The Colonies Under British Rule The Colonies Under British Rule Historian Pauline Maier: "The British colonists saw the year 1763 as a great watershed in American history. In the past, a great semi-circle of "Catholic enemies" had hemmed them in from French Canada and Louisiana on their north and west to Spanish Florida in the south. But in 1763, the Peace of Paris gave all the lands between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi River to Britain's young King George III. That change, the colonists assumed, would bring peace and security beyond anything they or their parents or their parents' parents had known. And now nothing would keep them from spilling beyond the Appalachian Mountains. In the wave of patriotism that swept the colonies after the French and Indian War, no one doubted that the America of the future would be British. At the time, in fact, the various colonies had no ties with each other except through London and their shared British identity.

The Americans were particularly proud of being governed under the "British constitution," that is, Britain's form of government, which divided power among the King, Lords, and Commons, and which they, like many enlightened Europeans, considered the best mankind had ever devised for the protection of liberty. (Though they were appalled at the corruption and bribery involved in British politics.) Affection reinforced the imperial bond. One set of colonists after another testified that their hearts were "warmly attached to the King of Great Britain and the royal family." The mystery is why, only thirteen years later, they declared their Independence. That mystery is not ours alone. It was the colonists' too. As events unfolded, they wondered at the unexpected course their history was taking, and sought explanations." The Boston Tea Party In 1773, however, trouble began again after Parliament tried to help the East India Company sell tea in the colonies at a price lower than that of smuggled tea.

(Because it was sold directly to customers, the tea, even with the still-existing tax, was cheaper than before.) Colonists saw this "poisoned cheap tea" as an attempt by Parliament to lure them into accepting Parliament's right to tax them -- to raise a revenue, as the colonists said. They also objected to Parliament's actions in wiping out a whole class of American merchants. Parliament refused, however, to remove the old duty on tea, which, from the colonists' perspective, "poisoned" the East India Company's cheap tea. Again they resisted, but in as peaceful a manner as they could. Colonists in New York and Philadelphia, for example, convinced the captains of tea ships to turn around and take their cargoes back to England without paying the tea tax. In Boston, however, the tea ships entered the harbor before the opposition organized. Townsmen spent the next twenty days trying without success to get clearances so the ships could go back to sea. Governor Thomas Hutchinson, however, insisted that the tea would not be sent back -- that the law would be enforced.

Then, on the night before the tea could be seized by the customs service, a group of men disguised as Indians boarded the ships and emptied 342 chests of tea into the water. The proceedings were amazingly quiet except for the "ploop, ploop, ploop" of tea dropping into the sea. A young lawyer from the town of Braintree named John Adams, an obscure cousin of the better- known Boston leader, Samuel Adams, and by no means a lover of mobs, found the event "magnificent." The "Boston Tea Party," as it was later called, was "so bold, so daring, so firm, intrepid, and inflexible," and would have such important and lasting consequences, he said, that "I cannot but consider it as an epoch in history." The British government proved him right. For the first time also the King became involved, viewing the actions of the Bostonians as rebellious. With George III's hearty approval, Parliament punished Boston with a series of "Coercive Acts" that the colonists promptly renamed the "Intolerable Acts." Among other things, they closed the port of Boston until the tea was paid for, throwing hundreds of people out of work.

The Acts also altered the Massachusetts charter, suspending the assembly (known as the General Court) and preventing town meetings from gathering. Then Britain put Massachusetts under military rule, appointing General Thomas Gage as royal governor and sending troops to enforce his authority. From there on, the crisis got worse without respite. At about the same time, but not as part of the Coercive Acts, the British Parliament, in an attempt to placate the French Catholic inhabitants of Quebec Province in Canada, passed the Quebec Act. This measure dropped the boundary of Quebec down to the Ohio River, thus depriving Americans, such as the investors in the Ohio Company, who included George Washington and Ben Franklin, of the opportunity to develop lands that they thought they owned in the Ohio country. The Quebec Act also recognized the Catholic Church as the official church in Quebec, and designated French civil law as the law system for the province. French civil law did not provide for a representative assembly and many colonists viewed the Catholic Church and its Pope as the spawn of Satan -- the "whore of Babylon spoken about in the Book of Revelations in the Bible. They viewed the Act as destructive of their Protestant religion and of political liberty because of its failure to provide a representative assembly.

