The Seven Years WarGarland HerridgeHIS115August 1, 2010I looked out my window this afternoon and I saw my neighbor??™s slaves planting more cotton. It is a sad time in our world, people have no problem owning other people, and authority figures look the other way when slaves are treated badly. Countries are fighting over small things. Even the waters that we use to ship goods to and from other lands are being taxed so kings can make money to further their own power. The 1700??™s do not look to bright so far. Our political views differ from other lands.
First of all our political leaders want to fight, but it is not to invade other lands. They are fighting to free our country from unfair taxes. Parliament in Europe decided that they wanted to tax documents and almost everything else being imported and exported. The stamp act as I have heard people call it is an unfair tax. The English parliament has come up with a little stamp to put on goods saying a certain amount should be taxed. We are very against this since we had no say in the matter. Socially it is an odd situation here.
We have people that are proud of being English and then we have the people that are not proud and also very irate towards the people that are English. People that are proud to come from such a powerful background and people that are ashamed to come from that sort of background. There are however a few things that keep us together.
One is our religion. We are very religious god fearing people. We enjoy going to church for many reasons. One is we enjoy our sermons and two is it is a town meeting of sorts. After the sermon we go over town issues such as crop turn outs, new immigrants, and money issues. The second thing that keeps us together is our crops. We use these not only to feed our families but also to sell and trade with other lands. There is one subject I do not agree with most people on.
This is slavery. My neighbors, my friends, my family, my fellow church members, I see many of these people with slaves. This saddens me, to think that one person can own another person and treat them like dirt. People will buy and sell other people break up families and destroy people. This is a very sad truth we have to face. Due to such differences we are a nation at war. A great and powerful military leader called George Washington was forced into submission at Fort Necessity.
Because of this the British thought they had more claim over the Ohio country. During the summer of 1755 Major General Edward Braddock and his 2 armies were ambushed at Fort Duquesne and cut into pieces by a group of French and Indians. This is why it is called the French and Indian War. However after the defeat of Braddock we New Englanders were a little better off.
We deported six thousand foreign farmers from Nova Scotia and surrounding areas. After eliminating Frances defenses at Fort Frontenac the Indians realized who was stronger and joined our side. Not to long ago In February of 1763 the treaty of Paris was signed and ended the French presence in North America. When the newly coined ??? Seven Years War??? (which actually lasted nine years) was over we thought life would be much different and somewhat easier.
We were wrong! We thought there would be no more high taxes; the lands of the Ohio valley would be open and ready for planting. There was even the thought that America might prosper after the war. We did all that we could for the troops and anything reasonable that was asked of us we did happily. However the British told a different story. They said that we were little help financially and we also gave very little support. Our troops fought hard and died proudly, the British did not think so. They said we were cowards; we did not fight like we were protecting our land.
Even with this being untrue it was what stuck in the minds of the Britons and what made us feel betrayed. When the war was over troops stayed behind to keep out invaders from other lands. This kept us Americans safe and happy; however it put the Indians on edge. Without the French as trading partners this put the Indians in a poor position to deal with the British for furs, supplies, and fire arms. These people were not the only ones to suffer though. The Britons knew that they were financially spent due to the cost of the war, this fact led to several acts to be passed.
The first was the Molasses act. There was a duty of six pence on every gallon of French and Dutch molasses which was supposed to encourage us to go with British molasses. This came with a bigger price but was duty free. After many customs inspectors and merchants made a profit of smuggling molasses to make rum the sugar act was passed. This lowered the duty on foreign molasses from six to three pence a gallon. After the Sugar act came the Currency Act which prohibited the colonies from making their paper money legal tender. That prevented Americans from paying their debts to British traders in currency that had fallen to less than its face value.
There was the Quartering Act of 1765, which obliged any colony in which troops were stationed to provide them with suitable accommodations. That contributed to the cost of keeping British forces in America. Finally, in March of 1765, Parliament passed the Stamp Act.
This placed taxes on legal documents, customs papers, newspapers, almanacs, college diplomas, playing cards, and dice. People that disobeyed these acts were tried without juries in court. We are people that love our land, love our country; however we have to draw the line somewhere. After unfair taxes were applied to so many things we needed we decided that we needed to declare Independence from Briton. In turn this led to our war of Independence.
After several happenings such as the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea party, on July 4, 1776 we finally declared America??™s freedom and Independence from the kingdom of Great Briton. Refrences1. Davidson? Gienapp? Heyrman? Lytle? Stoff: Nation of Nations: AConcise Narrative of the American Republic, Fourth Edition. 2. http://www. archives. gov/historical-docs/document. htmldoc= 1&title. raw= Declaration%20of%20Independence
