1756-1763 Analysis

After the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) Britain was in financial turmoil. Although Britain gained imperial assets, they also gained a massive national debt so Britain looked to the North American colonies as a source of revenue. In 1765, British Parliament passed the Stamp Act, which was an internal tax in the colonies. This was the first time Britain ever tried to tax the colonies but the colonies were upset because they felt only their elected colonial assemblies could tax them. They resisted the act then resorted to violence and intimidation. Giving up, the Stamp Act was repealed in 1766. Parliament felt they had a right to tax the colonies and enact legislation over them. After the Stamp Act came the Townshend Act which placed duties on

This was an outrage to the colonists so Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty disguised themselves as Native Americans and proceeded to throw all 342 crates of tea into the Boston Harbor. “It took nearly 3 hours for more than 100 colonists to empty the tea into the Boston Harbor. The chests held more than 90,000 lbs. (45 tons) of tea, which would cost nearly $1,000,000 today” (History.com). At first Samuel Adams tried to take a less costly approach by sending the tea back to England but nobody accepted his proposal so he took matters into his own hands. Many of the men that participated simply did it to fight for the cause meaning a lot of them didn’t even actually know the people they were dumping tea alongside with. “We then quietly retired to our several places of residence, without having any conversation with each other, or taking any measures to discover who were our associates; nor do I recollect of our having had the knowledge of the name of a single individual concerned in that affair, except that of Leonard Pitt, the commander of my division, whom I have mentioned” (George Hewes). Men like George Hewes were just following orders and didn’t ask questions before, during, or after the event occurred. The morning after they dumped the tea, they noticed that some of the crates were still floating in the water so they took small boats out into the water and beat the crates with paddles until they were destroyed. They did this to upset Parliament and start a revolution. In the point of view of the British, or parliament, they felt they could tax the colonists how they deemed fit since they were protecting them because they had soldiers staying or quartering in the colonies. However, the colonists felt as though they should be treated as equally as the citizens living in England which was not the