We have already noted that the French and Indian was an important prelude to the American Revolution. The reasons for that are manifold. First, many Americans, including the young Virginia planter, George Washington, received combat experience that would serve them well in the coming revolution. The colonists had contributed substantially to British successes and had paid dearly in blood and treasure, for which they felt they deserved respect, if not compensation.
Second, as mentioned above, the war was extremely expensive for the British, as previous wars had also been. Further, many British officers who had been in America during the wars had observed that American cities such as Boston, Philadelphia, and New York had become quite prosperous, and the colonists obviously had resources that could go to direct support of the British Empire. With the British treasury exhausted, the British naturally looked for new ways to raise revenue, and their prosperous cousins across the Atlantic seemed able to provide. With a population of approximately 1.5 million, America was now too large to be ignored and wealthy enough to be exploited. Furthermore, the dangers that the colonists had faced at the hands of the French and Indians were now greatly reduced.
The contributions of the colonial soldiers, while they were small in number, nevertheless involved substantial portions of the American population. Most colonists accepted participation in these wars as part of their duties as members of the British Empire, and the Empire looked at it in the same way. The colonists, however, remained frustrated by the fact that when these wars were terminated by treaties that ended the conflicts in Europe, the colonists were left wondering what they had been fighting for.
In any case, relations between the British and the colonists had now reached a new stage, and momentum in the direction of separation of some sort was beginning. The British began to tax America more heavily than it had done in the past. One historian, in fact, has made a strong case that the French and Indian War was so significant in affecting relations between the American colonists and the mother country that the American Revolution was all but in-evitable.17.That does not necessarily mean that there had to be a Revolutionary War, but it did mean that substantial grievances that arose between the colonists and the mother country would have to be settled in order for the relationship between the Empire and its American colonies to continue. As we know, the result of that conflict was indeed the American Revolution, and we shall proceed to that war in due course.
World History
