Dbq Colonial Unity Analysis

Until the 17th century, the English had never laid much claim to the lands of the New World. With the settlement of Jamestown in 1607, England began the construction of a fairly large and relatively diverse conglomeration of colonies. Eventually, developing unity in these colonies became essential to maintaining the thriving English empire in the New World. This solidarity between different colonies was derived from a variety of unique sources. Many individual ideas, legislative acts, and intercolonial alliances played a role in unifying the English settlers. Colonial unity was driven by a variety of common needs between the colonists, and came from political, socioeconomic, and cultural sources. Shared political ideologies and agreements …show more content…
In the 1754 Albany Plan of Union, one of the driving reasons behind the colonies ' desire for representation in Parliament was the goal to "lay and levy such general duties, imposts, or taxes, as to [the colonists] appear most equal and just" (Doc 5). As the English colonies had grown and prospered, the British had created many taxes on the colonies and their imports to increase English profit. Dislike of these tax laws existed throughout the colonies, and it unified them in an effort to reclaim their own economy. In "The Problem of Colonial Union", Benjamin Franklin also rallied for representation, stating that the colonies needed "the old acts of Parliament restraining the trade or cramping the manufacturers be … repealed" (Doc 7). Franklin 's intended audience was not only the English, whom he sought to solve the problem, but the colonists, who he indirectly addresses by stating that he "should hope, too, that by such a union the people Great Britain and the people of the colonies would learn to consider themselves as not belonging to different community" (Doc 7). This detail of communicating with the colonists matters because it conveys the idea that Franklin 's picture of representation in Parliament was a shared goal throughout the colonies. Thus, the socioeconomic need for less taxation in the colonies unified them. Colonial unity was also enforced by the interconnectedness of the regional colonial economies. The southern farmers depended on markets in New England and the middle colonies to sell their good overseas, and likewise, the northern markets depended on southern crops to make a profit in trade. The fact that the colonies had interdependent economies led to colonial unity because different colonies were forced to rely on each other for their individual success. Common socioeconomic situations and desires caused the colonies to become more