112 5 • Imperial Reforms and Colonial Protests, 1763-1774

well as to reduce the administrative cost of the colonies and the enormous debt left by the French and Indian
War. Each step the British took, however, generated a backlash. Over time, imperial reforms pushed many
colonists toward separation from the British Empire.

5.1 Confronting the National Debt: The Aftermath of the French and Indian War
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Discuss the status of Great Britain’s North American colonies in the years directly following the French and
Indian War
• Describe the size and scope of the British debt at the end of the French and Indian War
• Explain how the British Parliament responded to the debt crisis
• Outline the purpose of the Proclamation Line, the Sugar Act, and the Currency Act

FIGURE 5.2 (credit “1765”: modi[cation of work by the United Kingdom Government)

Great Britain had much to celebrate in 1763. The long and costly war with France had _nally ended, and Great
Britain had emerged victorious. British subjects on both sides of the Atlantic celebrated the strength of the
British Empire. Colonial pride ran high; to live under the British Constitution and to have defeated the hated
French Catholic menace brought great joy to British Protestants everywhere in the Empire. From Maine to
Georgia, British colonists joyously celebrated the victory and sang the refrain of “Rule, Britannia! Britannia,
rule the waves! Britons never, never, never shall be slaves!”

Despite the celebratory mood, the victory over France also produced major problems within the British
Empire, problems that would have serious consequences for British colonists in the Americas. During the war,
many Native American tribes had sided with the French, who supplied them with guns. After the 1763 Treaty
of Paris that ended the French and Indian War (or the Seven Years’ War), British colonists had to defend the
frontier, where French colonists and their tribal allies remained a powerful force. The most organized
resistance, Pontiac’s Rebellion, highlighted tensions the settlers increasingly interpreted in racial terms.

The massive debt the war generated at home, however, proved to be the most serious issue facing Great
Britain. The frontier had to be secure in order to prevent another costly war. Greater enforcement of imperial
trade laws had to be put into place. Parliament had to _nd ways to raise revenue to pay off the crippling debt
from the war. Everyone would have to contribute their expected share, including the British subjects across the
Atlantic.

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 5.1 • Confronting the National Debt: The Aftermath of the French and Indian War 113

PROBLEMS ON THE AMERICAN FRONTIER

With the end of the French and Indian War, Great Britain claimed a vast new expanse of territory, at least on
paper. Under the terms of the Treaty of Paris, the French territory known as New France had ceased to exist.
British territorial holdings now extended from Canada to Florida, and British military focus shifted to
maintaining peace in the king’s newly enlarged lands. However, much of the land in the American British
Empire remained under the control of powerful native confederacies, which made any claims of British
mastery beyond the Atlantic coastal settlements hollow. Great Britain maintained ten thousand troops in
North America after the war ended in 1763 to defend the borders and repel any attack by their imperial rivals.

British colonists, eager for fresh land, poured over the Appalachian Mountains to stake claims. The western
frontier had long been a “middle ground” where different imperial powers (British, French, Spanish) had
interacted and compromised with native peoples. That era of accommodation in the “middle ground” came to
an end after the French and Indian War. Virginians (including George Washington) and other land-hungry
colonists had already raised tensions in the 1740s with their quest for land. Virginia landowners in particular
eagerly looked to diversify their holdings beyond tobacco, which had stagnated in price and exhausted the
fertility of the lands along the Chesapeake Bay. They invested heavily in the newly available land. This
westward movement brought the settlers into con`ict as never before with Native American tribes, such as the
Shawnee, Seneca-Cayuga, Wyandot, and Delaware, who increasingly held their ground against any further
intrusion by White settlers.

The treaty that ended the war between France and Great Britain proved to be a signi_cant blow to native
peoples, who had viewed the con`ict as an opportunity to gain additional trade goods from both sides. With the
French defeat, many Native Americans who had sided with France lost a valued trading partner as well as
bargaining power over the British. Settlers’ encroachment on their land, as well as the increased British
military presence, changed the situation on the frontier dramatically. After the war, British troops took over the
former French forts but failed to court favor with the local tribes by distributing ample gifts, as the French had
done. They also signi_cantly reduced the amount of gunpowder and ammunition they sold to the Native
Americans, worsening relationships further.

