After the fall of Puritan rule in Massachusetts, Great Britain regained control over Massachusetts and expanded throughout North America, making it one of the greatest empires in the world. In order to maintain their power in the colonies they enacted rules and regulations regarding traded goods. However, most colonists resorted to smuggling and boycotting items. It was not until the French and Indian War did England begin to strictly enforce these restrictions due to a large war debt. The Sugar Act was one the first acts that had started a domino effect which led to the American Revolution.
The French and Indian War mounted when conflicts arose between the French and the British as the English colonists started to settle in 1689 in New
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After winning the French and Indian war, Great Britain’s economy entered economic downturn, causing great strain on the ruling power.
Parliament decided that the colonies should help pay towards the cost of the recent war debt and for future defense. The first step towards this was the Revenue Act of 1764, generally referred to as the Sugar Act. The Sugar Act was also known as “an Act with Teeth,”(Mass Historical Society) symbolizing that it was an act with depth or of importance. The Act itself was divided into two sections. First, it was intended to raise money from trade between the British colonies in America. It levied import duties on a list of raw materials including: sugar, coffee, indigo, wine, rum, lumber, and various cloths. The Sugar Act made the Molasses Act of 1733 perpetual. Although it cut the tax on molasses in half, from sixpence to threepence per gallon, to discourage smuggling and to make the tax attractive. Second, the Act revamped and reinvigorated the customs service, which managed the collection of these import duties. For the first time, colonists argued that Parliament was depriving them of a fundamental constitutional right to have these goods duty free.
Albeit that this was not the first act between Britain and the colonies, it created plenty of uproar amongst the colonies. Two provisions of the Sugar Act attracted the most colonial opposition. The first provision allowed the validity of seizures of ships and goods to be determined in a
Protests broke out all across the colonies, with revolts, boycotts, and even fights. British Parliament established the acts to raise revenue through trade taxes on the American colonies. The Sugar Act was established in 1764 to increase controls on non-British trading and taxed not only sugar but other materials such as; coffee, coconuts and different animals parts. The Stamp Act was established in 1765 to tax people for a royal stamp, it also taxed paper, shipping and legal documents, pamphlets, and many more. The act was not as large as other taxes, but it changed the way of Parliament authority, from trade to direct taxes on the colonies. The famous saying “no taxation without representation”,
The Act of 1764, also known as The Sugar Act, lowered the taxes on molasses but also it had more ways to enforce the tax. In addition to the tax on molasses they taxed things such as silks, wines, and potash. The Americans were outraged with this new law. The colonists did whatever they could to ignore this new law. The British passed the Quartering Act which basically said that the American colonists have to house and feed British forces who were serving in North America. This inflamed the
As the French and Indian War ended, it left the British’s main focus to being the colonies. Controlling the colonies, ruling over the colonies, and taxing the colonies. Little did they know that the colonies had plans of
In 1754, a war between the french and the english broke out in hopes of dissolving the fight over land in North America. The French and Indian war, was a war that was fought in both North America and England, and both sides had Native Americans fighting for them but against each other. This war changed the relationship between Britain and its American colonies by tightening its grip on the colonies politically, imposing different taxis on the colonies economically, and thus changing the colonists ideology about the british government.
The French and Indian war was the event that provoked the American Revolution. The French and Indian war or Seven years war, lead to certain events that caused Americans to realize that their English liberties were being denied.
The first act to be issued was the Sugar Act in 1764. The Sugar Act, also known as the American Revenue Act or the American Duties Act, was a modification of the already existing Molasses Act. Colonists hated the Molasses Act because it placed a tax of sixpence per gallon on molasses imported from any country outside the British Empire. The molasses tax was never fully enforced and the colonists smuggled in foreign molasses, but the Sugar Act changed this. The immediate cause for the change was the French and Indian War. The Sugar Act is a British law that “decreased the duty on French molasses” ( The American Promise, 141 ). The Sugar Act regulated shipping trade and enforced more to obey the law. The Stamp Act also “raised penalties for smuggling” ( The
The passing of a series of laws regulating trade and tax, most notably the Sugar Act (1764), the Stamp Act (1765), and the Tea Act (1773) increased tension between Great Britain and its colonies in the period 1763-1776. Near the end of the French and Indian War, Great Britain was in desperate need of money to pay for their war debts. The British Parliament believed that they had a right to tax their colonies. Their legislations placed duties on certain imports that had never been taxed before. By the end of 1764, tensions heightened between colonists and imperial officials as they were disagreeing more and more about how the colonies should be taxed and governed. These feelings of dissatisfaction would soon swell into rebellion, leading to the American Revolution.
