The French and Indian War changed the balance
of power in North America in favor of the British. The French were driven out
by a coalition of Britons, colonists, and Indians. However, once peace
returned, these groups began to quarrel, and the situation in North America
became more fragile every day. The colonists and the British held deep
resentment toward each other following the war, stemming most particularly from
the poor relations between British and colonial troops. Indian tribes feared
that the British would allow the colonists to invade their tribal lands, and
thus conducted attacks against the British in North America in attempt to stave
off western settlement. Eventually, the British passed the Proclamation of
1763, limiting colonial expansion to appease the tribes, but this angered the
colonists, who thought that Britain should stay out of North American affairs
all together.
The next ten years consisted of a string of British impositions on the colonies,
as if to test the limits of Parliament's power in North America. The first of
these impositions was the use of writs of assistance, which allowed customs
agents to search any building or ship without a specific warrant. The colonists
saw this as a great infringement upon their natural rights. The effect of the
writs was compounded by the advent of the Sugar Act, which put tight
regulations on American trade, and provided for jury-less trials for accused
smugglers. The colonists were greatly inconvenienced by this act, but full-
fledged opposition to the British was hesitant in coming.
Parliament passed the Stamp Act in March
1765, requiring all colonists to buy specific watermarked paper for all
newspapers and legal documents. Due to the Stamp Act's wide effect throughout
the colonies, and the fact that it placed an internal tax on the colonies, it
roused significant opposition. As violence broke out all over the colonies, the
groups such as the Loyal Nine and the Sons of Liberty took control of
the resistance and mobilized the citizenry in efforts to pressure Parliament to
repeal the act. The culmination of the Stamp Act crisis was the strategy of
non-importation undertaken by colonial businessmen, severely damaging the
British economy and forcing repeal.
However, it was not long before the British again offended the colonists.
Tension rose up around the Quartering Act in New York in 1766, and
Parliament threatened to remove the colony's power of self-government if it did
not comply with British orders. In 1767, Parliament passed the Townshend
duties, a series of taxes on certain imported goods clearly designed to raise
revenue for the British treasury and undertaken by Parliament in the hope of
establishing a fund with which to pay the salaries of colonial governors.
The corruption with which the Townshend duties were enforced caused the tide of
colonial opposition to rise to new heights. After the Boston Massacre the
colonists became convinced that the British government planned to suppress them
by force and deny them the right to self-government. Organized political
resistance arose in the form of the Committees of correspondence, which
linked the colonies in a network of political thought and action. The
committees of correspondence would help lead the colonists into the
Revolutionary War.
