Virginia Colonies Turning Point Analysis

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The Turning Point for Virginia Plantation Owner For the most part, the relationship between British homeland and the colonies was stable and peaceful. There was a bit of insecurity amongst the American elite at arrogance of British elite, but us colonists enjoyed and even admired all things British such as books, manufactures and art. Overall, the American colonists were dutiful British subjects. Loyal to the king and proud to be part of a rapidly expanding global British empire (Class Notes: 7-1). However, between 1763-1776, changes in British policy led us to rebel and turn away from mother England (primarily due to taxation and the stationing of troops in our colonies). After the great success in the French and Indian war, the British …show more content…
So February of that year, he decided to attempt to raise revenue through the newfound Stamp Act. This put a tax on all paper such as legal documents, newspapers, pamphlets, licenses, wills, ships’ cargo lists and required a stamp as proof that the tax was paid. On April, 1765 news of the Stamp Act arrived in the colonies, this outraged the colonists and since governors failed to object, colonial assemblies took immediate action. My hometown assembly the Virginia House of Burgesses was the first. Patrick Henry “presented a series of resolutions on the Stamp Act that were passed, one by one. They became known as the Virginia Resolves Henry’s resolutions inched the assembly towards radical opposition to the Stamp Act” (Roark 169). The first three stated that Virginians were British citizens and that we enjoy the same rights and privileges as Britons, one of those rights being self taxation. In one of the resolutions it states that “the General Assembly of this colony, together with his Majesty or his substitutes, have in their representatives capacity, the only exclusive right and power to lay taxes and imposts upon the inhabitants of this colony; and that every attempt to vest such power in any other person or persons whatever than the General Assembly aforesaid, is illegal, unconstitutional, and unjust, and has a manifest tendency to destroy British as well as American liberty” (Virginia Resolutions on the Stamp Act, 1765). This set the tone on how us Virginians felt about the Stamp Act and other colonies began to follow us, some to more extreme than others. In Boston, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Ebenezer Mackintosh organized the first resistance towards the Stamp Act. They went to the designated stamp distributor and hung a dummy of him by a tree, they then beheaded and burned the fake Oliver while parading around it. Oliver stayed in hiding and the next day he announced that he was resigning. About
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