They regarded the act as betraying the beliefs, property, and rights of Englishmen. (THE FOLLOWING IS VERY IMPORTANT FOR UNDERSTANDING HOW THE COLONISTS CAME TO VIEW THINGS AFTER THE COERCIVE ACTS AND THE QUEBEC ACT.) Many colonists saw the Coercive Acts as proof of a plot to enslave the colonies. In truth, the taxes and duties, laws and regulations of the last decade were part of a deliberate design -- a commonsensical plan to centralize the administration of the British empire. But those efforts by the king's ministers and Parliament to run the colonies more efficiently and profitably were viewed by more and more Americans as a sinister conspiracy against their liberties. For colonials, the study of history confirmed that interpretation, especially their reading of the histories written by those known as the English Opposition, men such as John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon who authored Cato's Letters. The Opposition's favorite historical subject was the downfall of republics, whether those of ancient Greece and Rome, or more recent republican governments in Venice and Denmark. The lesson of their histories was always the same: power overwhelmed liberty.

Those who had the power would always seek more and ambitious politicians would always pursue the same strategies to replace representative government and popular freedom with tyranny. In all places and at all times in the past, the Opposition warned, the conspiracy against liberty unfolded in predictable stages that they called the "DARK SCENARIO." 1) First, the people of a republic were impoverished by costly wars -- something the colonists could well appreciate after the Seven Years' (French and Indian) War. 2)Then the government loaded the people with taxes to pay for those wars as in the case of the Stamp Act or Townshend Duties. 3) Next, the government stationed a standing army in the country, pretending to protect the people but actually lending military force to those in power. And, of course, troops had been unloaded in Boston harbor, were quartered in New York, and were making trouble wherever they appeared. 4) Then wicked men were favored with public offices and patronage to secure their loyalty and support for the foes of liberty. And how else could one describe the royal governors, customs collectors, and judges who now received salaries from the revenues of the Townshend Acts?

5) Those in power also deliberately promoted idleness, luxury, and extravagance to weaken the moral fiber of the people as could be seen in the consumption of tea encouraged by the low prices ensured by the Tea Act that still contained the odious tax. 6) Finally, those in power attempted to provoke the people to violent action in order to justify new oppression. Witness the Tea Act, followed by the Tea Party and the resulting Coercive Acts. Throw in the Quebec Act that had dropped the southern boundary of Quebec all the way down to the Ohio River, had recognized the Roman Catholic Church in Quebec as the official church there, and that had set up government without a representative assembly, and many colonials came to believe not only that ambitious men plotted to enslave the colonies but also that those conspirators included almost all British political leaders. At the time of the Stamp Act and again during the agitation against the Townshend Acts, most colonials had confined their suspicions to the king's ministers. By 1774 in the minds of many colonials, members of Parliament were also implicated in that conspiracy -- and a few radicals were wondering aloud about George III. "Dark Scenario" WKSHT (Complete the following): 1.

Colonists interpreted British actions in light of their reading of the English ____________ writers, whose favorite topic was the fall of _________ and who argued that the lesson of history was that __________________________________________.. 2. The ï¿½Opposition Writers,ï¿½ who were read widely in America: claimed that power ________and that those in ________ always tried to acquire more. 3) The ï¿½Opposition Writersï¿½ claimed that those in power usually followed a ï¿½_________ __________ï¿½ of six steps. Complete the following chart: The First Continental Congress If Boston and Massachusetts could be punished so severely , how could New York or Pennsylvania or South Carolina feel safe? Their response was to meet in a Congress. 55 delegates met in 1Philadelphia in 1774 in the1st Continental Congress. It was called to respond to the Intolerable Acts. Up to this point, there had been 13 separate protest movements against British policies that cooperated at certain times.

