Transcript for:
Pontiac's War and Its Aftermath: British Colonial Policy

so as you saw there the Ottawa and Delaware tribes of the Great Lakes region launched attacks on more than a dozen British Forts and you can see all of those on the map here Native Americans besieged Fort Detroit killing hundreds of settlers and English troops put down the uprising but this only added to the cost of the war and a British debt now infamously the British distributed smallpox infected blankets as diplomatic gifts to Native leaders during a temporary truce though I note this didn't actually work they were trying to use term Warfare but they didn't know enough about smallpox from the time the blankets had been exposed to when they were gifted was too long any live smallpox would have died by that point now Britain did attack Native Food Supplies and a distarvation that led Pontiac to accept a peace treaty in 1766 now the British wanted to try the French tactic of supplying Native Americans with diplomatic gifts and encouraging trade mediating dispute then when an English colonist to live in peace alongside Native Americans much like the French colonists had but after Bacon's Rebellion how did English colonists view all Native Americans as enemies that were in the way on the land in the way so vigilante groups begin to form in the West a vigilante is someone who thinks the government the law is not doing what it should be doing it's not doing what is right and so they're going to take the law into their own hands they are going to act illegally to get what they consider to be Justice and so you see this all the time in popular media most of your superheroes right Batman uh Green Arrow um John Wick right all of these are vigilante movies Kill Bill probably being my personal favorite but these vigilante groups in the west begin to launch violent attacks against Native Americans because they don't think the British government is doing enough to protect them and to take that land from native peoples now the most infamous of these groups is the Paxton Boys from the Paxton Township in Pennsylvania and they attack Native Americans many of them Christians living peacefully in small settlements in the midst of white Pennsylvania settlers so pontiac's War and the colonists inability to live peacefully amongst Native Americans convinces the British government that in order to avoid future costly conflicts because they don't have money for that right now and Wars are always expensive they need to slow down the settlement of this territory in the west the settlement that's claimed by Native Americans so while Native Americans didn't win pontiac's war their attacks changed British policy the British government issues the Proclamation line of 1763 and you see it here that's the Proclamation line 1763 it basically runs the same route as the Appalachian Mountains and it declares the territory west of Appalachia off limits to the colonists you're supposed to stay in this part of the land you're not allowed to come over here that's not going to be a reservation for Native Americans so these lanes are reserved for Native Americans and Britain would control all trade with Native Americans to maintain the Peace So if you're in a particular Colony you're not in charge of trading with the native peoples out there you have to go through the British government for that So Great Britain had only defeated the French they had not defeated Native America and the British aim here is to pacify Indians by prohibiting White Settlement west of Appalachia but this really pisses off those English colonists why have they fought the Seven Years War again yeah for this land for this land in the west west of Appalachia right so this really pisses them off for Colonial land that's why they fought the War so now they are barred from entering the very land that they had fought for in the war now some colonists had already moved in this area and so they are ordered fourth width to remove themselves but I want you to imagine if you went out and got a U-Haul and you packed up your apartment your house wherever it is got all your stuff in there turned off the electricity cable everything at your current place you move two states over you get everything unpacked you get everything turned back on you're good and the government comes and knocks on your door and says who's back who's back are you actually gonna do it how would you feel if the government told you that so most of the people who'd already moved there just ignore the Proclamation line and other colonists continue to ignore it and continue moving there illegally so they continue to illegally cross this border to take more and more native land and basically the British Monarchy now has the same problem Virginia had in Bacon's Rebellion they've got this land in the East they've all these free white people who want this land in the west that is owned by native peoples if they take that land it's going to be war and Wars are always expensive and it's going to disrupt trade with Native America and they're making money off that trade but if they don't take that land if they don't fight native peoples here then they're going to have to deal with some very angry white freed people and in the case of Bacon's Rebellion they marched on Jamestown and burned it down so they're not gonna be real happy about this so this is the Proclamation line of 1763. so the British needed to change the Imperial relationship with the colonies in order to deal with all these problems and especially the debt but colonists saw these changes as assaults on their rights now in April of 1763 George Grenville became first Lord of the treasury and he presides over the plan to pay off this massive war debt there's also a post-war recession which is very normal after work because during wartime the government