Michael Stephenson
AP U.S. History, P5
15 September 2014
French and Indian War Effects - DBQ Essay
For many years, throughout the 17th century and 18th century, Britain maintained a neutral relationship with its American colonies. By upholding salutary neglect, the British policy of avoiding strict enforcement of parliamentary laws, the American colonies remained obedient to Britain. However, after the French and Indian War (1754-1763), Britain's relations with its colonist were drastically altered. The war greatly damaged Britain's economy and because of its pyrrhic victory, a series of taxes were implemented on the American colonists. The unfair taxation ideologically changed the Americans' views on Britain and they felt they were not represented in Parliament. The French and Indian war altered the relations between Britain and its American colonists politically by giving Britain control of the east, economically by putting Britain in extreme debt and compelling Parliament to impose taxes on its colonists, and ideologically by shifting the colonists' loyalty towards rebellion against Britain.
The French defeat in the war paved way to the expansion of British territory throughout the eastern coastline (Document A). The colonists began to settle on the land beyond the Appalachian Mountains, which resulted in tensions with the Natives who primarily resided there. Canassatego, chief of the Onondaga Nation of the Iroquois Confederacy, delivered a speech to the representatives of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. In the speech, he speaks with an accusatory tone as he is angered by the unrightfully settling of the American colonists (Document B). He sees the white settlers as people who spoil his hunting and addresses to the representatives that they know the colonists have no right to settle in the Natives' land. Because of this speech and Pontiac's Rebellion, Britain was forced to implement the Proclamation Line of 1763, which prevented American