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Ashley MillsE-Activity: Start of a RevolutionPeriod 9

The Colonists Brought the Revolutionary War on Themselves

Johnson Welles,

May 1, 1775Many believe that the recent Revolutionary War began with Battle of Lexington. To prove thatfact as incorrect, the Revolutionary War actually began immediately after the French and IndianWar.We, the British, had just defeated the French and Indians for the colonists. In all honesty,proceeding the war, we were mostly concerned about Indians, and sensed that future conflictswere very close at hand. Therefore, we decided that to prevent conflict with the Indians, as wellas the French, we were to have more control over our 13 colonies.The first move we made was taking the Indians feelings into consideration and seeing thingsfrom their perspective. By doing so, we then understood that taking the Indians land away simplyaggravated them, therefore we decided that any westward expansion would be prohibited.With this new enactment, the colonists claimed that we were only trying to “ensure our royalcontrol” over the colonies and wanted to prevent the creation of new ones. They claimed that theProclamation Act, as it was called, was taking away their natural rights to expand their land.Indeed, that made no sense; they were saying that one has every right to expand even if it mayaggravate those who occupy that same land. Does that make any sense whatsoever?Once the Proclamation Act was put into effect, we then took a look at how the French and IndianWar had affected us as a nation. We were in debt by more than 122 million pounds, with interestthat was more than 4.4 million pounds a year. Our people were paying taxes that were a result of another nation's faults. Our citizens were becoming quite discontent with paying taxes, thereforewe decided to take control of the situation. It made sense that the colonists should pay for a warthat was caused by themselves. Thus, taxes on the colonists were put in action.The first tax made was the Sugar Act, which taxed any imports on molasses or rum in thecolonies. This act, of course, angered the colonists, and raised a new slogan against Britain: notaxation without representation. Taking the slogan into consideration, it is quite ironicthat thecolonist never cared about representation until they felt they were being wronged, which of

course they were not. They were paying for a debt they owned to us, and if it meant that luxuryitems would have to be a bit more expensive, then so be it.Following the Sugar Act came the Stamp Act. This act required almost all written and legaldocuments, such as newspapers and licenses, to have a stamp on it. The stamps were taxed, andthe money from these stamps went towards the protection of the colonies. Unfortunately, this actaffected the people with the most voice in the colonial population, and these same merchantsorganized resistance rallies and groups. Violence and boycotts arose, and we soon had no choicebut to withdraw the Stamp Act because of pleas from British soldiers taking shelter in thecolonies.The Townshend Act, proposed by our own Charles Townshend, taxed all imported goods. It wasmore effective because it did not internally tax the colonists, like the Sugar Act and Stamp Actdid. By externally taxing the colonists, they could not complain about their rights being takenaway.Without surprise, there were protests from colonists against this new act. One, by the name of John Dickinson, claimed that “Parliament had the right to control imperial commerce but did nothave the right to tax colonists, whether the duties be external or internal.” Indeed we did have theright to tax them; they had caused debt to our country and it was time for them to pay it off.Unfortunately for British merchants, the colonists boycotted all British imports, and surprisinglywere able to continue their lifestyles. Colonists appeared to make do with local products thatoriginally had been imported from Britain. They began to make their own clothing and their ownpaper. Truly, the colonists were learning to make do with what they had, and this was bad newsfor the British merchants.The so-called Boston “Massacre” came soon after this Townshend Act, and was a result of colonists aggravating stationary British soldiers. According to the colonists, they were harmlesslymaking “fun” with the soldiers when a cry shouting “Fire!” rang out. The soldiers standing guardthen shot at the colonists and left five colonists dead. The actuality of it is that the colonists werepegging our soldiers with snowballs, which would cause aggravation in anyone. True, oursoldiers were not right in killing these colonists, but one could understand why they would dosomething of that nature.Because of the unfortunate Boston “Massacre”, we were represented in the colonies as heartlessand uncaring towards the colonists. With so many colonists against us, we had no choice butrepeal the Townshend Acts, with the exception of the tax on tea. This leftover tax would result inthe Boston Tea Party, an unfortunate mistake made by the colonists, where they dumped tea into