Were The American Colonists Happy To Be Part Of The British Empire Before 1765

Essay question: "Why were the American colonists happy to be part of the British Empire before 1765? "
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The North American colonists were content with their status under British policy before 1763. The mid-1760s marked the end of the Seven Years War, known to the Americans as the French and Indian Wars. By that time several changes in the metropolitan government’s policies started to arouse discontent in the colonies. British governance after 1765, as complained by the American colonists, exploited them economically, lacked colonial consent, differed in their conception of imperial organization, fell short of constitutionality, dominated them in military terms, and rescinded the policy of religious tolerance. Such changes

Ever since the earliest settlement, the Americans developed in themselves a distinct notion of empire. They thought of themselves as self-governing entities. They envisioned the empire as a federal polity where each constituent division had its own authoritative legislature. For example, since 1619, in Virginia and New England the colonist had been exercising certain autonomy. In terms of taxation, it was their custom that they ‘exercised and enjoyed the privileges of imposing and raising their own taxes, in their provincial assemblies’. They were happy with this status before 1765, which was marked by salutary neglect. However, after 1765, the colonists felt a quick loss of political autonomy from the metropolitan government and were unease. It was because the metropolitan government asserted itself more boldly in the colonies and imposed imperial supremacy more forcefully on them. It restricted American migration onto lands to the west of the Appalachian crest, curbed the use of paper money, limited colonial trade. And, as aforementioned, it raised revenues from the taxations that defrayed the expenditure of the Empire. Another conflict arose as the American Mutiny (Quartering) Act of 1765 empowered colonial governors more in the way that ‘when British garrisons were moved to any place where inadequate barracks existed, they might be put into barns, inns, and private residences’. It even asked the colonists to ‘supply various items to the troops … to help meet the costs of the British garrison’. It required little imagination to sense that such military imposition on the colonists’ lives certainly provoked resentment. As a result, for fear of loss of political and economic autonomy, the colonists mounted vociferous response to London. In Virginia, people cried that ‘only the governor and legislature of