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Many people may think that the French and Indian war would actually improve relations with Britain and Colonial America. However, this war only brought out the cultural differences between the two groups of societies. The two had different opinions on who rules the colonial land, taxes, and land division. Not only that but tension began to grow between the two because after the French and Indian war, Britain ended its policy of Salutary Neglect and enforced the policy of Mercantilism. In other words, Britain started to control Colonial America with a fist.
The conflict of opinions and Britain’s policy change angered the colonists and caused them to fight for change. After the French and Indian war, Britain was left in terrible debt. Therefore, Britain started to enforce the Navigation Acts along with the addition of different taxes. Such taxes were shown in a newspaper masthead (Document H). This tax was the infamous Stamp Act. This act put a stamp on certain goods such as paper products that made colonist pay a tax towards Britain. This was despised by the colonist as shown in the document because the stamp that was used was a skull-and-crossbones.
Not only that but in the other corner of the document it says “the TIMES are Dreadful Doleful Dismal Dolorous and DOLLAR-LESS”. This was coming from a Colonial Newspaper after the Stamp Act was issued. Since they had to pay a tax to buy the paper they would highly dislike it. All colonists hated the Stamp Act including the brilliant Benjamin Franklin who wrote a letter to John Hughs while in London (Doc G). He traveled all the way London to try to get the act repealed. This shows the difference in tax ideas because the colonist wanted actual representation within Parliament versus a virtual representation.
After the war, the ideology between colonist and British were magnified. After the war, the colonist thought that they had the right to move westward towards the land they conquered because that was the main reason the colonist fought in the war. As shown in document A. After the French and Indian war the land that the English fought for was taken away because Parliament issued the Proclamation Line which forbids any colonist to move past the Appalachian Mountains. This infuriated the colonists because not only that they fought and died for this land but there were colonist already settled past the line before the war started.
The Proclamation Line was issued because Britain didn’t want to fight another war due to their poor economic state, so they thought that the Proclamation Line would stop all the conflict between Indians and colonists. But, when colonist first came to America, they had contacted the Natives. The colonists easily swindled the naive Natives to sell their land for a bit of goods that wear out after a short amount of time. But later, the Natives begin to realize the true worth of their land. They get tired of getting swindled by the colonist.
And they are tired of the colonist hunting all the animals. The Indians begin to ally together to rid of the colonists (Doc B). This document shows that even before the French and Indian war the colonist had ideas of more land. The French and Indian war was the start of Colonial and British differences in all aspects of life. It caused the British to become mercantilist rule. These sudden dramatic changes caused the colonist to argue for reform with their oppressor. In retrospect, the French and Indian war is one of the reasons for the revolutionary war years later.