Revolutionary War: The French And Indian War

The French and Indian War, part of the overarching global conflict that was the Seven Years War, began in 1754 and officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763 . It was a large-scale conflict principally involving the French and British Empires, which took place in the central and northern areas of North America. The war was ostensibly fought over border conflicts between French and British colonists, the latter of which feared influence on their Western and Northern borders which could be used to incite conflict between the colonists and the local Native American tribes. Although the war was a success for the British, in that they claimed large swathes of previously French controlled territory, in the long run the destructive
conflict sowed the seeds of discord between the British and their colonial subjects which would ultimately culminate with the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 and the American Revolution. This was brought about in two main ways: Firstly, the immense financial cost of the war resulted in raised taxes without colonial consultation, much to the chagrin of the colonists who felt that they shouldn’t unfairly shoulder the burden of British military excursions.
Secondly, in order to appease their new subjects, the British adopted policies which forbade further settlement beyond the established colonies. This was especially important as continued (particularly African) immigration to the colonies began to put pressure on the local economies to expand agriculture and infrastructure to accommodate the increases in population. Ultimately the Revolution was a reaction to the increasing authoritarian nature of the British in the colonies, which the colonists felt unfairly impinged on freedoms that they often already held, and a dismissal of colonial sovereignty. This sentiment was echoed by John Adams to Jefferson in 1815 when he famously said, “What do we mean by the revolution? The war? That was no part of the revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The Revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected, from 1760 to 1775, in the course of fifteen years before a drop of blood was shed at
Lexington.”
When he said this, he was most likely referring primarily to the Stamp Act, announced March 22, 1765, which perhaps had a more unifying impact on previously disparate colonial identity than any single event before it.
The Act, which aside from mandating that only stamped paper made in Britain was to be used on certain items (newspapers, legal documents, cards, ect.), proposed a direct tax on the colonies. The justification for this was that the badly bankrupted British needed to raise revenue to pay for troops stationed in the colonies. This idea was widely dismissed by the colonists however: having defeated the French, they felt there was no need to defend against foreign threats, and they could defend themselves against the natives as they always had. Large protests broke out everywhere which frequently turned violent, making the collection of the tax impossible. The act was repealed in March the following year, but the damage had already been wrought: The colonists were ideologically incensed at the British making decisions regarding their lives without any input from the colonists on the matter, which they felt contradicted their rights as Englishmen. The popular cry of the times was “no taxation without representation,” a statement which would go a long way to kindle solidarity within the 13 colonies. Indeed, literature produced at the time reflected the rapid shift in colonial identity. A letter which appeared in the Boston Gazzete in October called for
“countrymen” to “awake… and defeat those who want to enslave us.” The vocabulary suggests an emerging national conscience fostered by the shared grievance of taxation and impeaching of sovereignty it implied, which would only strengthen with the passage of time. As Smith writes, “In the space of a few week the colonists stopped talking of “our colony” or “our province” and began speaking of “our poor degraded country,” and of themselves as “Americans” rather than as New Hampshire men or Virginians or Marylanders… they were suddenly conscious of belonging, in a profound sense, to the larger category of Americans, and they found this an intoxicating experience.” This isn’t to say that the colonies had ceased their internal bickering – indeed, they would continue and later manifest in other ways – however the shared grievance narrative of the colonies temporarily overshadowed any domestic quarrels that they may have had. In the face of the British atrocities that were committed later – namely the Boston Massacre and the Intolerable Acts - this resolve was only strengthened, leading to the meeting of the first Contintental Congress in 1774 . Therefore, it can be demonstrated that the rapid shift in colonial identity was a direct result of British taxation policies, which were themselves necessitated by the war.

The second main cause of estrangement between the British and their colonial subjects pertained to the issue of land.