Chapter 4 DCUSH

Context, Causes, and Effects of the Seven Years' War

Overview

After the Seven Years' War ended in 1763, the British desired
more revenue to pay for protecting their empire while many American colonists
saw themselves as self-sufficient. These clashing views resulted in the colonies
declaring independence, winning a war, and founding a new nation. Initially
governed by Articles of Confederation with a weak federal government, the
new United States soon replaced it with a new constitution that created a fed­
eral government that was stronger, though still with limited powers. Out of the
debates over the new constitution and policies emerged two parties. The test of
the stability of the American system came in 1800, when one party, the Feder­
alists, peacefully transferred power to the other, the Democratic-Republicans.
Throughout this period there was a continuous westward migration resulting in
new opportunities, blended cultures, and increased conflicts with the American
Indians and other European nations.

Alternate View

Some historians start the story of the birth of the United
States in 1763, at the end of the Seven Years' War. Starting in 1754 emphasizes
that fighting the war drove the colonies and the British apart. While the United
States declared independence in 1776 and ratified the Constitution in 1788, not
until 1800 had it clearly survived the divisions of the early years.

Empires at War

Late in the 17th century, war broke out involving Great Britain, France, and
Spain. This was the first of a series of four wars that were worldwide in scope,
with battles in Europe, India, and North America. These wars occurred inter­
mittently over a 74-year period from 1689 to 1763. The stakes were high, since
the winner of the struggle stood to gain supremacy in the West Indies and
Canada and to dominate the lucrative colonial trade.

The First Three Wars

The first three wars were named after the British king or queen under whose
reign they occurred. In both King William's War (1689-1697) and Queen
Anne's War (1702-1713), the British launched expeditions to capture Que­
bec, but their efforts failed. American Indians supported by the French burned
British frontier settlements. Ultimately, the British forces prevailed in Queen
Anne's War and gained both Nova Scotia from France and trading rights in
Spanish America.

A third war was fought during the reign of George II: King George's War
(1744-1748). Once again, the British colonies were under attack from their
perennial rivals, the French and the Spanish. In Georgia, James Oglethorpe
led a colonial army that managed to repulse Spanish attacks. To the north,

a force of New Englanders captured Louisbourg, a major French fortress, on
Cape Breton Island, controlling access to the St. Lawrence River. In the peace
treaty ending the war, however, Britain agreed to give Louisbourg back to the
French in exchange for political and economic gains in India. New Englanders
were furious about the loss of a fort that they had fought so hard to win.

The Seven Years' War (French and Indian War)

The first three wars between Britain and France focused primarily on battles in
Europe and only secondarily on conflict in the colonies. The European powers
saw little value in committing regular troops to America. However, in the fourth
and final war in the series, the fighting began in the colonies and then spread to
Europe. Moreover, Britain and France now recognized the full importance of
their colonies and shipped large numbers of troops overseas to North America
rather than rely on "amateur" colonial forces. This fourth and most decisive war
was known in Europe as the Seven Years' War. The North American phase of
this war is often called the French and Indian War.

Beginning of the French & Indian War

From the British point of view, the French provoked
the war by building a chain of forts in the Ohio River Valley. One of the reasons
the French did so was to halt the westward growth of the British colonies. Hop­
ing to stop the French from completing work on Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh)
and thereby win control of the Ohio River Valley, the governor of Virginia sent
a small militia (armed force) under the command of a young colonel named

George Washington. After gaining a small initial victory, Washington's troops
surrendered to a superior force of Frenchmen and their American Indian allies
on July 3, 1754. With this military encounter in the wilderness, the final war for
empire began.

At first the war went badly for the British. In 1755, another expedition from
Virginia, led by General Edward Braddock, ended in a disastrous defeat, as
more than 2,000 British regulars and colonial troops were routed by a smaller
force of French and American Indians near Ft. Duquesne. The Algonquin allies
of the French ravaged the frontier from western Pennsylvania to North Carolina.
The French repulsed a British invasion of French Canada that began in 1756.

The Albany Plan of Union

Recognizing the need for coordinating colo­nial defense, the British government called for representatives from several colonies to meet in a congress at Albany, New York, in 1754. The delegates from seven colonies adopted a plan—the Albany Plan of Union—developed by Benjamin Franklin that provided for an intercolonial government and a system
for recruiting troops and collecting taxes from the various colonies for their
common defense. Each colony was too jealous of its own taxation powers to
accept the plan, however, and it never took effect. The Albany congress was
significant, however, because it set a precedent for later, more revolutionary
congresses in the 1770s.