At the First Continental Congress, ï¿½13 (actually twelve) separate clocks began to strike as one.ï¿½ Twelve colonies, every one but Georgia, sent delegates to the "Continental Congress" in Philadelphia to coordinate their response. They turned to their old economic weapon albeit with more teeth, organizing a Continental Association to enforce non-importation and non-consumption of British goods, and non-exportation of American goods to Britain -- a complete trade embargo. Committees of public safety were formed in communities to enforce the trade ban and these began to function as local governments. In the Declaration of Rights and Grievances, the Congress also petitioned George III to intercede on the colonists' behalf, emphasizing the Americans' loyalty to their sovereign and conceding Parliament's right to regulate trade and control foreign and defense policy, but insisting that only the assemblies had the right to legislate on matters within the colonies themselves. They reaffirmed loyalty to the king and said that the colonies were tied to Britain through the Monarch. The members of Congress agreed to meet again in the spring of 1775 to see if their measures had been successful. But from 1774 to 1775 British rule in many colonies collapsed.

And, by the time the Second Continental Congress met in 1775, fighting had already begun. The King decided that the colonies were "in a state of rebellion," and that "blows must decide whether they are to be subject to this country or independent." The Battles of Lexington and Concord The blows began on April 19, 1775 after General Gage sent troops to seize colonial arms stored at the town of Concord, some twenty miles outside Boston. On the way they went through Lexington, where local militiamen on the town green began to disperse once they saw how outnumbered they were. Somewhere, someone fired a gun. Then the regulars emptied their muskets into the fleeing militiamen, killing eight and wounding ten. Amos Doolittle recalled the scene in an engraving he made seven months later. It is much like Revere's "Boston Massacre." Again Doolittle showed British soldiers, with their commander urging them on, shooting innocent colonists.

Doolittle also recorded the regulars' march to Concord; an engagement between the provincials and regulars at Concord's North Bridge and, perhaps most interesting of all, the redcoats' retreat back to Boston, burning houses along the way, while militiamen from nearby towns shot at them. The retreat from Concord almost finished off Gage's army. Once the remaining troops got back to camp in Boston, they pretty much had to stay there. The provincial army that formed across the river in Cambridge saw to that. An ordinary soldier, whose name is unknown, kept a journal of his life in the American army during 1775 and 1776. He had some trouble deciding just what to call the King's troops. He couldn't call them, as legend has it, "the British," since the colonists were still British. He wrote, of "the regulars," sometimes of "the Gageites." But after a while he found a better name -- "the enemy." The Second Continental Congress Within weeks of Lexington and Concord, a Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia. It appointed one of its members, an uncommonly tall, dignified Virginian named George Washington, to take charge of the army at Cambridge.

Washington had some military experience, none of it especially glorious and some of it disastrous. Even so, he had spent more time as a military officer than most any of his countrymen, and so was appalled at the dirty, disorderly men in the American camp. Washington quickly began imposing discipline, trying desperately to transform that collection of patriots and adventure-seekers into a respectable army. Meanwhile, the Congress recruited men and officers and gathered military supplies. It took charge of the post office and Indian affairs. It also borrowed money, and eventually issued its own currency. In fact, the Second Continental Congress became the first government of the United States. It had to assume those powers, it seemed, to prevent the British from crushing the Americans and ending their dream of finding a way to live as free men under the British flag. But reconciliation was becoming increasingly unlikely. The King refused to answer another petition from Congress even though it was written, in a scrupulously respectful way, by our old friend John Dickinson. The colonists' statements of loyalty, the King told Parliament, were meant "only to amuse" while they schemed to found an independent country. Wasn't the Congress seizing one power after another?

Thomas Paine's Common Sense Then, in the opening weeks of 1776, Common Sense appeared. That pamphlet was the work of Thomas Paine, an Englishman of no particular distinction and little formal education, a man who had been trained as a corset-maker and dismissed from the English customs service before arriving in America less than two years before he wrote Common Sense. With language that spoke to ordinary people, it said what so many native-born colonists were afraid to say. The time had come for America to go her separate way. The problem wasn't the ministers, or the Parliament, or even George III as a person, although Paine did call him "the royal brute of Britain". It was the "so much boasted constitution of England." The British system of government, Paine argued, had two deadly flaws -- monarchy and hereditary rule. Only by governing themselves could Americans secure their freedom and realize the peace that they so deeply desired. Paine also painted a picture of the role that he envisioned for America. ( Read these short excerpts. ) Common Sense spread through the colonies like wildfire, opening among the people a debate over independence that was already well underway among congressmen.

