The French and Indian war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris on February 10, 1763. Great Britain had fallen into heavy debt because of the costly war, and they sought to restore their wealth from the American colonies. Since the British were defending American land, they believed that the colonists should share the debt. Previously, Britain observed salutary neglect to the American colonies— meaning that Parliament turned a blind eye to the merchants smuggling goods and bribing officials to avoid taxes and that many laws were loosely regulated. The colonies had still generated substantial profit before the war, but it was unsatisfactory for almost-bankrupt Britain after the war. Consequently, Britain passed numerous laws on taxation, hoping to generate revenues from the American colonies to refill their banks. Those British policies, introduced to the colonies during 1763-1776, were involved in every step towards the Revolutionary War; they limited the colonists’ liberties in diverse ways and, as a result, grew dissatisfaction in the colonies until the Revolutionary War began.
The first few trade policies ended the Salutary Neglect in the American colonies to raise revenues for Britain; the colonists saw the change as a violation of their natural rights and started to resist. The first three trade policies — the Sugar Act in 1764, the Currency Act in the same year, and the Quartering Act in 1765 — mainly impacted merchants. The Sugar Act was superficially just taxation on sugar and molasses. In truth, it strictly enforced trade taxation, monopolized trade, and limited the colonies’ trade with non-British colonies on top of the added taxes. The Currency Act drained the gold and silver of the colonies by banning the use of paper money in trade. The Quartering Act threatened private property by mandating colonists to house and supply British troops— an attempt by Parliament to decrease their military funding. In 1765, the crucial Stamp Act was passed. It required all printed papers, such as legal documents, newspapers, and even playing cards, to be printed on stamped British paper. The Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer, written in 1767, claims that the Stamp Act was created solely “FOR THE PURPOSE OF RAISING A REVENUE” (Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer), while the previous policies had been justified regulation in trade. Following the Virginia Resolves of October 1765, 27 delegates of American colonies joined the Stamp Act Congress and published the “Resolutions of Stamp Act Congress” in 1765. Among the many declarations made in the document, one declared that the colonists possessed full rights and liberties of Englishmen, and, therefore, they had the right to be taxed by those who represented them. The resolutions stated that: “the people of these colonies are not … represented in the House of Commons in Great Britain” (The Resolutions of the Stamp Act Congress) and ultimately implied that the colonies were taxed without representation — a violation of their rights. Outside of political documents, resistance groups such as the Sons and Daughters of Liberty formed, demonstrating the start of rebellions.
The acts following the Stamp Act showed Parliament’s unwillingness to compromise with the colonists and increased the colonists’ disdain towards England. The Stamp Act was repealed in 1766, only to be replaced by the Declaratory Act. It declared that the Parliament had the right to impose external and internal taxation on the colonies, directly dismissing the Resolutions of the Stamp Act Congress. In addition, the new governor Charles Townshend passed the Townshend Acts in 1767 which taxed quasi-luxury goods. Furthermore, it eliminated the former influence the colonists had over royal governors by using the collected taxes from those goods as salaries for the governors. The colonies also possessed extremely few manufacturing facilities, making it difficult to bypass the tax. Undoubtedly, the Townshend Acts angered the colonists. In the Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer, one of the literary responses to the Townshend Acts, John Dickinson declared that the Townshend Acts were “destructive to the liberty of these colonies.” The letters lack the usual embellishments prior documents had towards England; this change provides insight into the rising discontent towards Britain among the colonists. In continuation, Dickinson asserts that the taxes should be for the general welfare of the community, but the Townshend Acts were “injurious to the welfare of the whole empire.” Further aggressions in the Boston Harbor highlighted the colonists’ accumulating disdain for the British.
The final few acts before the war stripped colonies’ remaining freedoms and ultimately triggered the Revolutionary War. The Tea Act survived the repeal of the Townshend Acts in 1770; it decreased the price of and tax on tea but allowed the East India Company to monopolize the tea trade and only allowed colonies to purchase British tea. This mandate inevitably led to boycotts. Fighting the colonists, the boats carrying British tea refused to leave unless the colonists accepted their tea. On December 16, 1773, the members of the Sons of Liberty snuck onto the boats and threw all the tea into the Boston Harbor— the Boston Tea Party. Parliament was outraged by this rebellion. They soon passed the Coercive Acts — also known as the Intolerable Acts — in 1774 to penalize the American colonies. The Intolerable Acts reduced the amount of self-governance the colonies had drastically. The act revoked the charter of the Massachusetts Bay colony, banned town meetings, and removed executive power by establishing that British officials were to be tried in Britain instead of American courts. Furthermore, the Boston Port Act shut down the Boston Harbor, and Parliament expanded the Quartering Act. Hence the name, the colonists found the laws intolerable. In response, the First Continental Congress gathered through September and October of 1774, endorsing the Suffolk Resolves that denounced the Intolerable Acts and called on colonies to gather militias. The embers of revolution grew even brighter with the publication of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, where he calls on the people to rise: “now is the seed time of continental union, faith and honor” (Common Sense). Common Sense, with its complete lack of respect towards the Crown, demonstrates the outright disdain the colonists felt towards the British. The militias gathered all around the American colonies. A group of them encountered the British troops in Lexington, and the fateful encounter marked the beginning of the Revolutionary War.
While the British policies were not the sole cause of the revolution, it was one of the most prominent. Like puzzle pieces, the British policies with other factors such as the Enlightenment ideologies, a growing sense of independence in the colonies, and the lack of communication between the Crown and the colonies ultimately trigger the American Revolution. The factors also tie back to the policies; for example, the lack of communication resulted in more laws that enraged colonists instead of regulating them. The other factors planted the notion of revolution, and the policies nurtured it with removal and violation of rights. Ironically, the more restraints Parliament introduced, the more rebellious American colonies became— and ultimately, the colonies liberated from British rule.