British Victory

The British prime minister, William Pitt, concentrated
the government's military strategy on conquering Canada. This objective
was accomplished with the retaking of Louisbourg in 1758, the surrender
of Quebec to General James Wolfe in 1759, and the taking of Montreal in
1760. After these British victories, the European powers negotiated a peace
treaty (the Peace of Paris) in 1763. Great Britain acquired both French Canada
and Spanish Florida. France ceded (gave up) to Spain its huge western terri­
tory, Louisiana, and claims west of the Mississippi River in compensation for
Spain's loss of Florida. With this treaty, the British extended their control of
North America, and French power on the continent virtually ended.

Immediate Effects of the French & Indian War

Britain's victory in the Seven Years' War
gave them unchallenged supremacy in North America and also established
them as the dominant naval power in the world. No longer did the American
colonies face the threat of concerted attacks from the French, the Spanish, and
their American Indian allies. More important to the colonies, though, was a
change in how the British and the colonists viewed each other.

The British View of the French & Indian War

The British came away from the war with a low opinion
of the colonial military abilities. They held the American militia in contempt
as a poorly trained, disorderly rabble. Furthermore, they noted that some of
the colonies had refused to contribute either troops or money to the war effort.
Most British were convinced that the colonists were both unable and unwilling
to defend the new frontiers of the vastly expanded British empire.

The Colonial View of the French & Indian War

The colonists took an opposite view of their military
performance. They were proud of their record in all four wars and developed
confidence that they could successfully provide for their own defense. They
were not impressed with British troops or their leadership, whose methods of
warfare seemed badly suited to the densely wooded terrain of eastern America.

Reorganization of the British Empire

More serious than the resentful feelings stirred by the war experience was
the British government's shift in its colonial policies. Previously, Britain had
exercised little direct control over the colonies and had generally allowed its
navigation laws regulating colonial trade to go unenforced. This earlier policy
of salutary neglect was abandoned as the British adopted more forceful poli­
cies for taking control of their expanded North American dominions.

All four wars—and the last one in particular—had been extremely costly.
In addition, Britain now felt the need to maintain a large British military force
to guard its American frontiers. Among British landowners, pressure was build­
ing to reduce the heavy taxes that the colonial wars had laid upon them. To pay
for troops to guard the frontier without increasing taxes at home, King George
III and the dominant political party in Parliament (the Whigs) wanted the
American colonies to bear more of the cost of maintaining the British empire.

Pontiac’s Rebellion

The first major test of the new British imperial
policy came in 1763 when Chief Pontiac led a major attack against colonial
settlements on the western frontier. The American Indians were angered by
the growing westward movement of European settlers onto their land and by
the British refusal to offer gifts as the French had done. Pontiac’s alliance of
American Indians in the Ohio Valley destroyed forts and settlements from New
York to Virginia. Rather than relying on colonial forces to retaliate, the British
sent regular British troops to put down the uprising.

Proclamation of 1763

In an effort to stabilize the western frontier, the
British government issued a proclamation that prohibited colonists from set­tling west of the Appalachian Mountains. The British hoped that limiting settlements would prevent future hostilities between colonists and American Indians. But the colonists reacted to the proclamation with anger and defiance. After their victory in the Seven Years’ War, colonists hoped to reap benefits in the form of access to western lands. For the British to deny such benefits was infuriating. Defying the prohibition, thousands streamed westward beyond the
imaginary boundary line drawn by the British.

British Actions and Colonial Reactions

The Proclamation of 1763 was the first of a series of acts by the Brit­ish government that angered colonists. From the British point of view, each act was justified as a proper method for protecting its colonial empire and making the colonies pay their share of costs for such protection. From the colonists’ point of view, each act represented an alarming threat to their cher­ished liberties and long-established practice of representative government.

New Revenues and Regulations

In the first two years of peace, King George III’s chancellor of the exchequer
(treasury) and prime minister, Lord George Grenville, successfully pushed
through Parliament three measures that aroused colonial suspicions of a Brit­
ish plot to subvert their liberties.

Sugar Act (1764)

This act (also known as the Revenue Act of 1764) placed duties on foreign sugar and certain luxuries. Its chief purpose was to raise money for the crown, and a companion law also provided for stricter enforce­ment of the Navigation Acts to stop smuggling. Those accused of smuggling were to be tried in admiralty courts by crown-appointed judges without juries.

