Mercantilism In The British Colonies

The town’s tax collector, who had been enforcing the Townshend Acts, was surrounded by a mob of people in the middle of town square. His body was coated with hot tar and feathers. This practice of feathering and tarring in the colonies was representative of the general discontent resonating within the colonies over the governmental overstep of Great Britain. Britain, after virtually disregarding the colonies for over a century, began to take a more involved stance in colonial politics. They justified this redefined relationship through the theory of mercantilism, the idea that a country’s power was hinged on exporting more than it imported and the need to pay off their incurred debt after the French and Indian War. Great Britain began to implement
The colonies wanted to be an sovereign entity, governed by their own people and not by a government an ocean away. In Virginia, the House of Burgesses instituted four resolutions in response to Great Britain’s taxation, one of which stated, “Resolved that his Majesty’s liege people of this ancient colony have enjoyed the right of being governed by their own assembly in the article of taxes and police, and that same have never been forfeited…but have been constantly recognized by the king and people of England.” This quote exemplifies the colonial disaffection that resulted when colonists were confronted by a loss in self-governing power. When Great Britain encroached on the authority of the House of Burgesses, they felt that their “privileges and immunities” were threatened. Therefore, the idea of “no taxation without representation” was not the main reason for discontent among the colonists, instead, it was the idea that Britain was meddling in colonists’ independent affairs and attempting to enforce legislature created an ocean away as shown by the quote They “denied the right of Parliament…Only their own colonial legislatures, the Americans insisted, could legally tax them.” The colonists further explain their tension in the Declaration of Independence, a documentation of grievances against King George III. “We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us…They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity.” The idea of Great Britain having no jurisdiction in the colonies is representative of the clash in perspective between the colonists and Great Britain. The colonists saw themselves as an independent political entity, while Great Britain saw them as colonies to be subjugated for profit. This clash is the cause of