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Chapter 1: Tea, Taxes, and Revolution
The first major issue was life, especially of those in the North American colonies; following the annexation of the East of the Mississippi, settlers had begun to build settlements in the region. The Natives, who benefited from positive relations with France, were dismayed by the more uncaring stance of Great Britain. To deal with the increased demand of colonization of the interior, the British drafted the Royal Proclamation of 1763, designed to create a line through which colonization would not occur until a point where Britain was more financially secure. This "proclamation line" was seen as a malignant act by the colonists; this was among the first of offenses that the colonists perceived to have been placed against them by Great Britain.
The second of these was taxation.
Following the Seven Years' War, the British required money to reduce their enormous debt. To this end, their vision shifted overseas to the Thirteen Colonies. These taxes were present in Great Britain as well, but were decidedly foreign for the American colonists. The autonomy that they had practiced before the Seven Years' War was slowly being replaced; first were taxes on sugar, then came the quartering of British troops in American settlements (regardless of consent), followed swiftly by a tax on all paper products. To each new tax came an increasingly stronger push against them. Perhaps the most prominent of this push-back came in the form of the Sons of Liberty, a pseudo-terrorist organization responsible for the destruction of the buildings of tax collectors, the tar-and-feathering of tax collectors, and other related acts. The Sons of Liberty argued that they could not be taxed like British citizens if they were not treated as equals to British citizens - "No taxation without representation," in the words of James Otis.
It took until the taxation of tea for the situation to escalate.
On the night of December 16th, 1773, the Sons of Liberty stormed British East India Company ships in the Boston Harbor, before destroying the 342 chests of tea located on the three ships into the Harbor. The British responded with the Intolerable Acts, a piece of legislation that stripped the Massachusetts Bay Colony its right to self-governance. Further, it gave the Province of Quebec a large holding of the Ohio River Valley, the land that the French and Indian War was fought over and that the Thirteen Colonies wanted to settle.
If the incidents leading up to the American Revolution was a powder keg, then the Intolerable Acts were the matches that set it ablaze: the colonies doubled down in their protests following the silencing of Massachusetts Bay. A Provincial Congress was formed by the Massachusetts colonists, and it was in Massachusetts that the first shots of the War for Independence were shot: in Lexington and Concord.
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Everything is still true to real-life so far. All quotes are actual quotes, and all events are actual events. Information might be wrong but hopefully isn't. The next chapter should be when things start to change.
Chapter 1:
Tea, Taxes, and Revolution
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"I am convinced the Presbyterians intend nothing less than the throwing off their allegiance and obedience to his Majesty, & forming a Republican Empire, in America, & being Lords and Masters themselves."
-John Hughes, Philadelphian Tax Collector, Speaker of the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly, and friend to Benjamin Franklin and Joseph Galloway
The political standing of the Thirteen Colonies were rather interesting; despite what might be implied, the Thirteen Colonies were functionally independent from the Crown: many were founded to be purposefully separate from England (such as Massachusetts Bay, founded by religious exiles), or were under effective control by something akin to its own monarchy (as was the case for Pennsylvania, run by the Penn family). However, in the aftermath of the Seven Years' War, this began to change. The Crown had nearly doubled its debts in a heavily taxing and tumultuous war, one that had secured British hegemony in North America, but at a cost - literally.Tea, Taxes, and Revolution
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"I am convinced the Presbyterians intend nothing less than the throwing off their allegiance and obedience to his Majesty, & forming a Republican Empire, in America, & being Lords and Masters themselves."
-John Hughes, Philadelphian Tax Collector, Speaker of the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly, and friend to Benjamin Franklin and Joseph Galloway
The first major issue was life, especially of those in the North American colonies; following the annexation of the East of the Mississippi, settlers had begun to build settlements in the region. The Natives, who benefited from positive relations with France, were dismayed by the more uncaring stance of Great Britain. To deal with the increased demand of colonization of the interior, the British drafted the Royal Proclamation of 1763, designed to create a line through which colonization would not occur until a point where Britain was more financially secure. This "proclamation line" was seen as a malignant act by the colonists; this was among the first of offenses that the colonists perceived to have been placed against them by Great Britain.
The second of these was taxation.
Following the Seven Years' War, the British required money to reduce their enormous debt. To this end, their vision shifted overseas to the Thirteen Colonies. These taxes were present in Great Britain as well, but were decidedly foreign for the American colonists. The autonomy that they had practiced before the Seven Years' War was slowly being replaced; first were taxes on sugar, then came the quartering of British troops in American settlements (regardless of consent), followed swiftly by a tax on all paper products. To each new tax came an increasingly stronger push against them. Perhaps the most prominent of this push-back came in the form of the Sons of Liberty, a pseudo-terrorist organization responsible for the destruction of the buildings of tax collectors, the tar-and-feathering of tax collectors, and other related acts. The Sons of Liberty argued that they could not be taxed like British citizens if they were not treated as equals to British citizens - "No taxation without representation," in the words of James Otis.
It took until the taxation of tea for the situation to escalate.
On the night of December 16th, 1773, the Sons of Liberty stormed British East India Company ships in the Boston Harbor, before destroying the 342 chests of tea located on the three ships into the Harbor. The British responded with the Intolerable Acts, a piece of legislation that stripped the Massachusetts Bay Colony its right to self-governance. Further, it gave the Province of Quebec a large holding of the Ohio River Valley, the land that the French and Indian War was fought over and that the Thirteen Colonies wanted to settle.
If the incidents leading up to the American Revolution was a powder keg, then the Intolerable Acts were the matches that set it ablaze: the colonies doubled down in their protests following the silencing of Massachusetts Bay. A Provincial Congress was formed by the Massachusetts colonists, and it was in Massachusetts that the first shots of the War for Independence were shot: in Lexington and Concord.
---
Everything is still true to real-life so far. All quotes are actual quotes, and all events are actual events. Information might be wrong but hopefully isn't. The next chapter should be when things start to change.
- Oliveia
- Word Count: 670