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Nowitzky 1 Chris Nowitzky Professor Noyalas November 23,2011 U. S. History 121 The Impact of the French and Indian War on Colonial America The French and Indian war was fought between Great Britain and France from 1754 to 1763. Also known as the Seven Year’s War, this confrontation eventually erupted into an all out worldwide conflict. Its effects were not only immediate but long term. Although the colonies were not directly tied to the war, it greatly impacted them as well as modern America.
The war was primarily fought along the colonies separating New France, from Virginia to Nova Scotia. France controlled the early part of the war, rounding up British forces. It wasn’t until 1757 that Britain truly threw all its resources into the war. Britain ultimately won the war, but paid a hefty price. After the British victory in the French and Indian War, the political, economic and ideological relations between Britain and its American Colonies were greatly altered. This created high tensions throughout colonial America and would eventually lead to the American Revolution.
The French and Indian War won by the British had a great economic impact on the colonies. The war changed economical relations between Britain and its colonies for some time and became the largest reason for the outbreak of the American Nowitzky 2 Revolution. This was due to the fact that Britain acquired massive debts from the war and needed to pay them off. They decided the best way to get the money back would be to tax the colonies. The Stamp Act for instance, taxed printed goods such as papers, stamps and newspapers.
The Sugar Act was also directly imposed on the colonies in 1764 and taxed such items as molasses, which was used to make alcohol at that time. These taxes were directed by the British government to help pay for expenses acquired during the war. These new, arbitrary taxes severely angered the colonist. The British were determined to collect these new taxes. It was viewed as basically disrespecting the King if these taxes were neglected. Another reason for these taxes was to help maintain the new lands that the British acquired from the war.
Britain gained a massive amount of land as a direct result of the war and its maintenance would be costly. All and all, this made the economic relations between Britain and the American Colonies very tense as the colonist were very upset about these new taxes and the British were upset because the colonies neglected them. The political relations between Great Britain and the American colonies drifted further and further apart as a direct result of the French and Indian War. Colonist started to feel like their rights were being taken from them.
Even though they were born British citizens and were promised the same rights, they felt as they were being denied a proper Englishmen’s life. The colonies were under Martial law and were treated as if they were just regulars. They felt as if they were having their privacy and rights invaded by the British military, feeling as if they were just barely better than a common slave. This tight leash enforced by the British crown angered the colonist and pushed them closer to Nowitzky 3 independence.
Another political stress came from the taxes that were being passed down from Parliament. The stamp act for instance had Benjamin Franklin feeling a lack of respect and honor for the American Colonies. The British, up to that point, had pretty much let the colonists be and do whatever they wanted. One of the largest feuds between the two countries politically was the colonists’ representation in parliament. The colonists were not represented in Parliament but they were paying heavy taxes to the British government.
This enraged the colonist and made them rethink their political views. The Proclamation of 1763 also had a significant effect on the attitudes of the colonials towards the British. After the war and the Treaty of Paris, the Proclamation of 1763 was one of the first documents issued to govern the colonies. This proclamation simply stated that no further settlement beyond the Appalachian Mountains would be allowed. The colonists looked at the proclamation as putting an off limits sign on the
Ohio River Valley which the whole war had started over. The Proclamation was actually misinterpreted by the colonist and Britain’s failure to clearly identify its intentions began the chain of events that led to the American Revolution. Each political step taken by the British after the French and Indian War drew Americans closer and closer to revolution. The British ideals slowly began to drift away from the American colonist’s ideals after the French and Indian War. The British had only one focus at the time and that was making money.
All that King George III wanted from the colonies was pure profit to Britain. The colonies wanted all the freedoms and rights as they had in Britain and it was Nowitzky 4 felt that that wasn’t the best way to make money. Americans believed in liberty, peace, freedom, love and gratitude. They felt like they were supporting enough revenue back to Britain and that they should be given more freedoms. They felt like the oppression of the taxes was killing them and they hoped of one day resurrecting to life again.
This started they era of enlightment thinkers. Thomas Paine wrote the all-time best-selling American book, Common Sense, that advocated colonial America’s independence from the kingdom of Britain. This book stirred up the minds of American patriots and rallied colonist to Revolution. The British ideals were too profit oriented while the Americans were about freedom and happiness. After the British victory in the French and Indian war, the political, economic and ideological relations between Britain and its American colonies was greatly altered.
The economic relationship changed when Britain won all that land and was forced to tax the colonies in order to pay for it. The political relationship altered when the colonists felt as if their rights as Englishmen were being taken away. The ideological relations slowly altered because Britain’s goal became money, while the American’s was freedom and equality. The French and Indian War caused a very big change in the relations of Britain and the American colonies in economic, political and ideological ways.