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USH Darnell Justification for American Independence: Two Different Perspectives Which European nations came to North America and why? The “willing” included the Spanish, French, Dutch and English. The involuntary included West Africans. They sought to gain power and prestige. To some extent, each power went there because the other powers were doing so. The Mercantilist battle between European powers for North American domination spurred European immigration and conflict—conflict between European powers and with Natives. Under the policy of Mercantilism, the colonies provided affordable raw materials and markets to buy manufactured goods from the mother country, while the mother country provided military protection. But make no mistake about it, rulers of Spain, France, the Netherlands, and England also wanted their people to gain some of the wealth that they thought the Americas had. Closely allied with the desire to explore North America was the desire to colonize it. To hold on to an area that was claimed involved leaving colonists, as well as military units. Why did European settlers come? The reasons European colonists came to North America were varied. Some came to convert Native Americans to Christianity. Others came to be free to worship as they wished. The Puritans of Massachusetts, for instance, had been persecuted in England because they demanded reforms in the established Church there. Quakers settled in Pennsylvania for similar reasons. English Catholics too wanted freedom of religion, and many settled in Maryland for that purpose. Perhaps economic reasons for coming to North America were most important. Early Europeans came to fish or to trade in furs and other goods. Then European farmers came. In England and elsewhere, there was not enough land available for everyone who wished to farm. The inexpensive, fertile land in North America seemed the answer for some Europeans. The opportunity to make money and better their social position attracted many settlers. Indentured servants came because they had little at home to keep them and believed the colonies offered the chance for a better life. They agreed to 4-7 year terms of servitude in exchange for the cost of passage. Georgia was settled by criminals, debtors, and other poor Europeans. Africans were brought to the colonies in chains to work plantations and do other jobs. Why did the Colonies rebel and who participated? The ideas that fueled the independence movement of the British colonies in North America were, in part, the same ideas that spurred the evolution of English rights from the Magna Carta in 1215 to the English Bill of Rights in 1689. From 1688-1763, the British implemented an informal policy called “Salutary Neglect” toward the colonists. Under this informal policy the British loosely regulated and enforced their political and economic power over the colonists. As a result, the colonists developed economic and political systems based on local needs and local ideas. European Enlightenment philosophy greatly influenced American Colonial thought. In 1690 John Locke published Two Treatises on Government, in which he outlined the “Natural Rights” of people. Namely, that all people have inalienable rights to “life, liberty, and property;” that government power derives from the people; that the government only has power as long as people consent to be governed; that if government unjustly denies people their basic rights then they have the power to overthrow it. In The Social Contract, JeanJaques Rousseau extended Locke’s idea of a social contract to reflect that people did not make an agreement with the government; rather, they make a social contract with each other to sacrifice some individual freedom in favor of the general community’s needs and obey community decisions. Finally, Baron de Montesquieu promoted a practical government system to protect people’s Natural rights. In his book, The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu stated the best way to do this is to limit the powers of government by dividing government powers among a number of authorities. Colonial needs and ideas led to the development of a culture unique from England and other European nations. 1 USH Darnell The issues that inspired revolution centered on federalism and mercantilism. After the French and Indian War, 1754-1763, the British re-established a tighter reign over colonial economic and political actions, effectively ending Salutary Neglect. Feeling a sense of economic hardship stemming from fighting eight world wars between 1688 and 1763, the British reinforced their mercantilist relationship with the colonies. The main objective of Parliament’s shift was to decrease Britain’s debt and to offset future costs associated with protecting its North American colonies. Following Pontiac’s Rebellion (Odawa tribe) in 1763 the Proclamation Line was established to decrease potential conflict between colonists and Natives by prohibiting colonial settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains. Beginning in the 1760s, the British increased taxes on the colonists and strictly enforced the Navigation Acts—laws that barred most foreign ships from trading ports in Great Britain and its colonies. Examples included: the Sugar Act, Stamp Act, Declaratory Act, Tea Act, Quebec act, Vic-Admiralty Courts and Writs of Assistance. A decade later, the British passed the Coercive Acts. The colonists called them the Intolerable Acts because they were so damaging to their economy. To the British these measures were passed to safeguard the colonies and the economic status of the British Empire. To the colonists the shift in British policy management over the American colonies was tyrannical as they had no direct political voice in the decision-making; the reinvigorated British imperial policies angered more and more colonists until eventually some called for independence. By the time Thomas Jefferson sat down to write the Declaration of Independence in 1776, Enlightenment ideas swirling through the colonies had rendered mercantilism an obsolete economic system and justified revolution. The British Perspective on the Causes of the American Revolution The British believed the American Revolution was much to do about nothing. Simply put, The British felt the American colonists overreacted to reasonable government policies. From 1688-1763 the British fought the French in eight world wars. These wars put a serious drain on the British treasury. In the last major war these nations fought, known as the French and Indian War in Colonial America and the Seven Years War in Europe, the British debt nearly doubled from 75 million pounds to 133 million pounds. There is little question the period of Salutary Neglect had been good to British and American colonial economic growth; however, the cost of war in general and providing protection to the colonists in particular, compelled the British to pass a series of laws after 1763 designed to curb the empire’s soaring debt. Following Pontiac’s Rebellion in 1763, the British implemented the Proclamation Line, prohibiting colonists from travelling west of the Appalachian Mountains. The British placed troops along the eastern slope of the range to protect colonists from Natives. In order to pay for the military costs, the British passed the Quartering Act of 1765, having colonists house British troops as a cost savings measure. In addition, a series of excise (sales tax) and enumerated (tax on goods imported from Britain) taxes were enacted, including the Sugar Act, Stamp Act, and Tea Act. Naturally, along with the increase in taxation, to reduce wartime debt and cover costs associated with protecting Colonial America came an increase in the number of British officials to administer and collect the taxes. When colonists protested the taxes as burdensome and unfair, since they did not have representation in Parliament, the British repealed the Stamp Act, demonstrating the effectiveness of Virtual Representation. To the British the Colonial protests were not justifiable. First off the average English citizen paid 25 times the tax paid by the average American colonist. Second, all of the actions were taken in the name of securing the interests of the British Empire: colonial protection and debt reduction. Third, England was the Mother Country in the relationship, so she naturally held ultimate authority over her colonies throughout the empire; and the Declaratory Act merely reminded the colonies of this mercantilist reality. Fourth, Parliament’s actions in repealing the Stamp Act and shifting from internal to external taxes in response to escalating colonial protests demonstrates the responsiveness of Virtual Representation: The people spoke and Parliament responded to their demands. Finally, the British provided naval protection on the high seas to safeguard American trade. 2