American Identity Before Revolution Essay
American Identity before the Revolution
Before 1765 if someone had told Great Britain that the colonies would revolt they would probably have been labeled as crazy. The American colonies were well known for squabbling amongst each other about land, religion, representation, and ethnic issues. Britain, who was busy with the French and Indian war, treated the colonies with salutary neglect allowing them to thrive economically, a situation that the colonists found ideal. But after the end of the war, Britain realized that it was not getting its fair share of the thriving American economy and decided it was time that the colonies pay for their own defense and return much needed revenue to the mother country.
Britain began by ending their years of salutary neglect with a tax levied on the import of sugar and molasses caused concern amongst those in the rum business. Even though the tax itself was …show more content…
Parliament quickly repealed the Stamp Act, but passed another act establishing their right to tax the colonies. The colonies, after having been pretty much left to themselves for so long, did not take kindly to being brought to task, so to speak. The Sons of Liberty and similar organizations grew as did the colonists displeasure with what they perceived as an increasingly oppressive and tyrannical parent. Britain, determined to enforce something, levied "external" or indirect taxes on the import of many goods in hopes that the colonists would accept it. However, even this light tax was rejected violently by the already enraged colonists. They retaliated by staging protests, boycotts, the destruction of ships, and the infamous "Boston Tea Party". The colonists had stopped seeing their king and mother country as nurturers and had begun to view them as cruel, corrupted tyrants bent on forcing them into a kind of slavery to
Before 1765 if someone had told Great Britain that the colonies would revolt they would probably have been labeled as crazy. The American colonies were well known for squabbling amongst each other about land, religion, representation, and ethnic issues. Britain, who was busy with the French and Indian war, treated the colonies with salutary neglect allowing them to thrive economically, a situation that the colonists found ideal. But after the end of the war, Britain realized that it was not getting its fair share of the thriving American economy and decided it was time that the colonies pay for their own defense and return much needed revenue to the mother country.
Britain began by ending their years of salutary neglect with a tax levied on the import of sugar and molasses caused concern amongst those in the rum business. Even though the tax itself was …show more content…
Parliament quickly repealed the Stamp Act, but passed another act establishing their right to tax the colonies. The colonies, after having been pretty much left to themselves for so long, did not take kindly to being brought to task, so to speak. The Sons of Liberty and similar organizations grew as did the colonists displeasure with what they perceived as an increasingly oppressive and tyrannical parent. Britain, determined to enforce something, levied "external" or indirect taxes on the import of many goods in hopes that the colonists would accept it. However, even this light tax was rejected violently by the already enraged colonists. They retaliated by staging protests, boycotts, the destruction of ships, and the infamous "Boston Tea Party". The colonists had stopped seeing their king and mother country as nurturers and had begun to view them as cruel, corrupted tyrants bent on forcing them into a kind of slavery to