Native Americans’ resistance to colonists drew upon the teachings of Delaware (Lenni Lenape) prophet Neolin
and the leadership of Ottawa war chief Pontiac. Neolin was a spiritual leader who preached a doctrine of
shunning European culture and expelling Europeans from native lands. Neolin’s beliefs united Native
Americans from many villages. In a broad-based alliance that came to be known as Pontiac’s Rebellion, Pontiac
led a loose coalition of these native tribes against the colonists and the British army.

Pontiac started bringing his coalition together as early as 1761, urging Native Americans to “drive [the
Europeans] out and make war upon them.” The con`ict began in earnest in 1763, when Pontiac and several
hundred Ojibwas, Potawatomis, and Hurons laid siege to Fort Detroit. At the same time, Senecas, Shawnees,
and Delawares laid siege to Fort Pitt. Over the next year, the war spread along the backcountry from Virginia to
Pennsylvania. Pontiac’s Rebellion (also known as Pontiac’s War) triggered horri_c violence on both sides.
Firsthand reports of Native American attacks tell of murder, scalping, dismemberment, and burning at the
stake. These stories incited a deep racial hatred among colonists against all Native Americans.

The actions of a group of Scots-Irish settlers from Paxton (or Paxtang), Pennsylvania, in December 1763,
illustrates the deadly situation on the frontier. Forming a mob known as the Paxton Boys, these frontiersmen
attacked a nearby group of Conestoga of the Susquehannock tribe. The Conestoga had lived peacefully with
local settlers, but the Paxton Boys viewed all Native Americans as savages and they brutally murdered the six
Conestoga they found at home and burned their houses. When Governor John Penn put the remaining fourteen
Conestoga in protective custody in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the Paxton Boys broke into the building and killed
and scalped the Conestoga they found there (Figure 5.3). Although Governor Penn offered a reward for the
capture of any Paxton Boys involved in the murders, no one ever identi_ed the attackers. Some colonists
reacted to the incident with outrage. Benjamin Franklin described the Paxton Boys as “the barbarous Men who
114 5 • Imperial Reforms and Colonial Protests, 1763-1774

committed the atrocious act, in De_ance of Government, of all Laws human and divine, and to the eternal
Disgrace of their Country and Colour,” stating that “the Wickedness cannot be covered, the Guilt will lie on the
whole Land, till Justice is done on the Murderers. The blood of the innocent will cry to heaven for vengeance.”
Yet, as the inability to bring the perpetrators to justice clearly indicates, the Paxton Boys had many more
supporters than critics.

FIGURE 5.3 This nineteenth-century lithograph depicts the massacre of Conestoga in 1763 at Lancaster,
Pennsylvania, where they had been placed in protective custody. None of the attackers, members of the Paxton
Boys, were ever identi[ed.

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Pontiac’s Rebellion and the Paxton Boys’ actions were examples of early American race wars, in which both
sides saw themselves as inherently different from the other and believed the other needed to be eradicated.
The prophet Neolin’s message, which he said he received in a vision from the Master of Life, was: “Wherefore
do you suffer the whites to dwell upon your lands? Drive them away; wage war against them.” Pontiac echoed
this idea in a meeting, exhorting tribes to join together against the British: “It is important for us, my brothers,
that we exterminate from our lands this nation which seeks only to destroy us.” In his letter suggesting “gifts”
to the natives of smallpox-infected blankets, Field Marshal Jeffrey Amherst said, “You will do well to inoculate
the Indians by means of blankets, as well as every other method that can serve to extirpate this execrable race.”
Pontiac’s Rebellion came to an end in 1766, when it became clear that the French, whom Pontiac had hoped
would side with his forces, would not be returning. The repercussions, however, would last much longer. Race
relations between Native Americans and White people remained poisoned on the frontier.

Well aware of the problems on the frontier, the British government took steps to try to prevent bloodshed and
another costly war. At the beginning of Pontiac’s uprising, the British issued the Proclamation of 1763, which
forbade White settlement west of the Proclamation Line, a borderline running along the spine of the
Appalachian Mountains (Figure 5.4). The Proclamation Line aimed to forestall further con`ict on the frontier,
the clear `ashpoint of tension in British North America. British colonists who had hoped to move west after the
war chafed at this restriction, believing the war had been fought and won to ensure the right to settle west. The
Proclamation Line therefore came as a setback to their vision of westward expansion.

