Tension Between the Colonies and the Metropole

Tension between the colonies and the metropole increased during the late 1750s and early 1760s due to the outbreak of war between Britain and France, which was started by the colonist over a land dispute. The tension between Great Britain and the colonies caused a profound shift to occur during the road to revolution. Both colony’s and Britain’s views of each other changed after the war mainly because of the differences in their lifestyle which had a domino effect on politics and economics. Though politics changed the colonist self-governing ideas remained the same as the had been since the founding of the colonies…

Colonial views after the Seven Years war changed due to Great Britain basically treating the colonist like children, feeling they could send their lords, etc. over into the colonies to regulate and control. Not only did they physically impose their lifestyle upon the colonist, they didn’t allow them to have a say so and be represented in Parliament. Also Britain imposing taxes such as the sugar/tea act… which basically set up rules against smuggling. The rules set up against smuggling negatively impacted the colony, mainly because colonist had no real trade except illegal trade due to Britain’s mercantilist ideas. Britain treating the colonist like children caused them to feel threatened, causing panic, leading to the divide of the colonist into the two groups Loyalist and Patriots.

Britain felt the colonist were completely out of control and traitorous, mainly because of the colonist warfare tactics and their self-governing ideas. After the Seven Years war Britain felt it was time to crack down on the colonist, meaning taxes and Britain would now be directly involved in their politics, economics, and daily lifestyle, but it didn’t go as smoothly as Britain had planned seeing that the colonist resisted in boycotts, physical ways such as publicly shaming of British officials/lords, and also the Tea party… which proved Britain’s views about the colonist to be correct…