Were the American colonists unreasonable in their response to the British need to raise revenue for payment of the French and Indian War? Organize your argument into an introduction with a thesis and supporting paragraphs. Use evidence to support your argument. In 1763 after the French and Indian War the British were left with a large debt to pass of from helping the Native Americans. In order for the government to be to pay this off, they needed to tax the colonists. This lead to the British Parliament passing and repealing taxes and acts that all lead up to the American Revolution. The response from the American colonists were mostly reasonable, due to the fact that the British were violating their rights. Some ways they reacted to the taxations were: protesting, boycotting, and rebellion. An example of protesting as their response is when the British Government passed the Stamp Act, which stated that everything that the colonists bought that was a printed document, such …show more content…
An example that resulted in rebellion as the response was the Tea Act passed the parliament in 1773. The Tea Act was passed by the British government to save the British East India Company from bankruptcy. By saving them from bankruptcy, the British would give the East India Company a monopoly on tea sales in the colonies. Although this act made it so that the tea would be cheaper as well as having to pay less taxes on tea than they had to, they were still upset. Another thing that made the colonists angry was that because merchants would make less money on the tea under the newer tax. This Act ended up causing the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773, in which colonists boarded East India Company ships dressed up as Native Americans and dumped their loads of tea overboard. This action was reasonable because it demonstrated the colonists determination to stand up for their rights, and showing how willingly they would be to go to
After the French and Indian War, Great Britain was in tremendous debt and had additional land to rule. By cause of their debt and their obligation to their new land, they began to put taxes on the colonists living in that land. The colonists were enraged because they were getting taxed without representation in British Parliament. Two acts that caused some of these reactions are the Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts. Overall, British actions after 1763 caused numerous reactions from the colonists, which led to the American Revolution.
After the French and Indian War, the British were unimpressed with the colonial war efforts and generally assumed they were unable to defend the western frontier, whereas the colonists thought they had done well in all of the wars and were confident that they could defend themselves. This led to conflict between the two nations, brought on by the costs of the wars. Landowners in Britain wanted to reduce the taxes placed upon them. King George III and the Whigs supported a colonial policy that would abandon salutary neglect and force the colonies to support the cost of the British empire. In addition to this the British began to be more present in the colonies, beginning with Pontiac’s rebellion where the British sent troops instead of letting the colonial forces respond to the attack, because of their thoughts on the colonists military efforts. The Proclamation o...
The number one reason that the colonists began protests, and boycotts, against the British was because they believed their natural rights as citizens were being violated. After the french and Indian War Great Britain was in massive debt. So the King began to tax the colonies. For example the heavy taxes in the colonies led to the Boston Massacre and to the Boston Tea Party. The British then adopted the policy of mercantilism.
With out competition the East India Company had full control over the prices they set. This infuriated the Colonists. Pamphlets and protests did not seem to be cutting it anymore, so some felt like action needed to be taken. The Sons of Liberty answered the call. In an act of defiance, “a few dozen of the Sons of Liberty, opposing new British laws in the colonies, systematically dumped three shiploads of tea into Boston harbor. They acted to prevent the royal authorities from collecting taxes on that import” (Bell). This made left Parliament infuriated. They did what they only know how to do and put a tighter squeeze on the colonists. Their answer was the Coercive Acts, also known as the Intolerable Acts in the Colonies. The first of these acts was the Boston Port Bill. This bill shut down the Boston Harbor, the livelihood of many Bostonians. It would not re-open until the tea that was dumped could be paid off. Another one of the Intolerable Acts was the Massachusetts Government Act, in which they had to hand their government over to royal officials. Many saw this as too far or unacceptable. As shown by the statement, “Most historians agree that the Intolerable Acts were among the leading causes of the American Revolution (1775–83) as the legislation galvanized opposition to British political and economic policies in the
In the first few months of 1773 the British East India Company found it was sitting on large stocks of tea that it could not sell in England. It was on the verge of bankruptcy, and many members of Parliament owned stock in this company. (USA, 1) The Tea Act in 1773 was an effort to save it. The Tea Act gave the company the right to export its merchandise without paying taxes. Thus, the company could undersell American merchants and monopolize the colonial tea trade. By October, the Sons of Liberty in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston threatened tea imports and pledged a tea boycott.
After the French and Indian War, the British government decided to make the American colonies pay a large share of the war debt with new taxes that they issued. The English ...
In the 1770’s the American colonists were being taxed too much by the British and they started to want their independence. Britain was taxing the colonists to pay their debts from the French and Indian War. The colonists started to fight back by tarring and feathering some tax collectors. Britain sent troops to the colonies which caused more problems.
The American revolution was a reaction to unfavorable tax policies from the King of England. When the King of England began to infringe on the colonists’ liberties, leaders inspired by the enlightenment grouped together to defend the rights of the American colonies. As Thomas Jefferson writes in the Declaration of Independence, “History of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries ad usurpations,
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 British were trying to control the Americans entirely, with their monopoly on trade, and also thought that the Americans would do everything they demanded them to do. The colonists soon figured out Great Britain's angle on the situation. That was, they didn't understand why they were forced to pay taxes to the British, when they had no say in Britain's actions.
The Boston tea party was a brief incident among many, composing, economic, and political crisis that ultimately caused a revolution. These events consisted of The French and Indian war, the Stamp Act, the Townshend Revenue Act, the Tea Act, and of course the Boston Tea Party. The incident caused by the colonies infuriated the British government therefore as punishment parliament responded to the abuse with the Coercive Acts of 1774 . When the thirteen colonies once again decided to resist the British troops revolution spread. “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” This act later on lead to the American Revolutionary War, were years later independence was
According to the article, some Boston citizens disagreed and decided to protest the British tax on the tea that was being imported to the colonies. Most acts to tax the colonies fell through, but this one was successful to demonstrate the power of parliament to tax the colonies. Even though the price of British tea was cheaper, the colonists did not want to pay the taxes on it. This information supports the reason why the colonists wanted to act upon the British.
The first example of Colonial protest against British Laws is the protest of the Greenville Laws. To protest the Greenville laws colonists boycotted British goods and boycotted stamps. The second example of colonial protest to British laws is the protest of the Townshend Acts of 1767 American colonists protested these British laws. The American colonists did this by self-producing homespun clothes and manufacturing their own goods. The colonists also reasserted colonial stance through the publication of “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania”. The third example of protest is the Boston Tea Party in response to the Tea Act of 1773. Tea Act of 1773 allowed
In 1765 after parliament passed the 1765 Stamp act was the first major disagreement towards the British policy. With the perception of the no taxation without representation, colonists bought together the Congress to express their disagreement to the tax. With the Stamp Act ratification, the majority of colonists wanted to boycott against the British goods. After the boycott, parliament voted to revoke the Stamp Act in 1766. Most colonists continued to accept British policy until parliament's ratified the 1773 Tea Act. In reaction to the ratification of the 1773 Tea Act, colonist in Boston Massachusetts arranged the Boston Tea Party. When parliament found out about the Boston Tea Party they were livid. They were also livid about the destruction
The U.S. citizen smuggled goods behind the backs of England because they believed the tax England put on certain traded goods like paper, sugar, and tea without representation was completly unfair. They also thought it was unfair that the King of England did not want to listen to their grievances towards the Intolerable Acts, which sparked the American Revolution and the fight for independence from Britain. America's revolt towards the unfairness of Great Britain inspired other countries on the western side of the world to began to see the unfairness of their mother countries and gave them the strength to begin their resistance. American is another great example of civil disobedience that positively effected society not only the U.S., but in other