Stamp Act

In an effort to raise funds to support British military forces in
the colonies, Lord Grenville turned to a tax long in use in Britain. The Stamp
Act, enacted by Parliament in 1765, required that revenue stamps be placed on
most printed paper in the colonies, including all legal documents, newspapers,

pamphlets, and advertisements. This was the first direct tax—collected from
those who used the goods—paid by the people in the colonies, as opposed to
the taxes on imported goods, which were paid by merchants.

People in every colony reacted with indignation to news of the Stamp Act.
A young Virginia lawyer named Patrick Henry spoke for many when he stood
up in the House of Burgesses to demand that the king’s government recognize
the rights of all citizens—including the right not to be taxed without repre­
sentation. In Massachusetts, James Otis initiated a call for cooperative action
among the colonies to protest the Stamp Act. Representatives from nine colo­
nies met in New York in 1765 to form the so-called Stamp Act Congress. They
resolved that only their own elected representatives had the legal authority to
approve taxes.

Declaratory Act

In 1766, Grenville was replaced by another prime minis­
ter, and Parliament voted to repeal the Stamp Act. When news of the repeal
reached the colonies, people rejoiced. Few colonists at the time noted that Par­
liament had also enacted a face-saving measure known as the Declaratory Act
(1766). This act asserted that Parliament had the right to tax and make laws for
the colonies “in all cases whatsoever.” This declaration of policy would soon
lead to renewed conflict between the colonists and the British government.

Second Phase of the Crisis, 1767–1773

Because the British government still needed new revenues, the newly
appointed chancellor of the exchequer, Charles Townshend, proposed another
tax measure.

The Townshend Acts

Adopting Townshend’s program in 1767, Parlia­ment enacted new duties to be collected on colonial imports of tea, glass, and paper. The law required that the revenues raised be used to pay crown officials in the colonies, thus making them independent of the colonial assemblies that had previously paid their salaries. The Townshend Acts also provided for the search of private homes for smuggled goods. All that an official needed to conduct such a search would be a writ of assistance (a general license to search anywhere) rather than a judge’s warrant permitting a search only of a specifi­cally named property. Another of the Townshend Acts suspended New York’s assembly for that colony’s defiance of the Quartering Act.

At first, most colonists accepted the taxes under the Townshend Acts
because they were indirect taxes paid by merchants (not direct taxes on con­sumer goods). However, soon leaders began protesting the new duties. In 1767 and 1768, John Dickinson of Pennsylvania in his Letters From a Farmer in

Pennsylvania wrote that Parliament could regulate commerce but argued that
because duties were a form of taxation, they could not be levied on the colo­nies without the consent of their representative assemblies. Dickinson argued that the idea of no taxation without representation was an essential principle of English law.

In 1768, James Otis and Samuel Adams jointly wrote the Massachusetts
Circular Letter and sent copies to every colonial legislature. It urged the various
colonies to petition Parliament to repeal the Townshend Acts. British officials
in Boston ordered the letter retracted, threatened to dissolve the legislature,
and increased the number of British troops in Boston. Responding to the circu­
lar letter, the colonists again conducted boycotts of British goods. Merchants
increased their smuggling activities to avoid the offensive Townshend duties.

Repeal of the Townshend Acts

Meanwhile, in London, there was an­
other change in the king’s ministers. Lord Frederick North became the new
prime minister. He urged Parliament to repeal the Townshend Acts because
they damaged trade and generated a disappointingly small amount of revenue.
The repeal of the Townshend Acts in 1770 ended the colonial boycott and,
except for an incident in Boston (the “massacre” described below), there was a
three-year respite from political troubles as the colonies entered into a period
of economic prosperity. However, Parliament retained a small tax on tea as a
symbol of its right to tax the colonies.

Boston Massacre

Most Bostonians resented the British troops who had
been quartered in their city to protect customs officials from being attacked
by the Sons of Liberty. On a snowy day in March 1770, a crowd of colonists
harassed the guards near the customs house. The guards fired into the crowd,
killing five people including an African American, Crispus Attucks. At their
trial for murder, the soldiers were defended by colonial lawyer John Adams
and acquitted. Adams’ more radical cousin, Samuel Adams, angrily denounced
the shooting incident as a “massacre” and used it to inflame anti-British feeling.

Renewal of the Conflict

Even during the relatively quiet years of 1770–1772, Samuel Adams and a
few other Americans kept alive the view that British officials were undermin­
ing colonial liberties. A principal device for spreading this idea was by means
of the Committees of Correspondence initiated by Samuel Adams in 1772.
In Boston and other Massachusetts towns, Adams began the practice of orga­
nizing committees that would regularly exchange letters about suspicious or
potentially threatening British activities. The Virginia House of Burgesses took
the concept a step further when it organized intercolonial committees in 1773.

