Salutary Neglect

Define Salutary Neglect and its effect on American colonies. (p.153)

The Board of Trade worked to subject the colonies to a more efficient royal control. Robert Walpole, as first minister (1721-1742), deliberately followed a policy toward the colonies that not only gave them greater freedom to pursue their economic interests; it unwittingly also enabled the Americans to pursue greater political independence. His policy was called “a wise and salutary neglect” by Edmund Burke

Throughout the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the English government did not enforce those trade laws that most harmed the colonial economy. The purpose of salutary neglect was to ensure the loyalty of the colonists

Example: You are home for a week alone → no curfew, no rules

England left colonies to their own devices

all of a sudden they said no. we need to make rules. and colony said why. england said bc i said so. and the colonies bristle bc they didn’t like the idea.

How did the American colonies compete with British economic power and what was the British reaction? Give examples.

Cause: Parliament passed the Stamp Act on Feb 13, 1765 that created revenue stamps and required that they be purchased and fixed to printed matter and legal documents of all kinds. → basically colonists have to pay taxes that is represented a tax on all many types of documents. And Greenville passed the Quartering Act that required the colonies to supply British troops with supplies and barracks.

Because of the Stamp Act, colonists had a slogan “No taxation without representation.” There was the Sons of Liberty that met underneath “liberty trees” - in Boston a great elm on Hanover Square, in Charleston a live oak.