In 1761 the British began to reinforce writs of assistance, laws that granted customs officials the authority to conduct random searches of property to seek out goods on which required duties had not been paid, not only in public establishments but in private homes. The next step was the Sugar Act of 1764, and it quickly became apparent that the purpose of the act was to extract revenue from America. The Molasses Act of 1733 had placed a tax of six pence per gallon on sugar and molasses imported into the colonies. In 1764 the British lowered the tax to three pence but now eventually decided to enforce it. In addition, taxes were to be placed on other items such as wines, coffee, and textile products, and other restrictions were applied, this upset the colonists. Madaras L, SoRelle J (2011) & Wood S. G. (2003)
The French and Indian War, which happened between 1754 and 1763 was a stepping-stone for what would become known as the Revolutionary War. The French and Indian War was originally a dispute over the Ohio River Valley. The French considered it their territory, where as the English considered it theirs. While it was a territorial dispute between the countries, the war took place in the colonies. The colonist fought bravely beside the British, whereas the Indians sided with the French. At the beginning all the countries wanted was to claim the Ohio River Valley as their own; however, the outcome of the war was very different. By fighting for that territory, the French sacrificed not only Quebec, but also all claim on land in the New World.
The Sugar Act of 1764 was a modified version of the Sugar and Molasses Act of 1733, which originally required colonists to pay six pence ($6.32), per every gallon of sugar, molasses and other imports. However the new act, The Sugar Act of 1764 reduced the price to three pence ($3.16) per gallon of imported sugar,molasses, or other product. This act, brought on by the British Parliament was designed to lessen the amount of smuggled goods, protect British trade, and provide the British a better economy after spending many useful funds on the French and Indian War. Keep in mind that sugar and molasses were not the only two items taxed, other items such as, select wines, cloth, pimento,and some coffee were taxed due to the fact that they did
The French and Indian war was cause by many resulted tension in North America. French and British imperials and colonist sought to extend each country’s sphere of influence in frontier regions. Their origin in the trade with Native Americans, sparke the French and Indian war. “French claimed territory surrounding the Great Lake. They were hoping to succeed from the furs trade with the Indians. And the war began with French and their Indians allies Indians allies, “(the majority of peoples in the Northeast and upper Midwest”) attacking British frontier settlements. The Seven year’s War did not began good for the British. So the governor from British order General Edward Braddock 's to go to the colonies as the
The Sugar act was the first of several tariffs parliament passed which placed taxes on sugar imported into the colonies. British parliament expected there to be a rise in the smuggling of imported goods to avoid the tax. Parliament prepared by broadening jurisdiction of the vice-admiralty court at Halifax, which had jurisdiction over legal matters related to maritime activities. The American colonists resented the Britain hoped the tax would be collected but the colonists were not happy. James Otis, a Massachusetts lawyer, said about the act, that “taxation without representation is tyranny”. The colonists argued
This resource loss had a massive impact on Britain. The outcome of the war never truly made up for the resources the British had to use to win, so they had to find another way to make up for the lost funds. This was achieved by taxing the colonies on many types of goods. The first thing Britain wanted to do was stop illegal smuggling. They attempted to do this through the Sugar Act. The Sugar Act, created by George Grenville, actually lowered the tax on
Throughout the French and Indian War (1754-1763), the relationship between the British and the American colonies underwent many radical changes. This war drew the British into America to fight the French alongside of the American colonists. Once the fighting began, the vast economic, political, and ideological differences between the colonists and their mother country of Great Britain surfaced. The French and Indian War impacted the political correlation between Britain and the American colonies because the colonies desired a new democratic government in place of the former English monarchy. Additionally, the war altered the economic relations between the two because of the establishment of numerous British taxations to pay for the war
The French and Indian War, a colonial manifestation of the same forces and tensions that erupted in the European Seven Years' War, was, quite simply, a war about imperialism. The French and the English were competing for land and trading rights in North America; these strivings resulted in a great deal of disputed land, particularly that of the rich Ohio Valley. Each nation saw this territory as vital in its effort to increase its own power and wealth while simultaneously limiting the strength of its rival. Although the war itself therefore stemmed from a fairly simple motivation, its consequences were far- reaching. The English victory in the war decided the colonial fate of North America, and yet at the same time sowed the seeds of the eventual colonial revolution. After the war, the British ended their century-long policy of salutary neglect, attempting to keep the colonials under a more watchful eye. The British also raised taxes in an effort to pay for the war. Both of these postwar policies resulted in massive colonial discontent and added to the budding nationalism that eventually exploded in the Revolutionary War.