The Gaspee

One incident frequently discussed in the committees’ let­
ters was that of the Gaspee, a British customs ship that had caught several
smugglers. In 1772, it ran aground off the shore of Rhode Island. Seizing
their opportunity to destroy the hated vessel, a group of colonists disguised as
American Indians ordered the British crew ashore and then set fire to the ship.
The British ordered a commission to investigate and bring guilty individuals to
Britain for trial.

Boston Tea Party

The colonists continued their refusal to buy British tea
because the British insisted on their right to collect the tax. Hoping to help the
British East India Company out of its financial problems, Parliament passed the
Tea Act in 1773, which made the price of the company’s tea—even with the tax
included—cheaper than that of smuggled Dutch tea.

Many Americans refused to buy the cheaper tea because to do so would,
in effect, recognize Parliament’s right to tax the colonies. A shipment of the
East India Company’s tea arrived in Boston harbor, but there were no buyers.
Before the royal governor could arrange to bring the tea ashore, a group of Bos­
tonians disguised themselves as American Indians, boarded the British ships,
and dumped 342 chests of tea into the harbor. Colonial reaction to this incident
(December 1773) was mixed. While many applauded the Boston Tea Party as a
justifiable defense of liberty, others thought the destruction of private property
was far too radical.

Intolerable Acts

In Great Britain, news of the Boston Tea Party angered the king, Lord North,
and members of Parliament. In retaliation, the British government enacted a
series of punitive acts (the Coercive Acts), together with a separate act dealing
with French Canada (the Quebec Act). The colonists were outraged by these
various laws, which were given the epithet “Intolerable Acts.”

The Coercive Acts (1774)

There were four Coercive Acts, directed
mainly at punishing the people of Boston and Massachusetts and bringing the
dissidents under control.

1. The Port Act closed the port of Boston, prohibiting trade in and out of
   the harbor until the destroyed tea was paid for.

2. The Massachusetts Government Act reduced the power of the Massa­
   chusetts legislature while increasing the power of the royal governor.

3. The Administration of Justice Act allowed royal officials accused of
   crimes to be tried in Great Britain instead of in the colonies.

4. A fourth law expanded the Quartering Act to enable British troops to
   be quartered in private homes. It applied to all colonies.

Quebec Act (1774)

When it passed the Coercive Acts, the British govern­
ment also passed a law organizing the Canadian lands gained from France. This
plan was accepted by most French Canadians, but it was resented by many in
the 13 colonies. The Quebec Act established Roman Catholicism as the official

religion of Quebec, set up a government without a representative assembly, and
extended Quebec’s boundary to the Ohio River.

The colonists viewed the Quebec Act as a direct attack on the American
colonies because it took away lands that they claimed along the Ohio River.
They also feared that the British would attempt to enact similar laws in America
to take away their representative government. The predominantly Protestant
Americans also resented the recognition given to Catholicism.

Philosophical Foundations of the American Revolution

For Americans, especially those who were in positions of leadership, there
was a long tradition of loyalty to the king and Great Britain. As the differences
between them grew, many Americans tried to justify this changing relation­
ship. As discussed in Chapter 3, the Enlightenment, particularly the writings of
John Locke, had a profound influence on the colonies.

Enlightenment Ideas

The era of the Enlightenment (see Chapter 3) was at
its peak in the mid-18th century—the very years that future leaders of the Amer­
ican Revolution (Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and Adams) were coming to
maturity. Many Enlightenment thinkers in Europe and America were Deists,
who believed that God had established natural laws in creating the universe,
but that the role of divine intervention in human affairs was minimal. They
believed in rationalism and trusted human reason to solve the many problems
of life and society, and emphasized reason, science, and respect for humanity.
Their political philosophy, derived from Locke and developed further by the
French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, had a profound influence on edu­cated Americans in the 1760s and 1770s—the decades of revolutionary thought and action that finally culminated in the American Revolution.

Historical Perspectives: Why Did the Colonies Rebel?

• Historians debate whether America’s break from Britain was a true revolution or the result of gradual, evolutionary change.

• Traditional view: The Revolution was a radical, Enlightenment-inspired event that fundamentally changed society.

• Progressive historians (early 20th century): Saw it as a chance for social and political transformation—creating a new, republican, and more equal nation.

• Later historians (like Bernard Bailyn): Argued that democratic changes began earlier in the colonial era, and the Revolution mainly confirmed existing ideas of liberty and democracy.