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 5.1 • Confronting the National Debt: The Aftermath of the French and Indian War 115

FIGURE 5.4 This map shows the status of the American colonies in 1763, after the end of the French and Indian
War. Although Great Britain won control of the territory east of the Mississippi, the Proclamation Line of 1763
prohibited British colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains. (credit: modi[cation of work by the
National Atlas of the United States)

THE BRITISH NATIONAL DEBT

Great Britain’s newly enlarged empire meant a greater _nancial burden, and the mushrooming debt from the
war was a major cause of concern. The war nearly doubled the British national debt, from £75 million in 1756
to £133 million in 1763. Interest payments alone consumed over half the national budget, and the continuing
military presence in North America was a constant drain. The Empire needed more revenue to replenish its
dwindling coffers. Those in Great Britain believed that British subjects in North America, as the major
bene_ciaries of Great Britain’s war for global supremacy, should certainly shoulder their share of the _nancial
burden.

The British government began increasing revenues by raising taxes at home, even as various interest groups
lobbied to keep their taxes low. Powerful members of the aristocracy, well represented in Parliament,
successfully convinced Prime Minister John Stuart, third earl of Bute, to refrain from raising taxes on land. The
greater tax burden, therefore, fell on the lower classes in the form of increased import duties, which raised the
prices of imported goods such as sugar and tobacco. George Grenville succeeded Bute as prime minister in
1763. Grenville determined to curtail government spending and make sure that, as subjects of the British
Empire, the American colonists did their part to pay down the massive debt.

IMPERIAL REFORMS
The new era of greater British interest in the American colonies through imperial reforms picked up in pace in
the mid-1760s. In 1764, Prime Minister Grenville introduced the Currency Act of 1764, prohibiting the
colonies from printing additional paper money and requiring colonists to pay British merchants in gold and
silver instead of the colonial paper money already in circulation. The Currency Act aimed to standardize the
currency used in Atlantic trade, a logical reform designed to help stabilize the Empire’s economy. This rule
brought American economic activity under greater British control. Colonists relied on their own paper
currency to conduct trade and, with gold and silver in short supply, they found their _nances tight. Not
surprisingly, they grumbled about the new imperial currency regulations.

Grenville also pushed Parliament to pass the Sugar Act of 1764, which actually lowered duties on British
molasses by half, from six pence per gallon to three. Grenville designed this measure to address the problem of
rampant colonial smuggling with the French sugar islands in the West Indies. The act attempted to make it
easier for colonial traders, especially New England mariners who routinely engaged in illegal trade, to comply
with the imperial law.
116 5 • Imperial Reforms and Colonial Protests, 1763-1774

To give teeth to the 1764 Sugar Act, the law intensi_ed enforcement provisions. Prior to the 1764 act, colonial
violations of the Navigation Acts had been tried in local courts, where sympathetic colonial juries refused to
convict merchants on trial. However, the Sugar Act required violators to be tried in vice-admiralty courts.
These crown-sanctioned tribunals, which settled disputes that occurred at sea, operated without juries. Some
colonists saw this feature of the 1764 act as dangerous. They argued that trial by jury had long been honored as
a basic right of Englishmen under the British Constitution. To deprive defendants of a jury, they contended,
meant reducing liberty-loving British subjects to political slavery. In the British Atlantic world, some colonists
perceived this loss of liberty as parallel to the enslavement of Africans.

As loyal British subjects, colonists in America cherished their Constitution, an unwritten system of
government that they celebrated as the best political system in the world. The British Constitution prescribed
the roles of the King, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons. Each entity provided a check and
balance against the worst tendencies of the others. If the King had too much power, the result would be
tyranny. If the Lords had too much power, the result would be oligarchy. If the Commons had the balance of
power, democracy or mob rule would prevail. The British Constitution promised representation of the will of
British subjects, and without such representation, even the indirect tax of the Sugar Act was considered a
threat to the settlers’ rights as British subjects. Furthermore, some American colonists felt the colonies were
on equal political footing with Great Britain. The Sugar Act meant they were secondary, mere adjuncts to the
Empire. All subjects of the British crown knew they had liberties under the constitution. The Sugar Act
suggested that some in Parliament labored to deprive them of what made them uniquely British.

