THE NEW IMPERIALISM:

Objectives: o We will examine how the expansion of the

British Empire gave rise to challenges in both the economy and government.

o We will examine the growing tension between the Colonists and the British government as the colonists sought to expand westward.

o We will examine the various measures parliament sought to implement to address its growing financial burdens in the colonies and the reaction to the colonies to these measures.

(Deu 19:14) Thou shalt not

remove thy neighbour's

landmark, which they of old time

have set in thine inheritance,

which thou shalt inherit in the

land that the LORD thy God giveth

thee to possess it.

Burdens of the Empire

• The experience of the French and Indian War revealed that increased British involvement in the colonies would not be easy.

• Colonists proved resistant to British control, thus Pitt was forced to relax his policies in 1758.

Burdens of the Empire

• Colonial assemblies continued to be slow in supporting to British needs.

• Unwilling to be taxed by parliament to support the war effort, the colonists were reluctant to tax themselves.

• The problems of managing the empire became more difficult after 1763 because of a basic shift in Britain’s imperial design.

Burdens of the Empire • In the past, the English viewed their

colonial empire primarily in terms of trade; they had opposed acquisition of territory for its own sake.

• By the mid-eighteenth century, a growing number of English and American Leaders (including William Pitt and Benjamin Franklin) were beginning to argue that land itself was of value to the empire.

• Because of the population, it could support the taxes imposed.

• And add to the imperial splendor it can confer.

Burdens of the Empire

• Debate between old commercial imperialists and new territorial ones, came to a head at the conclusion of the French and Indian War.

• The mercantilists wanted England to return Canada to France in exchange for Guadeloupe, the most commercially valuable of the French “sugar lands” in the West Indies.

• The territorialists however prevailed.

Burdens of the Empire

o Ben Franklin argued that the American people needed these vast spaces to accommodate their rapid and limitless growth.

o Having now twice as much territory than before, it became difficult to govern.

o Some wanted to immediately expand and settle the western territories for hunting and trapping, others felt to do so would antagonize the Indians.

Burdens of the Empire o Colonists themselves also disagreed.

o Some wanted the territory to be considered new colonies.

o Others thought that England would control the new territories while others such as colonial governments made conflicting claims of jurisdiction.

o At the same time the government in London was running out of options, in its effort to find a way to deal with staggering war debt.

o Landlords and merchants in England itself were objecting strenuously to increases in what they already considered excessive high taxes.

Burdens of the Empire o The need to station significant numbers

of British troops on the Indian border after 1763 was adding even more to the cost of defending the American settlements.

o The half hearted response of the colonial assemblies to the war effort had suggested that in its search for revenue, England could not rely on any cooperation from colonial governments and only a system of taxation could meet the need to pay off its debts.

King George comes to power

o George III became king in 1760.

o He brought two unfortunate

qualities into office.

King George comes to power o He was determined unlike his two

predecessors to be an active and responsible monarch.

o He removed from power the long-standing and relatively stable coalition of Whigs, who had (under Pitt and others) governed the empire for much of the century whom the new King mistrusted.

o George created a new coalition through bribery and patronage.

King George comes to power

o The King had serious intellectual and psychological limitations that added to his political difficulties.

o He suffered, from a rare disease with intermittent bouts of insanity.

o Even in moments of sanity he was immature and insecure.

o The King’s personality contributed to the instability of the British government during these critical years.

Other Problems: o More immediately that contributed to the problem

of the colonies was George Grenville, whom the King made Prime Minister in 1763.

o He disagreed with his brother in law William Pitt’s sympathy of the American point of view.

o Greenville agreed with the prevailing opinion within Britain that the colonies had been too long indulged and that they should be compelled to obey the laws and to pay a part of the cost of defending and administering the empire.

o He promptly began trying to impose a new system of control upon what had been a loose collection of colonial possession in America.

The British and the Tribes:

o To prevent escalation of fighting

between Indian tribes and English

colonists in the Western frontier in

the Ohio Valley,

o The British government issued the

Proclamation of 1763 that forbid

settlers to advance beyond a line

drawn along the Appalachian

Mountains.

The British and the Tribes: o It was appealing to the British for several reasons.

o It would allow London rather than the provincial governments and its land hungry constituents to control the westward movements of the white population.

o Westward expansion would proceed in an orderly manner, and conflicts with the tribes which were both militarily costly and dangerous to trade, might be limited.

o Slower western settlement would also slow the population exodus from the costal colonies, where England’s most important markets and investments were.

o And it would reserve opportunities for land speculation and fur trading for English rather than colonial entrepreneurs.