is pumping all this money into the economy they're buying ammunition they're buying guns they're buying food and clothing for the troops and then the war ends and they just stop and so the economy shrinks a little bit that's very common after wartime the big question about all this debt is who should pay it half of all tax revenue collected from British taxpayers in Great Britain went just to pay the interest on this massive debt Britain couldn't tax British citizens anymore without causing domestic unrest and colonists paid less in taxes than those in Mainland Britain did and they were the ones supposed to benefit most from the war so it made sense to the British that the American colonists should pay what they thought was their fair share so the Greenville program of Imperial reform enhanced control and revenue so you're gonna have more power in government and more money that's the whole point and it included greater enforcement of the Navigation Acts all these acts have been on the books but they hadn't been enforcing them during benign neglect now they want to enforce them they're gonna have more restrictions on smuggling because they need to raise revenue they need money and they passed the Sugar Act of 1764 also known as the American Revenue Act which was a tax on sugar or molasses to pay the war debt so if you're familiar with the product sugar is kind of the white or brown Crystal Version if it's in liquid form it's molasses if you let the Molasses ferment it becomes rum so all three of those are basically the same product now molasses have been on the list of enumerated Goods since 1733 with a six cent tax had colonists ever paid the tax on the enumerated Goods no they just smuggled to get around it they usually paid one cent per gallon to a customs agent who would certify that their French molasses that they weren't supposed to have was British now the Sugar Act lowered the tax from six cents down to three but it enforced it for the first time no more benign neglect and Greenville hopes that three cent was close enough to what Smugglers were already paying that they would pay it to the British government instead of bribing a customs agent now adjusting to today's money a gallon of rum made from sugar molasses cost roughly thirty dollars the six pence tax would have added about five dollars to that if they hadn't smuggled to get around it of course they did the lower tax would have added roughly three dollars to a thirty dollar bottle of rum so the tax is around 20 when they're not paying it around 10 when they are supposed to be buying it the new laws also gave Customs agents far more power to police ships ships tend to have elaborate documentation now and could be seized for minor technicalities Customs agents had to do their jobs themselves they couldn't hire poor people to go stand on the docks for them anymore because these hired poor people they thought were more likely to take bribes violations of the law were now to be tried in the vice admiralty courts which had jurisdiction over Maritime Affairs but these courts didn't use juries and the British idea here is that they're more likely to enforce the law because if you have a jury of your peers other colonists like benign neglect two and they're not gonna hold you to it for breaking the law but the vice admiralty courts will colonists consider this a violation of the English Bill of Rights which guarantees a trial by jury now the tax was not only for channeling trade this tax is about money it's about acquiring Revenue and these colonists for all those years of benign neglect the only body that was passing Revenue raising taxes were their colonial legislatures so their argument is Parliament doesn't have the power to pass a revenue raising tax on them even though it does on all their other colonies but for all those years of benign neglect it didn't pass that kind of tax on them assemblies from eight colonies sent eight colonies sent petitions to the Royal authorities who ignored them now Collins claimed attacks was invalid because it was passed without their consent they argue only their colonial legislatures where they already have representation could pass a tax like this for Revenue raising purposes they do not want representation in Parliament they'd just be outvoted now the English counter argument of course is virtual representation you may not have voted for Parliament Parliament indirectly represents the entire Empire not everyone in England votes for Parliament whole districts are without direct representation now do we have virtual representation in the United States today yeah where the territories we call them territories instead of colonies they're basically the same thing but that's Puerto Rico Guam American Samoa those are American citizens subject to American laws but they don't get to say uh in Congress or in the presidency and neither does Washington DC they don't get a say in the presidency either even though they are expected to obey all the rules of Congress and such so we still have virtual representation in the U.S today no North American colonists insisted they were only represented by the men they voted for in their colonial legislatures and that they could only be taxed for Revenue raising purposes by their representatives this type of tax cannot be passed by parliament now they claim this is the right of Englishmen colonists said virtual representation may be true in England but not in these colonies and they say they've had this right and privilege in these colonies they argue precedent and that precedent is 60 years of benign neglect when Britain had let colonists have this so-called right so take a look at the next clip it's kind of a fun song it's maybe a little cringe but it'll help you remember whether or not the Sugar Act increased or decreased the tax on sugar