And yet, when they looked back over the previous decade, the colonists wondered at the road they had traveled. How, the freemen of Virginia's Buckingham County asked in the spring of 1776, had Britain and America become so "incensed" with each other? It began at Lexington and Concord. ï¿½Shots heard round the world.ï¿½ Battle of Bunker Hill- June 1775 ï¿½A constitutional argument within the family had become a blood feud.ï¿½ The Road to Independence It took over a year of fighting before the second continental congress declared independence- such was the strong emotional connection to the king. But events between1775 and the late spring/summer of 1776 eroded the bonds of loyalty to the king. Still, during the war, 20% of Americans were Loyalists (Tories), and 33% (some historians argue 40-45%) were Patriots (Whigs). Factors that eroded allegiance to the king: The reality of continuous war eroded loyalty. June 1775: Battle of Bunker Hill It showed that Americans would fight British regulars.

1775-1776: Americans invaded Canada led by Richard Montgomery 2. The Kingï¿½s actions also weakened colonial attachment to him. February 1775: declared the colonies in rebellion and outside his protection. British Naval Blockade burned Falmouth and Maine. He rejected the Olive Branch Petition (proposed by John Dickinson of the 2nd Continental Congress) He hired 30,00 German mercenaries (Hessians) from the German State of Hesse. There was a real sense of betrayal. "Daddy" had hired foreigners to kill Americans. American colonists really resented his use for troops against his own people. The Second Continental Congress began acting like an independent government. - It created a Continental Army and placed George Washington in command - It issued paper money called ï¿½Continentalsï¿½ - It secretly contacted France to obtain supplies and trading rights American victories in 1775-1776 made independence seem possible, militarily. Washington forced the British to evacuate Boston from 1775-1776. - Lord Dunmore was defeated and driven out of Virginia. He had recruited runaway slaves for his forces at the Battle of Great Bridge.

Black British troops with ï¿½Liberty for Slavesï¿½ emblazoned on their chest fought against Virginia Whigs/patriots who also fought for liberty - American forces in South Carolina and Georgia repelled British attacks against Charleston and Savannah -- The British had been expelled from most of North America by mid 1776. In January 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense. It was a popular sensation and one of the most influential pieces of writing in American history. He wrote in a very plain style aimed at farmers, those in taverns, etc. Paine argued for independence and was radical on the behalf of liberty. He savaged the institution of monarchy and the present George III. He said America would prosper independently as long as eating remained the habit in Europe. He redefined Americaï¿½s sense of mission ï¿½ ï¿½Refuge for Liberty.ï¿½ Last words of the pamphlet: "Tis time to part." The Declaration of Independence The British saw everything the colonists did to protect their rights as a great outrage. Step by step, mutual confidence and affection had slipped away until they were beyond all hope of recovery.

As a result, Buckingham County called for "a total and final separation from Great Britain. Then, perhaps "some foreign power may, for their own interest, lend an assisting hand." That became imperative once the colonists learned that George III had hired German soldiers to help put down their "rebellion." Unless the colonists also got outside support, they would surely be destroyed. It was do or die. Not everyone agreed. In the end, about a fifth of all colonists remained loyal to Britain. (Read the segment "American Loyalists" in your textbook, pp. 160-162. Nonetheless, on July 2nd, 1776, twelve colonies approved a resolution that "these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states, that they are dissolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved." A week later New York made the decision unanimous. After approving independence, Congress spent two days editing a draft declaration submitted by a committee and its draftsman, a thirty-three old Virginian named Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson's reputation as an eloquent writer preceded his appearance in Congress a year earlier. Now, as the delegates hacked away at his prose, changing words, cutting large passages, rewriting much of the last paragraph, Jefferson suffered visibly. Later he complained bitterly that the delegates had "mutilated" his text." View the Deleted Passage over the slave trade. South Carolina and Georgia insisted that it be deleted as the price for their signing the Declaration. On July 4th, the delegates finished their editorial work and ordered the declaration printed and distributed so it could be read "at the head of the Army" and "proclaimed" throughout the land. In that way the people learned that a new nation, the United States of America, had assumed a "separate and equal station" among the "powers of the earth." Read the annotated Declaration of Independence and also read this short analysis They celebrated independence by shouting "huzzah," shooting off canons, and watching militia companies parade. Crowds tore down or destroyed symbols of royalty on taverns and public buildings. In New York, people pulled a bronze statue of George III from its pedestal and sent it off to Connecticut, where patriotic women melted the statue down and used the metal to make bullets.

