Below you will find another fantastic article from Clio’s Board Games. This is the first in an American Revolution article series from Clio that you will find here on InsideGMT and on Clio’s blog. Enjoy! -Rachel

The United States of America is the most powerful country in the world today. It has no peer in its military power, its cultural hegemony, and its influence shaping the global economy. As the 250^th anniversary of the country’s founding comes closer, it is a good time for a series of blog posts to remember its humble beginnings – as a collection of colonies in strife with their British metropolitan government. We’ll look at the roots of this struggle in the colonial rivalry between Britain and France, how the British government’s subsequent measures alienated the American colonists, and at the escalation of the conflict short of war. More on the political philosophy of the American Revolution and the Revolutionary War itself will follow in future installments of this series!

The French and Indian War

The 18^th century was marked by the global rivalry between Britain and France. The powers clashed not only in Europe, but also in India, the Caribbean, and North America. Their competing claims to the vast continent had led to war a few times already when a small British contingent commanded by Major George Washington (more on this promising young man in future instalments of the series!) clashed with the French in the Ohio valley in 1754.

Within two years, the conflict was subsumed into the broader British-French rivalry, and the two leading global powers fought not only in North America, but also in Europe, India, and the Caribbean.

The war in North America (usually called the French and Indian War from the British perspective) featured a wide array of combatants (something that the board games on the subject represent with a variety of units which often (for example, in Bayonets & Tomahawks) have very asymmetric capabilities): Of course, both powers brought their well-drilled regular soldiers into the fight, but as transporting men and materiel over the Atlantic was slow, costly, and not without risk, they relied as much as possible on troops available in America. That meant the native tribes to whom they were allied (like the Iroquois on the British and the Wabanaki Confederacy on the French side). The British, whose American colonies were much more densely populated with European settlers, could also draw on a substantial colonial militia (like George Washington’s Virginians). Getting the colonials to fight was a challenge which required substantial amounts of British persuasion… and attention to the specific interests of each colony, as they all decided individually on their support for the war effort.

Britain prevailed over France in North America. The British conquered French Canada by 1760. Their naval and financial advantages allowed them great victories in the Caribbean, India, and West Africa as well, and so France had to cede the claim to the lands east of the Mississippi to Britain to regain some of its lost colonies in the Peace of Paris (1763). Britain had won supremacy in North America, yet its coffers were exhausted.

Balancing the Budget in the Colonies

The British government now sought ways to cut expenses and to raise revenue. The colonies would not be exempted.

The lion’s share of government expenses went to the military forces. Now, with the French challenge gone, the British government sought to hold America with nothing but a token force. Any source of military conflict thus needed to be avoided – and with the French gone, the only rival in the New World were the natives. To the dismay of the colonists eager to claim more land, parliament banned any westward expansion in 1763.

Parliament also embarked on a program of revenue-raising measures, beginning with the Sugar Act in 1764. Import duties on sugar were halved from 6 to 3 pence per gallon – yet the previous sum had barely ever been paid due to widespread smuggling (especially by Rhode Islanders supplying the rum industry in their colony). This was the first of many attempts to fill the British treasury at the expense of North American consumers.

One year later, Parliament added the Stamp Act, which put a tax on all kinds of printed products (from playing cards over newspapers to wills). That was the first time a direct tax was charged in the North American colonies. The measure sparked outrage among the colonists who organized resistance to the Act under the moniker Sons of Liberty. While the Stamp Act was repealed within a year of its passing, Parliament upheld its right to legislate for the colonies, including the imposition of taxes.

The next attempt to raise revenue in the colonies reverted to the tried-and-true method of import tariffs. The Townshend Acts of 1767 (named after Charles Townshend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer) imposed tariffs on a variety of goods – leather, glass, paper, and, most famously, tea from the British East India Company. Once more, they were mostly repealed (in 1770), yet the tariff on tea remained in place. Vigorous smuggling of tea from the Dutch East India Company set in.

The Road to Rebellion

With tensions running high, even isolated incidents could explode into violence. In 1770, an altercation over an (allegedly) unpaid bill by a British officer escalated into a crowd verbally and physically abusing British soldiers who then discharged their muskets into the protesters, killing five of them – the “Boston Massacre”.

