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The Stamp Act Of 1763: A New Colonial Identity

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The colonists still had a sense of solidarity with the British people when they sent the Olive Branch Petition to King George. However, colonial identity experienced a significant evolution away from British mentality, beginning with colonial resentment towards the Proclamation of 1763, progressing through the reaction to the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Battles of Lexington and Concord, and manifesting through the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Therefore, colonists became an American people, developing a new colonial identity. When the Second Continental Congress attempted to make amends with King George III with the Olive Branch Petition, the colonies and Britain were practically already at war. Battles had been fought and the colonists …show more content…

Passed to pay to for the cost of British troops in the colonies defending the western frontier, the Stamp Act essentially required the colonists to pay taxes on the printed paper they used. While the actual cost the colonists had to pay was small, the principle of the tax and the standard it set enraged the colonists. In the past, taxes on colonial trade had been viewed by colonist as a way to regulate trade but the Stamp Act was seen as the British government trying to raise money without consent from colonial legislatures. The aggravated colonists felt that without being represented in Parliament, the government could not justly tax them, hence the slogan “No taxation without representation.” Moreover, offenders of the Stamp Acts would be tried in admiralty courts, or courts without juries, and the defendants were determined guilty until proven innocent, taking away a privilege that both American colonist and British people enjoyed. Because of the almost universal resentment of the Stamp Act in the colonies, colonial unity developed through connections of protest and complaints. The Stamp Act Congress, convened in October 1765 with nine of the colonies represented by delegates (missing North Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia, and Georgia), issued “The Declaration of Rights and Grievances” and called for the repeal of the legislation. While the Congress itself did not accomplish much, it served as the first time that the varying colonies could come together to work against the British Empire, diminishing intercolonial distinctions and competitions. Also significant is that the Congress did just argue for their rights as Englishmen, but for their natural rights as human beings-the primary basis for the eventual Declaration of Independence. Along with the Stamp Act Congress, the more effective

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