Why Were Taxes An Ongoing Source of Conflict For The American Colonists?
| Answer In Short:
Because The Taxes Only Benefited Great Britain, But Not The 13 Colonies of North America. The British Parliament Could Pass And Impose Any Taxation Acts On The American Colonists, But The Parliament Always Showed Their Unwillingness To Provide Colonists’ Own Representatives There (At British Parliament). Taking Advantage of The Colonists’ Own Representatives’ Absence, The Parliament Easily Used To Pass Such Taxation Acts For The 13 Colonies, Which Often Proved Completely Against Their Interests. The Sugar Act (1764), Stamp Act (1765), Townshend Acts (1767), And Tea Act (1773) Were The The Major Taxation Acts For The Conflict Between The British Authority And American Colonists. Read The Whole Article or Watch The Informative YouTube Video To Understand Better. |
There was one main reason why the British Parliament’s taxation acts were an ongoing source of conflict for the American colonists.
In simple words, it was “taxation without any representation” in the British Parliament.
This was also the main root of all the tensions between Great Britain and the 13 colonies, which finally led to the Revolutionary War of the 13 colonies’ independence.
Description – Why Were Taxes An Ongoing Source of Conflict Between Americans And British Authority?
The point was that there were no representatives from the 13 American colonies in the British Parliament.
Colonists argued that if the British Parliament is making laws for us, then we should have the right to send our own representatives to the Parliament.
At different times, colonists had been demanding the English authority to create a system so that they can choose and send their own leaders to the English Parliament.
But all the time, the British authority rejected their proposal.
On the other hand, though, they had no representatives; but British Parliament had been unfairly imposing some harmful laws on them.
Among them, the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Acts of 1767 were the two ugliest taxation acts.
These laws were created to tax the colonists in greater quantities, resulting in widespread protest throughout all the colonies.
Over time, after some major incidents like the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the imposition of the five Intolerable Acts, and the Battles of Lexington and Concord, it led to the Revolutionary War of America’s full independence.
But Why Britain Did Not Want To Provide Them Any Representation?
It is pretty simple to understand.
Typically, the British Parliament and King George III never considered the colonists as their own English citizens.
The 13 colonies were just a source of wealth and money for them.
Implementing mercantilism policies, Britain always aimed to soak as much wealth as possible from the colonies.
Therefore, they used to impose some hard rules on the American people whenever needed, which only benefited Great Britain, not the colonists.
These pieces of stuff are very easy to understand because they did not consider colonists as their own citizens, so they did not want any of their representatives in the English Parliament.
However, some experts also assume that Great Britain was probably afraid of taking risks on its sovereignty.
How Did The Ongoing Source of Conflict Lead The American Colonists To The Revolutionary War?
In 1773, the Parliament of Great Britain passed an act to create a monopoly in the 13 colonies’ whole tea market.
The act was none other, but it was the Tea Act of 1773.
The act threatened colonies’ local merchants and shippers of losing their businesses soon.
Therefore as an act of disagreement over the British Parliament’s decision, on December 16th, 1773, some patriots from the Sons of Liberty organization executed the Boston Tea Party incident.
It deeply angered the English government, because of which, in the next year (1774), they passed 5 Intolerable Acts to punish the colonists.
Primarily, they intended to target the Massachusetts province.
These acts passed by the English Parliament were highly vengeful to the interests of the colonists.
Therefore the same year, from 5th September to 26th October, 12 of the 13 colonies came together in the First Continental Congress.
Here, they decided to take some of the most challenging decisions to counter the five vengeful laws.
For example, boycotting British goods’ imports, setting up continental militias for possible armed conflict, etc.
After these major events, finally, on April 19th, 1775, the battles of Lexington and Concord broke out.
This armed confrontation fully kicked off the Revolutionary War of independence.
