loyal Nine-merchants, distillers, shipowners, and master craftsmen who opposed the Stamp Act-organized a procession in August 1765 to protest it.” This shows that they didn’t like being tax. In “We are equally Free,” in said “Two years earlier, some merchants had organized boycotts against certain products imported from Great Britain (a strategy known as nonimportation) to resist British taxation measures aimed at the rebellious Americans.” As shown by this tried to protest
There were a myriad of differences between Great Britain and her American colonies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but these differences can be divided into three basic categories: economic, social, and political. The original American settlers came to the colonies for varied reasons, but a common trait among these settlers was that they still considered themselves British subjects. However, as time passed, the colonists grew disenfranchised from England. Separated from the king by three thousand miles and living in a primitive environment where obtaining simple necessities was a struggle, pragmatism became the common thread throughout all daily life in the colonies. It was this pragmatism that led the colonists to create their own society with a unique culture and system of economics and politics.
From the year the first people found America continent, the British government became the ruler of America. The Parliament made the colonies conquered the Native American tribes. But later on, the British ignored what the colonies did for them, and started to cause troubles for the colonies. When it is at the point where the Parliament issued the acts of unaffordable taxes, with so much bad thing built up, the colonies united together and started to fight. After seven years of the American revolution, the society had experienced dramatic changes on people’s life.