When Americans of 1776 cited the Declaration of Independence, they quoted the last paragraph, the one in which Congress declared that "these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states." Little attention, indeed, so far as I can tell, none at all, was given to the document's second paragraph, which began: "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal." Those ideas were expressed in many other contemporary writings. But only the Declaration announced American independence. And that was the news in 1776. The War for Independence To declare independence was one thing; to win it was another. While Congress whittled away at Jefferson's prose, a massive British fleet arrived at New York. After evacuating Boston, the British had assembled one of the largest sea and land forces ever seen in North America to end this pesky colonial rebellion once and for all. They almost succeeded. In 1776, the American Army suffered one defeat after another. Washington broke the downward spiral with small but significant victories at Trenton and Princeton, New Jersey, in late December and early January.

By then he had convinced Congress that the American cause could not depend on local militiamen, who would serve only for short periods and preferred to remain near their homes. It needed an army of trained soldiers and officers willing to sign up for long terms of service in return for concrete rewards including bounties, respectable pay, and the promise of land at the war's end. Thereafter the American cause was primarily defended not by men defending their homes and families, as at Lexington and Concord, but by young, single men, both white and black, with little if any property. Militiamen sometimes supported the Continental Army, as at Saratoga, New York, where they gathered from all over New England to stop an invasion from Canada under the British general "Gentleman Johnny" Burgoyne in October 1777. The victory at Saratoga gave the signal for France, which was hesitant to join the United States in a losing war, to negotiate an alliance with the Americans. That tipped the odds against Britain. Thereafter, Britain concentrated its attention on the South, where it set off a brutish, bloody civil war between Patriot and Loyalist Carolonians.

Finally, the British commander, Lord Charles Cornwallis, turned east and settled in at Yorktown, Virginia, on the Chesapeake Bay, waiting for supplies and reinforcements. Washington and a large body of French troops moved in and mounted a siege while the French fleet prevented the British from rescuing Cornwallis. On October 18, some three years after Saratoga, Cornwallis surrendered. When the British minister learned the news, he exclaimed, "Oh God, it is all over." And so another group of negotiators gathered in Paris. The Americans, including the wily Benjamin Franklin and honest John Adams, won extraordinarily favorable terms. The trans-Appalachian west became part of the United States, along with all the land between Canada and the northern border of Florida. And Britain recognized the United States as an independent nation. Not 1763, but 1776 turned out to mark the great watershed in American history. How would life be different on the other side of that great divide? Now, at least, the Americans could decide that themselves. Perhaps the last word on the complex causes of the Revolution should be left to an obscure participant, Levi Preston, a Minuteman from Danvers, Massachusetts.

Asked sixty-seven years after Lexington and Concord about British oppressions, the ninety-one year-old veteran responded to his his young interviewer, "What were they? Oppressions I didn't feel them. He was then asked, "What, were you not oppressed by the Stamp Act? Preston replied that he "never saw one of those stamps. . . I am certain I never paid a penny for one of them. [They had been destroyed.] What about the tax on tea? "Tea-tax! I never drank a drop of the stuff; the boys threw it all overboard." His interviewer finally asked why he decided to fight for independence. "Young man," Preston replied, "what we meant in going for those redcoats was this: we had always had governed ourselves, and we always meant to. They didn't mean we should." George III - British History - HISTORY.com Google George III: Birth and Education The Georgian era (1714-1830) spanned the combined reigns of the five British monarchs from the Electorate of Hanover, a member state of the Holy Roman Empire. George III was the first Hanoverian king born in England rather than Germany.

His parents were Frederick, prince of Wales, and Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. Did You Know? The planet Uranus was originally named "Georgium sidus," the Georgian Star, after King George III of England, who had funded the 40-foot telescope William Herschel used in its discovery. On his father’s death in 1751, the 12-year-old George became prince of Wales. He was cared for in relative isolation by his mother and tutored by the Scottish nobleman Lord Bute. George III: Early Reign George III became king of Great Britain and Ireland in 1760 following his grandfather George II’s death. In his accession speech to Parliament, the 22-year-old monarch played down his Hanoverian connections. “Born and educated in this country,” he said, “I glory in the name of Britain.” A year after his coronation, George was married to Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the daughter of a German duke. It was a political union—the two met for the first time on their wedding day—but a fruitful one, producing 15 children.

