What Was The Short Term Effect of The Kings Rejection of The Olive Branch Petition?
The Olive Branch Petition was the very last attempt from the 13 colonies’ side to avoid the probable Revolutionary War against their mother country, Great Britain.
| Quick Answer:
1. Rejection From The King’s Side Made Colonists Realize That The Empire of Great Britain Had No Sympathy Towards Their Interests. 2. They Understood Very Well That The King And The Parliament Never Considered Them As Their Own British Citizens. Leaders Like Thomas Paine, John Adams Succeeded In Making People Think That Britain Had Been Using The 13 Colonies As Only A Source of Wealth & Money. 3. The Rejection Soon Polarized Those Colonists’ (Not Loyalists) Mindset, Who Still Have Some Respect And Believe Towards Great Britain. Now They Started Wondering To Achieve Independence And Form Their Own Government With A New Sovereign Nation, Separate From Their Mother Country. |
What Did Colonists Send To The British King Via The Olive Branch Petition?
In this Petition, Colonists’ leaders (or delegates) send some proposals & requests to the British King George III, whom the king of Britain if accepts, then the war would not take place.
Primarily through the document, they requested King George III and the Parliament to repeal the 5 Intolerable Acts, which they imposed on colonists in 1774.
The Second Continental Congress adopted the petition on July 5th, the year 1775, and delegates signed it on 8th July.
But, when it reached the English King George III, he refused to read and accept it.
Contrary, he declared them traitors.
Rejection from the king’s side immediately started affecting the colonies.
It polarized those colonists’ mindset, who were still confused and wanted to do some peace negotiation with Great Britain.
Those now understood very well that the king and the Empire had no sympathy for the colonists.
They just see the 13 colonies and their residents as a source of wealth and a big market, but not as a unanimous part of England.
King’s refusal opened a big opportunity to revolutionary leaders like John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, George Washington to push the 13 colonies one step more towards independence.
I hope now you have got the answer on what was the short-term core effect of the British king’s rejection of the Olive Branch Petition.
An Amazing Fact About Olive Branch Petition
It was strange that Congress sent the Petition to the British King because they had already authorized the Invasion of Canada’s Quebec province a week earlier, before adopting it on 5th July 1775.
So, from this particular point of view, this initiative looks like a show-off, which was taken only for assuring leaders who still wanted to reconcile.
Especially leaders who still wanted to negotiate with the 13 colonies’ mother country were John Dickinson, John Jay, Benjamin Franklin, etc.
However, after the king rejected the Petition, most of them changed their mindset completely.
Leaders like John Adams already knew that the war was inevitable and the king would refuse their proposal.
That’s why they had already started preparing their militias for armed confrontations.
Why Leaders Like John Dickinson Preferred Negotiation Rather Than The Revolutionary War of Independence?
Leaders like John Dickinson were afraid that the 13 colonies’ independence from Great Britain would encourage Europe’s imperial powers to invade their land.
Including Dickinson, a group of leaders preferred a peace negotiation with the Parliament and King rather than fighting a war to achieve independence.
Therefore, John Dickinson’s role in creating and sending the Olive Branch Petition was very significant.
However, these all didn’t mean that they were loyalists; they just did it all for the security of their people.
[Did You Know? John Dickinson Did Not Sign In The Declaration of Independence]