5.2 The Stamp Act and the Sons and Daughters of Liberty
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Explain the purpose of the 1765 Stamp Act
• Describe the colonial responses to the Stamp Act

In 1765, the British Parliament moved beyond the efforts during the previous two years to better regulate
westward expansion and trade by putting in place the Stamp Act. As a direct tax on the colonists, the Stamp
Act imposed an internal tax on almost every type of printed paper colonists used, including newspapers, legal
documents, and playing cards. While the architects of the Stamp Act saw the measure as a way to defray the
costs of the British Empire, it nonetheless gave rise to the _rst major colonial protest against British imperial
control as expressed in the famous slogan “no taxation without representation.” The Stamp Act reinforced the
sense among some colonists that Parliament was not treating them as equals of their peers across the Atlantic.

THE STAMP ACT AND THE QUARTERING ACT

Prime Minister Grenville, author of the Sugar Act of 1764, introduced the Stamp Act in the early spring of 1765.
Under this act, anyone who used or purchased anything printed on paper had to buy a revenue stamp (Figure
5.5) for it. In the same year, 1765, Parliament also passed the Quartering Act, a law that attempted to solve the
problems of stationing troops in North America. The Parliament understood the Stamp Act and the Quartering
Act as an assertion of their power to control colonial policy.

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 5.2 • The Stamp Act and the Sons and Daughters of Liberty 117

FIGURE 5.5 Under the Stamp Act, anyone who used or purchased anything printed on paper had to buy a revenue
stamp for it. Image (a) shows a partial proof sheet of one-penny stamps. Image (b) provides a close-up of a one-
penny stamp. (credit a: modi[cation of work by the United Kingdom Government; credit b: modi[cation of work by
the United Kingdom Government)

The Stamp Act signaled a shift in British policy after the French and Indian War. Before the Stamp Act, the
colonists had paid taxes to their colonial governments or indirectly through higher prices, not directly to the
Crown’s appointed governors. This was a time-honored liberty of representative legislatures of the colonial
governments. The passage of the Stamp Act meant that starting on November 1, 1765, the colonists would
contribute £60,000 per year—17 percent of the total cost—to the upkeep of the ten thousand British soldiers in
North America (Figure 5.6). Because the Stamp Act raised constitutional issues, it triggered the _rst serious
protest against British imperial policy.
118 5 • Imperial Reforms and Colonial Protests, 1763-1774

FIGURE 5.6 The announcement of the Stamp Act, seen in this newspaper publication (a), raised numerous
concerns among colonists in America. Protests against British imperial policy took many forms, such as this mock
stamp (b) whose text reads “An Emblem of the Effects of the STAMP. O! the Fatal STAMP.”

Parliament also asserted its prerogative in 1765 with the Quartering Act. The Quartering Act of 1765
addressed the problem of housing British soldiers stationed in the American colonies. It required that they be
provided with barracks or places to stay in public houses, and that if extra housing were necessary, then troops
could be stationed in barns and other uninhabited private buildings. In addition, the costs of the troops’ food
and lodging fell to the colonists. Since the time of James II, who ruled from 1685 to 1688, many British subjects
had mistrusted the presence of a standing army during peacetime, and having to pay for the soldiers’ lodging
and food was especially burdensome. Widespread evasion and disregard for the law occurred in almost all the
colonies, but the issue was especially contentious in New York, the headquarters of British forces. When _fteen
hundred troops arrived in New York in 1766, the New York Assembly refused to follow the Quartering Act.

COLONIAL PROTEST: GENTRY, MERCHANTS, AND THE STAMP ACT CONGRESS

For many British colonists living in America, the Stamp Act raised many concerns. As a direct tax, it appeared
to be an unconstitutional measure, one that deprived freeborn British subjects of their liberty, a concept they
de_ned broadly to include various rights and privileges they enjoyed as British subjects, including the right to
representation. According to the unwritten British Constitution, only representatives for whom British
subjects voted could tax them. Parliament was in charge of taxation, and although it was a representative body,
the colonies did not have “actual” (or direct) representation in it. Parliamentary members who supported the
Stamp Act argued that the colonists had virtual representation, because the architects of the British Empire
knew best how to maximize returns from its possessions overseas. However, this argument did not satisfy the
protesters, who viewed themselves as having the same right as all British subjects to avoid taxation without
their consent. With no representation in the House of Commons, where bills of taxation originated, they felt
themselves deprived of this inherent right.