In other cases, the connection to British colonial policy was more apparent: The British schooner HMS Gaspee had been used to police the waters around Rhode Island to stave off smuggling. The mission became increasingly heavy-handed, incurring the hatred of the locals. When HMS Gaspee ran aground in the pursuit of a ship, a band of Sons of Liberty boarded the stranded vessel, forced the crew off the ship, and set it on fire (1772).

Yet the most famous incident in the escalation of colonial unrest was the Boston Tea Party. Once more, its immediate cause was not one for anger among the colonist: While the import duty from the Townshend Acts remained in place, Parliament abolished the import duty for tea in Britain and allowed the British East India Company to sell its tea directly in North America. That lowered the price for the Company’s tea considerably, and made it cheaper than the smuggled Dutch tea.

That threatened both the interests of the North American tea importers – who were sidelined by the East India Company’s direct imports –, the North American merchants smuggling Dutch tea, and the Sons of Liberty whose resistance campaign to the British colonial administration rested not only on the few motivated by principle, but also the many acting out of concern for the price of consumer goods raised by the various tariffs. The Sons of Liberty thus resolved not to let tea from East India Company ships be unloaded and taxed in North America.

The test of strength came in Boston harbor, in December 1773. When the first three ships carrying East India Company tea arrived, Sons of Liberty blocked them from unloading and demanded their departure. Colonial governor Thomas Hutchinson (who had two sons working for the East India Company) set an ultimatum for the unloading of the ships within 20 days. Shortly before it expired, Sons of Liberty boarded the three ships and tossed the chests of tea into the harbor (December 16, 1773).

Parliament met this open defiance with increased resolve to put the colonists in their place. The Coercive Acts of 1774 closed the port of Boston for trade, outlawed public meetings, revoked the charter of the colony of Massachusetts, placed British officials outside of the jurisdiction of Massachusetts courts, forced the colonists to quarter British soldiers, and assigned vast swathes of the American West to the loyal (Catholic and francophone) colony of Quebec. The Intolerable Acts, as they were soon known in America, completed what the French and Indian War had not done: The colonies were now united – against Britain.

Delegates from the American colonies (except what is now Canada, and Georgia) met in Philadelphia as the (first) Continental Congress to deliberate on a joint response to the Intolerable Acts. They agreed on an import boycott of British goods. Yet with rebellion escalating in Massachusetts, the Congress’s decision was soon overtaken by events: On February 9, 1775, Parliament declared Massachusetts to be in rebellion. The issue would be decided with force of arms.

Conclusion

As we’ve seen, the main issue of discontent for the American colonists were the duties imposed on various imported goods by the British Parliament. Now you might think, “Why rebel over taxes, tariffs, duties? – Everybody has to pay them!”, and you would have a point: After all, the average American paid only a pittance to the British government (6 pence per year, as opposed to the 25 shilling for the average Brit – so, around 2% of that).

Yet what irked the colonists was not only the taxation per se, but that they did not have a voice in it – not a single American could vote for Parliament (whereas in Britain, at least somewhere between one and two percent of the population had the right to vote). And even when taxes were repealed, Parliament upheld its right to tax the colonists. Thus, the rallying cry of the rebellion became one of having a say in one’s own affairs: “No taxation without representation!”

That leaves us with a seemingly paradoxical finding: The American colonists lived no worse than most people around the globe – from the Kingdom of Portugal to the Edo Shogunate, almost everyone was taxed without their consent. And yet, unlike all those people, the colonists rebelled against this state – out of self-interest (as has been laid out in this post), but also out of principle. These principles – the political philosophy of the American Revolution – will be the focus of the second post in this series.

Games Referenced

Bayonets & Tomahawks (Marc Rodrigue, GMT Games)

Imperial Struggle (Ananda Gupta/Jason Matthews, GMT Games)

Wilderness War (Volko Ruhnke, GMT Games)

Further Reading

Allison, Robert J.: The American Revolution. A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, New York City, NY 2015 is exactly what it says on the tin.

For the Franco-British rivalry of the 18^th century, see McKay, Derek/Scott, Hamish M.: The Rise of the Great Powers, 1648—1815, Longman, London 1984.

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