The French and Indian War of 1754 to 1763 was a major turning point in the status of relations between England and its North American colonies, bringing about changes and sentiments that led, in part, to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. The war briefly unified and then distanced the two nations while simultaneously altering America’s relationship with other existing powers, such as the French and the Native Americans. Furthermore, the debt inevitably generated by the conflict and the differing opinions concerning how it should be paid posed a controversial issue that created substantial strife. Land gained proved difficult to regulate and divvy up in a way that would satisfy all colonies, especially under the added pressure of rehabilitating
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The state of the colonial economy even before the conflict was such that American troops were shamefully ill-provided for, deprived of clothes and liquors in the depths of winter and often starved or overexerted (Document D); afterward it was practically decimated. Citizens of mainland England demanded that the colonies shoulder costs of continued military upkeep in America as well as their portion of the debt, but colonists insisted that their fragile trade system, essentially their only source of revenue, was not strong enough to support a figure that high. Most Americans in fact did not approve of costly British occupation anyway, which they viewed as pointless after the end of the war since they had their own established local militias. They felt that, having been forced to provide food, materials, and shelter to Britain’s soldiers during the war, they had already paid their necessary dues; but this incensed Englishmen who already believed colonists to be uncivilized ingrates, perceiving this refusal as an intolerable flout of British authority. In response, Parliament passed a series of controversial taxes that put further burden on beleaguered debtors, of whom there were many due to the crackdown on smuggling during the war that forced merchants to pay weighty duties. The end of the decades-long practice of salutary neglect introduced a new period of …show more content…
The 1763 Treaty of Paris delineated that France be ousted from all of its substantial North American territory, connecting and expanding Britain’s previously divided Canadian and American holdings while extending the Spanish-American border along the entirety of the Mississippi River (Document A). This redraw brought a massive tract of land that colonists had been squatting on as early as 1742 into the colonial arena, prompting a fever of westward migration that severely disrupted natives’ ways of life. Leaders like the Onondaga’s Canassatego petitioned for their removal on the grounds that they “daily settle on these Lands, and spoil our Hunting… [with] no right to settle,” (Document B) and negative sentiment came to a head with Pontiac’s Rebellion in 1763, in which eight forts were captured and hundreds of people killed. In order to prevent further violence, King George III issued the Proclamation of 1763 to appease his native allies, prohibiting English settlement west of the Appalachians despite the flood of individuals already pouring into the region. Along with the abandonment of salutary neglect, colonists felt that this regulation was indicative of an imminent seizure of basic liberties which they had seen lurking for years. This widespread feeling prompted outright denial of British authority in the rapid
The state of the colonial economy even before the conflict was such that American troops were shamefully ill-provided for, deprived of clothes and liquors in the depths of winter and often starved or overexerted (Document D); afterward it was practically decimated. Citizens of mainland England demanded that the colonies shoulder costs of continued military upkeep in America as well as their portion of the debt, but colonists insisted that their fragile trade system, essentially their only source of revenue, was not strong enough to support a figure that high. Most Americans in fact did not approve of costly British occupation anyway, which they viewed as pointless after the end of the war since they had their own established local militias. They felt that, having been forced to provide food, materials, and shelter to Britain’s soldiers during the war, they had already paid their necessary dues; but this incensed Englishmen who already believed colonists to be uncivilized ingrates, perceiving this refusal as an intolerable flout of British authority. In response, Parliament passed a series of controversial taxes that put further burden on beleaguered debtors, of whom there were many due to the crackdown on smuggling during the war that forced merchants to pay weighty duties. The end of the decades-long practice of salutary neglect introduced a new period of …show more content…
The 1763 Treaty of Paris delineated that France be ousted from all of its substantial North American territory, connecting and expanding Britain’s previously divided Canadian and American holdings while extending the Spanish-American border along the entirety of the Mississippi River (Document A). This redraw brought a massive tract of land that colonists had been squatting on as early as 1742 into the colonial arena, prompting a fever of westward migration that severely disrupted natives’ ways of life. Leaders like the Onondaga’s Canassatego petitioned for their removal on the grounds that they “daily settle on these Lands, and spoil our Hunting… [with] no right to settle,” (Document B) and negative sentiment came to a head with Pontiac’s Rebellion in 1763, in which eight forts were captured and hundreds of people killed. In order to prevent further violence, King George III issued the Proclamation of 1763 to appease his native allies, prohibiting English settlement west of the Appalachians despite the flood of individuals already pouring into the region. Along with the abandonment of salutary neglect, colonists felt that this regulation was indicative of an imminent seizure of basic liberties which they had seen lurking for years. This widespread feeling prompted outright denial of British authority in the rapid