The British government knew the colonists might object to the Stamp Act’s expansion of parliamentary power,
but Parliament believed the relationship of the colonies to the Empire was one of dependence, not equality.
However, the Stamp Act had the unintended and ironic consequence of drawing colonists from very different

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 5.2 • The Stamp Act and the Sons and Daughters of Liberty 119

areas and viewpoints together in protest. In Massachusetts, for instance, James Otis, a lawyer and defender of
British liberty, became the leading voice for the idea that “Taxation without representation is tyranny.” In the
Virginia House of Burgesses, _rebrand and slaveholder Patrick Henry introduced the Virginia Stamp Act
Resolutions, which denounced the Stamp Act and the British crown in language so strong that some
conservative Virginians accused him of treason (Figure 5.7). Henry replied that Virginians were subject only to
taxes that they themselves—or their representatives—imposed. In short, there could be no taxation without
representation.

FIGURE 5.7 Patrick Henry Before the Virginia House of Burgesses (1851), painted by Peter F. Rothermel, offers a
romanticized depiction of Henry’s speech denouncing the Stamp Act of 1765. Supporters and opponents alike
debated the stark language of the speech, which quickly became legendary.

The colonists had never before formed a uni_ed political front, so Grenville and Parliament did not fear true
revolt. However, this was to change in 1765. In response to the Stamp Act, the Massachusetts Assembly sent
letters to the other colonies, asking them to attend a meeting, or congress, to discuss how to respond to the act.
Many American colonists from very different colonies found common cause in their opposition to the Stamp
Act. Representatives from nine colonial legislatures met in New York in the fall of 1765 to reach a consensus.
Could Parliament impose taxation without representation? The members of this _rst congress, known as the
Stamp Act Congress, said no. These nine representatives had a vested interest in repealing the tax. Not only
did it weaken their businesses and the colonial economy, but it also threatened their liberty under the British
Constitution. They drafted a rebuttal to the Stamp Act, making clear that they desired only to protect their
liberty as loyal subjects of the Crown. The document, called the Declaration of Rights and Grievances, outlined
the unconstitutionality of taxation without representation and trials without juries. Meanwhile, popular protest
was also gaining force.

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MOBILIZATION: POPULAR PROTEST AGAINST THE STAMP ACT

The Stamp Act Congress was a gathering of landowning, educated White men who represented the political
elite of the colonies and was the colonial equivalent of the British landed aristocracy. While these gentry were
drafting their grievances during the Stamp Act Congress, other colonists showed their distaste for the new act
by boycotting British goods and protesting in the streets. Two groups, the Sons of Liberty and the Daughters
of Liberty, led the popular resistance to the Stamp Act. Both groups considered themselves British patriots
120 5 • Imperial Reforms and Colonial Protests, 1763-1774

defending their liberty, just as their forebears had done in the time of James II.

Forming in Boston in the summer of 1765, the Sons of Liberty were artisans, shopkeepers, and small-time
merchants willing to adopt extralegal means of protest. Before the act had even gone into effect, the Sons of
Liberty began protesting. On August 14, they took aim at Andrew Oliver, who had been named the
Massachusetts Distributor of Stamps. After hanging Oliver in ef_gy—that is, using a crudely made _gure as a
representation of Oliver—the unruly crowd stoned and ransacked his house, _nally beheading the ef_gy and
burning the remains. Such a brutal response shocked the royal governmental of_cials, who hid until the
violence had spent itself. Andrew Oliver resigned the next day. By that time, the mob had moved on to the
home of Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson who, because of his support of Parliament’s actions, was
considered an enemy of English liberty. The Sons of Liberty barricaded Hutchinson in his home and
demanded that he renounce the Stamp Act; he refused, and the protesters looted and burned his house.
Furthermore, the Sons (also called “True Sons” or “True-born Sons” to make clear their commitment to liberty
and distinguish them from the likes of Hutchinson) continued to lead violent protests with the goal of securing
the resignation of all appointed stamp collectors (Figure 5.8).