George III worked for an expedited end to the Seven Years’ War (1756-63), taking a position that forced his influential war minister William Pitt the Elder (who wanted to broaden the conflict) to resign in 1761. The next year George appointed Lord Bute as his prime minister, the first in a quick succession of five ineffective ministers. In 1764 Prime Minister George Grenville introduced the Stamp Act as a way of raising revenue in British America. The act was fervently opposed in America, especially by the pamphleteers whose paper would be taxed. Parliament would repeal the act two years later, but mistrust persisted in the colonies. George III: The American Revolution In 1770 Lord North became prime minister, beginning a 12-year period of parliamentary stability. In 1773 he passed an act taxing tea in the colonies. The Americans complained of taxation without representation (and staged the Boston Tea Party ), but North held firm with George’s backing. The American Revolution began on April 19, 1775, with the Battles of Lexington and Concord .

The next year, the Declaration of Independence laid out the Americans’ case for freedom, portraying George III as an inflexible tyrant who had squandered his right to govern the colonies. In reality the situation was more complex: Parliamentary ministers, not the crown, were responsible for colonial policies, though George still had means of direct and indirect influence. The king was reluctant to come to terms with his army’s defeat at Yorktown in 1781. He drafted an abdication speech but in the end decided to defer to Parliament’s peace negotiations. The 1783 Treaty of Paris recognized the United States and ceded Florida to Spain. George III: Later Rule and Mental Illness At the end of 1783, Lord North’s coalition was forced out by William Pitt the Younger, who would be prime minister for more than 17 years. In 1778 George lapsed into a months-long period of violent insanity. He was restrained with a straitjacket and suffered various treatments as crisis of rule unfolded around him. He recovered the next year and reigned for the next 12 as a newly beloved monarch and symbol of stability in the era of France’s revolutionary chaos.

George’s support of England’s role in the French Revolutionary Wars of the late 1790s offered early resistance against the Napoleonic juggernaut. George suffered a second major bout of insanity in 1804 and recovered, but in 1810 he slipped into his final illness. A year later his son, the future George IV, became prince regent, giving him effective rule for the War of 1812 and Napoleon’s final defeat at Waterloo in 1815. George III died blind, deaf and mad on January 29, 1820. His illnesses may have been caused by porphyria, an inherited metabolic disorder, though a 2005 analysis of hair samples suggested arsenic poisoning (from medicines and cosmetics) as a possible cause. Tags Why Britain attempted to Tax American Colonists Why Britain attempted to Tax American Colonists The Destruction of Tea at Boston Harbor by Nathaniel Currier. Wikimedia Commons Updated October 21, 2016. The attempts by Britain to tax its North American colonists led to arguments, war, the expulsion of British rule and the creation of a new nation.

The origins of these attempts lay, not in a rapacious government, but in the aftermath of the Seven Years War . Britain was and attempting to both balance finances – through tax - and control the newly acquired parts of their empire, through asserting sovereignty. These actions were complicated by British prejudice. More on the causes of the war. The Need for Defence During the Seven Years War Britain had won a string of major victories and expelled France from North America, as well as parts of Africa, India and the West Indies. ‘New France’, the name of France’s North American holdings, was now British, but a newly conquered population could cause problems. continue reading below our video Causes of the American Revolution Few people in Britain were naïve enough to believe that these former French colonists would suddenly and wholeheartedly embrace British rule with no danger of rebellion, and Britain believed troops would be needed to keep order. In addition, the war had revealed that the existing colonies needed defence against Britain’s enemies, and Britain believed that defence was best provided by the fully trained regular army, not just colonial militias. To this end, the post-war government of Britain, with a major lead taken by King George III, decided to permanently station units of the British army in America.

Keeping this army would take money. There was a political impetus behind this need. The Seven Years War had seen the British army expand from around 35,000 to over 100,000 men under arms, and opposition politicians in Britain now expected the army to decrease in number during peacetime. But, as well as needing more troops to garrison a suddenly enlarged empire, the government feared having to pension off masses of the officers, who were closely connected to politicians. The Need for Tax The Seven Years War had seen Britain spend prodigious amounts, both on its own army and on subsidies to allies. The British national debt had doubled in that short time, and extra taxes had been levelled in Britain. The last one, the Cider Tax, had proved highly unpopular and many people were agitating to have it removed. Britain was also running short of credit with banks. Under huge pressure to curb spending, the British King and government believed that any further attempts to tax the homeland would fail. They thus seized upon other sources of income, and one of these was taxing the American colonists in order to pay for the army protecting them. The American colonies appeared to the British government to be heavily under taxed.

