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Document-Based Question

The French and Indian war forced British and colonial relations further along the path to the point of revolution. Revolution was also brought forth due to the extraction of the French “hawk,” the unifying of the colonists, and the growing American economics coupled with the restrictions that the British put on their trade. Combined, these factors together were all parts of the source for the American Revolution, not just the French and Indian War.

As stated in the book, “While the French hawk had been hovering in the North and West, the colonial chicks had been forced to cling close to the wings of the mother hen,” the hen being England. When the French force was removed from the north, the colonies no longer felt threatened. With this freedom the colonists moved further west, even farther from mother England. To restrict the colonists, the British Parliament issued the Proclamation of 1763 saying, “or upon any lands whatever, which, not having been ceded to or purchased by us, as aforesaid, are reserved to the said Indians, or any of them.” This excerpt was designed to restrict the settlers from inhabiting areas that were farther west, even thought most colonists disregarded it. Being this unjust to the colonists, the British and colonials were driven farther apart.

Another motive pushing the colonists towards war was their growing colonial unity. Ben Franklin’s Albany Plan of Union was just one step towards colonial unity, but it got the colonists thinking. In his later drawing, “Join or Die” he creatively explained how all of the American colonies had to amalgamate in order to become their own country. Franklin’s idea most likely made the colonists wake up and see how strong they’d be together. During the mid-1700s, it was also evident that everyone was blending into one people. As Hector St. John Crevecoer said in his Letters from an American Farmer, “What then is the American, this new man? He is either an European, or the descendent of an European, hence that strange mixture of blood which you find in no other country.” The only opinion that opposed the idea of colonial unity was that of Andrew Burnaby. He stated that the colonists were jealous of what other colonists had; yet that envy resides everywhere, thereby disregarding this statement.

The English did not help themselves to get in favor of the colonists. After establishing a steady economy, the colonists were beginning to be restricted by the British, starting with the Molasses Act. In his speech on the Stamp Act in 1765 William Pitt said, “I maintain, that the parliament has a right to bind, restrain America.” This was the kind of view that suppressed the colonists and made them dislike the English. More restrictions on the colonists’ exports angered them further to add on to the idea of revolution. As Peter Kalm said in his Travels to North America, “For the English colonies in this part of the world have increased so much in their number of inhabitants, and in their riches, that they almost vie with Old England. … they are forbid to establish new manufactures, which would turn disadvantage of the British.” The people of the colonies most likely saw this power that they were gaining and despised the English for holding them back.

All of these, not just the war, forced the colonists to almost a breaking point for the revolution. There were probably even more events later that also were crucial as reasons for war. In conclusion the French and Indian War was not the only motive behind the colonists’ revolution, though it was still a major basis.