FIGURE 5.8 With this broadside of December 17, 1765, the Sons of Liberty call for the resignation of Andrew Oliver,
the Massachusetts Distributor of Stamps.

Starting in early 1766, the Daughters of Liberty protested the Stamp Act by refusing to buy British goods and
encouraging others to do the same. They avoided British tea, opting to make their own teas with local herbs
and berries. They built a community—and a movement—around creating homespun cloth instead of buying
British linen. Well-born women held “spinning bees,” at which they competed to see who could spin the most
and the _nest linen. An entry in The Boston Chronicle of April 7, 1766, states that on March 12, in Providence,
Rhode Island, “18 Daughters of Liberty, young ladies of good reputation, assembled at the house of Doctor
Ephraim Bowen, in this town. . . . There they exhibited a _ne example of industry, by spinning from sunrise
until dark, and displayed a spirit for saving their sinking country rarely to be found among persons of more
age and experience.” At dinner, they “cheerfully agreed to omit tea, to render their conduct consistent. Besides
this instance of their patriotism, before they separated, they unanimously resolved that the Stamp Act was
unconstitutional, that they would purchase no more British manufactures unless it be repealed, and that they
would not even admit the addresses of any gentlemen should they have the opportunity, without they
determined to oppose its execution to the last extremity, if the occasion required.”

The Daughters’ non-importation movement broadened the protest against the Stamp Act, giving women a
new and active role in the political dissent of the time. Women were responsible for purchasing goods for the
home, so by exercising the power of the purse, they could wield more power than they had in the past.
Although they could not vote, they could mobilize others and make a difference in the political landscape.

From a local movement, the protests of the Sons and Daughters of Liberty soon spread until there was a
chapter in every colony. The Daughters of Liberty promoted the boycott on British goods while the Sons
enforced it, threatening retaliation against anyone who bought imported goods or used stamped paper. In the

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 5.2 • The Stamp Act and the Sons and Daughters of Liberty 121

protest against the Stamp Act, wealthy, lettered political _gures like John Adams supported the goals of the
Sons and Daughters of Liberty, even if they did not engage in the Sons’ violent actions. These men, who were
lawyers, printers, and merchants, ran a propaganda campaign parallel to the Sons’ campaign of violence. In
newspapers and pamphlets throughout the colonies, they published article after article outlining the reasons
the Stamp Act was unconstitutional and urging peaceful protest. They of_cially condemned violent actions but
did not have the protesters arrested; a degree of cooperation prevailed, despite the groups’ different economic
backgrounds. Certainly, all the protesters saw themselves as acting in the best British tradition, standing up
against the corruption (especially the extinguishing of their right to representation) that threatened their
liberty (Figure 5.9).

FIGURE 5.9 This 1766 illustration shows a funeral procession for the Stamp Act. Reverend William Scott leads the
procession of politicians who had supported the act, while a dog urinates on his leg. George Grenville, pictured
fourth in line, carries a small cof[n. What point do you think this cartoon is trying to make?

THE DECLARATORY ACT

Back in Great Britain, news of the colonists’ reactions worsened an already volatile political situation.
Grenville’s imperial reforms had brought about increased domestic taxes and his unpopularity led to his
dismissal by King George III. While many in Parliament still wanted such reforms, British merchants argued
strongly for their repeal. These merchants had no interest in the philosophy behind the colonists’ desire for
liberty; rather, their motive was that the non-importation of British goods by North American colonists was
hurting their business. Many of the British at home were also appalled by the colonists’ violent reaction to the
Stamp Act. Other Britons cheered what they saw as the manly defense of liberty by their counterparts in the
colonies.

In March 1766, the new prime minister, Lord Rockingham, compelled Parliament to repeal the Stamp Act.
Colonists celebrated what they saw as a victory for their British liberty; in Boston, merchant John Hancock
treated the entire town to drinks. However, to appease opponents of the repeal, who feared that it would
weaken parliamentary power over the American colonists, Rockingham also proposed the Declaratory Act.
This stated in no uncertain terms that Parliament’s power was supreme and that any laws the colonies may
have passed to govern and tax themselves were null and void if they ran counter to parliamentary law.