Before the war the most colonists had directly contributed to British income was customs revenue, but this barely challenged the cost of collecting it. During the war huge sums of British currency had flooded into the colonies, and many not killed in the war, or in conflicts with natives, had done rather well. It appeared to the British government that a few new taxes to pay for their garrison should be easily absorbed. Indeed, they had to be absorbed, because there simply didn’t seem to be any other way of paying for the army. Few in Britain expected the colonists to have protection and not pay for it. Unchallenged Assumptions British minds first turned to taxing the colonists in 1763. Unfortunately for King George III and his government, their attempt to transform the colonies politically and economically into a safe, stable and revenue producing – or at least revenue balancing – part of their new empire would flounder, because the British failed to understand either the post-war nature of the Americas, the experience of war for the colonists, or how they would respond to tax demands.

The colonies had been founded under crown / government authority, in the name of the monarch, and there had never been any exploration of what this really meant, and what power the crown had in America. While the colonies had become almost self governing, many in Britain assumed that as they sent governors to the colonies, legislated for them in British parliament, had a veto over colonial laws and because the colonies largely followed British law, that the British state had rights over the Americans. No one in the decision making heart of government appears to have asked if colonial troops could have garrisoned America, or if Britain should ask the colonists for financial aid instead of voting in taxes above their heads. This was partly the case because the British government thought it was learning a lesson from the French-Indian War : that the colonial government would only work with Britain if they could see a profit, and that colonial soldiers were unreliable and undisciplined because they operated under rules different to the British army. In fact, these prejudices were based on British interpretations of the early part of the war, where co-operation between the politically poor British commanders and the colonial governments had been tense, if not hostile.

But these views ignored the adaptations of the colonies in the final years, when they had born 3/5 of the costs, provided as many troops as asked for, and generally came together to fight a common enemy and achieved victory. The Briton who had overseen such a partnership, Pitt, was now out of power, and refused to come back. The Issue of Sovereignty Britain responded to these new, but false, assumptions about the colonies by wishing to expand British control and sovereignty over America, and these demands contributed another aspect to the British desire to levy taxes. In Britain it was felt that the colonists were outside the responsibilities which every Briton had to bear, and that the colonies were too far removed from the core of British experience to be left alone. By extending the duties of the average Briton to the US – including tax – the whole unit would be better off. The British believed sovereignty was the sole cause of order in politics and society, that to deny sovereignty, to reduce or split it, was to invite anarchy and bloodshed. To view the colonies as separate from British sovereignty was, to contemporaries, to imagine a Britain dividing itself into rival units, and possible warfare between them.

Britons dealing with the colonies frequently acted out of fear of reducing the crown’s powers when faced with the choice of levying tax or acknowledging limits. Prev Congress for Kids: [Independence]: The Original Thirteen Colonies The Original Thirteen Colonies The Articles of Confederation Receive information about any changes to Congress for Kids and the other seven sites in The Dirksen Center's Web suite! Did the original thirteen colonies adopt the Declaration of Independence? Who lived in America before the Europeans arrived? What is one reason the colonists came to America? The three regions of colonies were so culturally and economically different. What were some of the concerns the colonists in each region would have had? Interactive 13 Colonies The Original Thirteen Colonies During America's first 150 years, most of the settlers came from Great Britain. Along America's Atlantic coast, these colonists built settlements that became what are commonly called the "Original Thirteen Colonies." The British settlers lived under the rule of the King of England. They worked hard building homes, farms and towns, even though they did not own these places. The settlers worked so hard that they wanted to be involved in making decisions about their lives and property. The British knew that the colonists wanted independence.

