The French and Indian War, occurring between the years 1754 and 1763, is one of the most influential wars in all of American history. Effects both during and as a result of the war created and bolstered political, economic, and ideological tensions between Britain and her American colonies. Politically, tensions over land disputes heightened between Indians and Colonists and the borders of the three main powers in the new world changed dramatically . Economically, England experienced large amounts of debt that caused a rise in colonial taxes, and ideologically the relationship between the American colonies and its mother country became more relevant to the direction of the new nation. Territorial borders shown on maps before and after the French and Indian war illustrate the shift in power that the three predominant powers in the Americas undertook .
Vazira Narzullaeva Ms Christina AP US History 9 November 2012 DBQ Essay The effects of French and Indian War on England and its colonies During the mid-seventeenth century, the three most powerful empires, Britain, France, and Spain, were fighting over land in North America. The French and Indian war was a step which started the American Revolution. At the end of French and Indian war, Britain was the winner. The result led to geographical changes where most of the east and north of North America was claimed by the British (Doc. A).
Marcus Lopez 1/23/12 U.S. History Timeline of the American Revolution 1754-1763: The French and Indian War: It marked the beginning of conflicts between Great Britain and the American colonists. Because the war was so costly, Parliament decided it had to raise money in the colonies to pay for the part of the 7 Years War that took place in the American colonies (French and Indian War). The result was a crackdown on smuggling in the colonies, collection of custom duties, and the resistance to these measures by the colonies. The conflict about representation in Parliament for the colonies began in earnest 22 March 1765: The Stamp Act: The Stamp Act was passed along with the others to raise money for the wars England was in. This was the final straw for the colonists who were already grumbling and ready to protest the taxes they were paying already.
In the late seventeenth century, war as well as rebellion had brought turmoil within the thirteen colonies. In New England, the increasing tensions between the Indians and Colonist had brought about King Phillip’s War. In Virginia, the continued disputes over land among the settlers and Indians had given uprise to Bacon’s Rebellion, named after its leader, Nathaniel Bacon. The two events are considered to be major turning points in the history of the thirteen colonies. The Wampanoags frustration with the English settlements expansion onto more of their land led to King Phillip’s War against the New Englanders.
DBQ A constant factor throughout history is change; there was a lot of it from 1754 to 1763. The French & Indian War altered many different relations between Great Britain and the American Colonies, the most evident ones were economically, due to British policies put in place to generate more revenue to pay for the empire, politically based on control of the eastern coastline by the British, and ideologically because of how colonist’s viewed their mother country’s relationship with them. After 1763 Great Britain was in need of money to pay for the war. Britain was very successful when I came to getting funds from the colonies. From the ending of the war back to about 1651 there was a period of something known as “Salutary Neglect”.
The colonies however, felt that they fought the war side by side with the British, causing the two groups to have different political ideas. British politics felt that it would be just to impose taxes on the Americans in order to pay off their war debt that had accumulated. Taxes were imposed on nearly everything in the colonies in order for Britain to payoff debt; these taxes simply outraged the colonists which is the start of the conflict between America and Britain. Taxes such as the Stamp Act, which placed a tax on any printed document that was purchased, and the Tea Act, which placed an insane tax on tea in the colonies, and basically cutoff colonists from finding a cheaper price for tea, pushed the colonists overboard, leading them to rebellions. One of these rebellions was the Boston Tea Party, where colonists dressed up as Indians and threw the entire stock of British tea into the Boston Harbor, which was one of America’s first major acts of independence towards Britain.
In 1754, a war between Britain and France with their Indian allies broke out in North America that came to be known as The French and Indian War. The war ended in 1763 with the Treaty of Paris where Britain acquired Spanish Florida and all remaining French North American land (Document A). Throughout the war and for some time after, the actions of the American Colonies’ Mother Country caused many colonists to feel some resentment towards them. The French and Indian War created tension between Great Britain and the American colonies politically through the expansion of borders, economically through extreme taxes, and ideologically through taxation without representation. The expansion of the borders of the English territory through the Treaty of Paris of 1763 created a strain between Political relations with Great Britain.
Tensions were rising between the colonists and the Indians, the people were facing very hard economic times and were looking for a way out. The colonists found their scapegoat in the form of the local Indians. The trouble began in 1675 with a raid by the Doeg Indians on the plantation of Thomas Mathews, located in the Northern Neck section of Virginia near the Potomac River. Several of the Doegs were killed in the raid, which began in a dispute over the nonpayment of some items Mathews had apparently obtained from the tribe. Things got much worse when the colonists struck back, but they attacked the wrong Indians, the Susquehanaugs, which caused a large amount of Indian raids to start.
The money raised from the indirect tax was used to raise revenue for The British Army and Navy. The colonist asked Parliament to repeal the tax; parliament rejected the request for the repeal. This caused irritation instilled in the colonists, which will lead to greater resistance later in colonial history. This also made the colonists want to start a centralized government. The Quartering Act of 1765 greatly intensified colonial resistance to the British.
At the end of the Seven Years' War, France surrendered Canada and much of the Ohio and Mississippi valley to British rule. The colonists, upon seeing the vast lands, jumped at the chance of Britain’s vulnerability and started heading west to settle in the area. However, the Proclamation of 1763 reserved lands west of the Appalachian Mountains for Indians and forbade white settlement there. By preventing the colonial population from moving inland, the British ministry hoped to avoid costly Indian wars and keep western land speculation under the control of the crown. This terribly clashed with colonial interests for territorial expansion and would come to mark itself as the first amongst many policy mishaps Britain enacted.