32.8 America: a.d. 1701 to 1800  (Page 11/20)

Cumberland Gap is a 1,665 feet elevation pass through the Appalachian Mountains lying at the border of Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia, long known to the Indians, but discovered for the Virginia Land Company by Dr. Thomas Walker in 1750 and named for the Duke of Cumberland. From the pass trails fan out to the south and west so that somewhat later a veteran of the French and Indian Wars, Daniel Boone, made this a highway to the promised land of the west. The so-called "Wilderness Road" was nearly 300 miles long, ending at the Ohio River at Louisville and within 15 years, at the end of the century, 100,000 people had traversed this trail to western Tennessee and Kentucky. Mostly unlettered, these people needed a good gun, a good horse and a good wife, along with good health, good luck, an axe and salt. Most had to carry their salt over the mountains, but at Boone County, Kentucky was a huge brine lake, which incidentally was also a great archaeological find, with a graveyard of mastodon bones. The salt licks were also used by the Indians and this immediately helped to initiate hard feelings early in the settlement of the area.

During the six years of the French-Indian War, the British got an education and became aware of the fact that they needed to overhaul their imperial system and strengthen their central authority. Previously all relation of England to the colonies was on the basis of a commercial empire, on the theory that the colonies existed solely for the benefit of the homeland and that in return the homeland owed them protection. Although the Acts of Trade and Navigation had been passed by Parliament in 1651 they had not been enforced until this century. These Acts called for exclusive navigation, in that all commerce had to involve only British or colonial ships and the "Entrepot Principle" which meant that foreign trade should normally be conducted through the mother country. After the war just discussed, England began to pass constricting laws, new taxes and new army conscriptions from the colonies themselves. This shocked the Americans. First came the Stamp Act, innocuous enough in itself, but inf uriating to the colonists and soon repealed at the insistence of William Pitt. But then came George 111 and Lord North, with still more repressive laws and taxes and a show-down became inevitable. (Ref. 39 ) (Go to 1140&1153)

Factors leading to the american revolution

• Enforcement of the Sugar Act
  Sometimes called the "Molasses Act"
  of 1733 by William Pitt in 1760. Early Americans, like most Europeans of the day, preferred to drink almost anything in preference to water and the New Englanders made everything from poor whiskey to pumpkin beer, maple syrup and persimmons to apple-jack. But soon the main drink in the colonies was rum and the yearly consumption was 3 3/4 gallons per person, including women and children. Some believe that the Sugar Act which imposed a heavy tax on both sugar and molasses (if they came from anyplace but the British owned Caribbean Islands) was more important in the declaration of independence than the tea tax, because the rum trade was based on molasses. The rum was felt to be important, not only for the local consumption but because the New England shippers could exchange rum for slaves in Africa, then trade the slaves in the West Indies for more molasses, which was taken back to the colonies to make more rum. Alcohol was a mainstay of 18th century America. When George Washington was campaigning for the Virginia legislature in 1758, his agents doled out almost 3 3/4 gallons of beer, wine, cider or rum to every voter and Washington was afraid this would not be enough. (Ref. 217 )
• The Iron Act of 1750 prohibiting colonists from manufacturing iron products, but allowing them to develop their ore deposits for exchange in England for the manufactured pieces. This was the classic mercantilism of the British colonial system, using colonies to produce raw materials, which the mother country could process and sell back. This law was generally ignored by the Americans
• The Garrisoning of 10,000 British troops, and this chiefly in cities, rather than on frontiers where they were needed
• The Revenue Act of 1764, to raise money to defray the expense of troops "defending the colonies". This act put duties on foreign sugar, European luxuries and limited some exports
• The Stamp Act of 1775. This was the first direct, internal tax levied on the colonies. Every type of legal document, even such as college diplomas, was heavily taxed and payable in sterling. Every copy of newspapers, each advertisement in papers, etc. was taxed. Riots against enforcement officials began immediately. A middle-class organization, "Sons of Liberty", sprung up in every seaport and kept the courts from acting, thus nullifying the law. It was repealed by a new administration in England in 1766
• The Townshend Act of 1767. Avoiding an internal tax, which the colonists thought unconstitutional, this levied duties on certain English manufactures entering America - paper, glass, paint and the East India Company's tea. The culminating blow was a whole new customs regulation organization to enforce this, using Admiralty Courts to try cases under the Acts of Trade and Navigation, without a jury. The Townshend duties were repealed in 1770, except for tea. It was at that time that Samuel Adams, a middle class Bostonian, began to lead opposition as a Boston "radical"
• Land Grievances. There were brawls in the back-country from New Hampshire to South Carolina over land boundaries, land companies and the like, with resulting grievances of frontiersmen against the establishment on the coast. All felt their problems had no attention in Parliament. The Boston Tea Party of 1773. The Sons of Liberty, dressed as Indians, boarded three, unloaded tea ships in Boston Harbor and dumped the cargo into the sea. This was a protest against the tax on tea and it had the calculated effect of irritating the British government into unwise acts of reprisal. This is what Sam Adams wanted
• The Coercive Acts of 1774. The Boston Port Act virtually blockaded Boston until it paid for the dumped tea. The Administration of Justice Acts chastised Massachusetts, making councilmen, judges, sheriff s, etc. all appointees of the king. The Quartering Act empowered royal governors to commandeer houses for soldiers. It should be noted that many old Whigs and merchants in England opposed all of these Acts