The British and the Tribes: o Although the tribes were not

enthusiastic about the

Proclamation, which required them

to cede still more land to the white

settlers.

o Many tribal groups, supported the

agreement as the best bargain

available to them.

The British and the Tribes: o The Proclamation of 1763 failed to

meet even the modest expectations of

the Native Americans.

o It had some effect in limiting colonial

land speculation in the West and in

controlling the fur trade, but on the

crucial point of the line of settlement it

was almost completely ineffective.

The British and the Tribes:

o White settlers continued to swarm across the boundary and to claim the lands farther and farther into the Ohio Valley and the British authorities tried repeatedly to establish limits to the expansion.

o But continually failed to prevent the white colonists from pushing farther west.

The Colonial Response: o Greenville Ministry soon moved to

increase in authority in the colonies in more direct ways.

o Regular British troops would be stationed permanently in America.

o Under the Mutiny Act of 1765, the colonists required to assist in provisioning and maintaining the army.

o Ships of the British Navy were assigned to patrol American waters and search for smugglers.

o The custom and service was reorganized and enlarged.

The Colonial Response: o Greenville Ministry soon moved to increase in authority in

the colonies in more direct ways.

o Regular British troops would be stationed permanently in America.

o Under the Mutiny Act of 1765, the colonists required to assist in provisioning and maintaining the army.

o Ships of the British Navy were assigned to patrol American waters and search for smugglers.

o The custom and service was reorganized and enlarged.

o Royal officials were ordered to take up their colonial posts in person instead of sending substitutes.

o Colonial manufacturing was to be restricted so that it would not compete with the rapidly expanding industry of Great Britain.

The Sugar Act of 1764. o Designed in part to eliminate illegal

sugar trade between the continental colonies and the French and Spanish West Indies, strengthened enforcement of the duty on sugar.

o While lowering the duty on Molasses, further damaging the market for sugar grown in the colonies.

o Established new vice admiralty courts in America to try accused smugglers thus depriving them of the benefit of sympathetic juries.

More Acts: o The Currency Act of 1764 required the colonial

assemblies to stop issuing paper money.

o Most important of all, the Stamp Act of 1765 imposed a tax on most printed documents in the colonies: Newspapers, almanacs, pamphlets, deeds, wills, licenses.

o The new imperial program was an effort to reapply to the colonies the old principles of mercantilism.

o British officials were collecting ten times as much annual revenue from America as before 1763.

More Problems: o But the new policies created many more problems

than they solved.

o The colonists resented the new imperial regulations, but at first found it difficult to resist them effectively.

o Americans continued to harbor as many grievances against one another as against the authorities in London.

o Often there was tension between the established cities and the frontier.

o Those in the frontier felt they were underrepresented in the colonial governments.

o These Western settlers sometimes felt resentful because they lived closer to the worlds of the Indian tribes than the societies of the east.

More Problems: o In 1771, a small-scale civil war broke out as a

result of the so-called regulator movement in North Carolina.

o The Regulators were farmers of the Carolina upcountry in opposition to the high taxes that local sheriffs appointed by the colonial governor.

o They began to resist the tax collection with force and a militia put the rebellion down.

o After 1764, however the new policies of the British government began to create common grievances among virtually all colonists that to some degree counterbalanced these internal divisions.

More Problems: o Northern merchants believed that they

would suffer from restraints on commerce, closing opportunities for manufacturing and increased taxes.

o Settlers in the Northern backcountry resented the closing of the West to land speculation and fur trading.

o Southern planters in debt to English merchants, feared having to pay additional taxes and losing their ability to ease their debts by speculating in western land.

More Problems: o Professionals, ministers, lawyers, professors

and others depended on merchants and planters for their livelihood and thus shared their concerns about the effects of English law.

o Small farmers, the largest group in the colonies, believed they would suffer from increased taxes and from the abolition of paper money, which enabled them to pay their loans.

o An economic depression also resulted in the region where the British no longer poured its funds after the end of the French and Indian War.

o In reality, most Americans soon found ways to live with or circumvent the new British policies.

Political consequences of the Grenville Program:

o A large proportion of the people take an active interest in public affairs.

o Partly because Anglo-Americans were deeply attached to broad powers of self-government and the colonist were determined to protect those powers.

Political consequences of the Grenville Program:

o The key to self-government was the colonist’s belief in provincial assemblies;

o and the key to the power of the provincial assembles was their long-established right to give or withhold appropriations for the colonial governments, a right the British were now challenging.

Political consequences of the Grenville Program:

o Home rule, therefore was not something new and different that the colonists were striving to attain, but something old and familiar that they desired to keep.

o It was democratic and conservative, it was a movement to conserve liberties Americans believed the already possessed.