Essay --

Brian McGrath Mr. Miller Accelerated US History I 25 February 2014 In the early part of the 18th century, the British government implemented salutary neglect toward its colonies with limited engagement in economic and political affairs. From across the Atlantic, Britain enacted protocols such the Navigation Laws and the Molasses Act (OI), but enforcement of such trade regulation was minimal. The colonists and British existed in symbiosis. The colonists benefited from a relationship without great limitations and displayed a friendly and appreciative attitude toward the British; the British held the colonists on a long leash and reaped the benefits of the fertile and productive land offered by the New World. However, the French and Indian War drastically altered this mother-daughter relationship, significantly changing the ideological, political, and economic association between Great Britain and its American colonies. When the British saw the necessity for imperial control, colonists were repulsed by the unexpected disrespect they received. Through t he actions of Britain gain greater control over its colonies politically, the behaviors that incited ideological shifts, the economic hostilities in the aftermath, and the generally rebellious repercussions in the colonies, the French and Indian war molded a healthy mother-daughter relationship into one of enmity. The origins of the French and Indian War can be found in international disputes such as Queen Anne’s and King William’s Wars (OI), but also, earlier, in the settlement of both the French and the British in the Ohio valley region of America. The tense power balance evolved as the French and British sought to take control of the region from the Native American. Desperately opp... ...e war incited violent retaliations from the colonists and an unforeseen breach of trust between Great Britain and its American colonies. The French and Indian War played a large role in the decline of relations between the British and the colonists, in the control that Britain sought over the colonies during the fighting and the contact between the British and American soldiers. However, the transgressions to which colonists were most adamantly opposed occurred in the aftermath of the fighting. Taxes, stationing of troops, control of major cities, and other actions by the British government only brought about greater agitation in America. The events that took place during and after the French and Indian War, politically, ideologically, and economically influential, shaped the faces of both America and Britain as the two progressed towards the American Revolution.