But the British, instead, tried to take more control of the colonists. By the mid-1770s, King George III and the British government taxed everyday goods, such as tea. Colonists resented the imposition of these revenue measures for the Crown and objected to British interference with their commercial practices. Learn More Anne Hutchinson was a famous woman at the time when colonies in the New England area were being created. She was known for expressing her opinions and saying that God spoke to her. She didn't found the colony of Maine because Maine wasn't even one of the original thirteen colonies and she definitely wasn't friends with Pocahontas or a government official. Anne Hutchinson was a woman who discussed and often questioned the teachings of the minister by voicing her persuasive opinion. She was later ordered out of the colony when she told the court that she thought God had spoken to her. Create a three-sided diorama. In each scene include the name of the colonial region, a map of the colonies with the colonial region colored and the colonies labeled with the two letter state abbreviation.

Include the following facts: names of each colony, date, founder, and reason founded; land and climate; making a living; community life; national origin of the colonists; plus 5 additional important facts. Awards SparkNotes: The Declaration of Independence (1776): List of Abuses and Usurpations List of Abuses and Usurpations The Declaration of Independence (1776) Thomas Jefferson List of Abuses and Usurpations → List of Abuses and Usurpations, page 2 page 1 of 2 Summary The colonies have suffered 27 at the hands of the King George III. Each of these abuses has been directed at the colonies for the purpose of establishing a tyrannical government in North America. Jefferson claims that the colonists have patiently suffered these abuses and that it is now time to expose these abuses to the nations of the world. The first 12 abuses involve King George III's establishment of a tyrannical authority in place of representative government. The foundation of representative government is the power of the people to make laws for the public good.

King George III interfered with that process by rejecting legislation proposed by the colonies, dissolving colonial bodies of representation, replacing colonial governments with his appointed ministers, and interfering with the naturalization of citizens in new regions. King George III extended his tyrannical control by interfering with the objective judicial processes and the civil rights of the colonists. King George III prevented the establishment of judicial powers in the colonies and made judges dependent on him for their jobs and salaries. King George III further established tyrannical control by maintaining a strong military presence under his direct command. The King is a tyrant, because he keeps standing armies in the colonies during a time of peace, makes the military power superior to the civil government, and forces the colonists to support the military presence through increased taxes. Abuses 13 through 22 describe the involvement of parliament in destroying the colonists' right to self-rule. The king has "combined with others" to subject the colonists to legislation passed without colonial input or consent.

Legislation has been passed to quarter troops in the colonies, to shut off trade with other parts of the world, to levy taxes without the consent of colonial legislatures, to take away the right to trial by jury, and to force colonists to be tried in England. Additionally, legislation has established absolute rule in a nearby area, taken away the authority of colonial governments, and forbidden further legislation by colonial governments. The last 5 abuses, 23 through 27, refer to specific actions that the King of Great Britain took to abandon the colonies and to wage war against them. The King has attempted to suppress the colonial rebellion through violence and military means. He sent the British military to attack colonists, burn their towns, attack their ships at sea, and destroy the lives of the people. He hired foreign mercenaries to fight against the colonies. He kidnapped American sailors to force them into British military service, refused to protect the colonies from Native American attack, and has caused colonists to fight against each other. Commentary The list of abuses reflects the colonists' belief that their rights as British Citizens had been slowly eroded ever since the French and Indian War ended in 1763.

Although the Declaration does not name the specific legislation passed by Parliament, its listing of the abuses and usurpation effectively covers the history of the King and Parliament's attempts to gain more power and control over the colonies. The list crescendos with the most offensive actions, aimed at total suppression of the colonies, that were put into effect just prior to the signing of the Declaration. Many of the acts that the Declaration criticizes were intended to tighten royal control over the colonies. The history of Parliament's acts unfolded over a period of 13 years during which royal attempts to squash the civil liberties of colonists met with heightened colonial resistance. Beginning with The Proclamation of 1763, Parliament stripped colonists of the right to settle in the land between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River. This meant that although many colonists had given their lives to defend that land from the French, they would not be permitted to reap the benefits. Shortly after the proclamation, Parliament decided that the colonies would help repay the war debts, and enacted laws such as the Sugar Act (1764), the Stamp Tax (1765), the Townshend Acts (1767) and the Tea Act (1773).

When the colonists protested against these acts, the King and Parliament responded by further suppressing the rights of colonists. Legislation in 1774 referred to by colonists as the "Intolerable Acts" struck especially hard at the civil rights of the colony of Massachusetts. 1

Question: Who was the last British King to rule over the US colonies?
Answer: King George III