Welcome to the Salon & The Rumblings of Rebellion
Happy May Day!!!! 
We are in the midst of spring, summer is yet to come, and the weather is finally turning warmer, for those of us in the northern part of the Northern Hemisphere. It’s such a promising time!
For my blog, I’ve recently had a discussion with a friend (Thanks, Rayne!) as to my intentions. I always wanted this to be a place where history could come alive, and people could come here to discuss the events that happened during the American Revolution. But now I want to open the doors to not just the events, but also the philosophy, the sociological ramifications, the anthropological understandings of much of the eighteenth century, and art, music, you name it! And to have a better understanding, we might converse about Greek history, the Medieval era, Jacobite uprisings, or other times and occasions, as well as we could touch on delicate subjects that still affect us today. I will still have my wonderful academic friends come to write articles, and I will include many historical writers (fiction and non-fiction) who will share their knowledge and their brilliant books! This will be a place to laugh, maybe cry a little, but always to think. In short, my blog will become an eighteenth century salon. Something that Benjamin Franklin would want to visit, to talk at length of matters, play with ideas, and to become Enlightened people. (I meant that pun, yes.)
The blog might change in its settings, to reflect more of a salon atmosphere. So I hope you don’t mind the “construction” that it will go under, but your ideas and thoughts are always welcome here!
Today, we will continue with the audacious American colonists and equally daring British Parliament. The Stamp Act had just been repealed by the Parliament, yet in its place was the slippery Declaratory Act of 1766. At first no one seemed to notice the Declaratory Act. Most Britons and Americans alike were simply overjoyed with the fact that the Stamp Act was no more. No American, especially, took heed of the language of the Declaratory Act: “The Parliament of Great Britain had, hath, and by right ought to have full power and authority to make laws and statues of sufficient force and validity to bind the Colonies and people of America in all cases whatsoever.” In other words, Parliament had a right to tax the colonies if it so chose, even without sufficient representation.
Keep in mind, that most Americans didn’t observe the Declaratory Act as much of anything other than a device to save Parliamentary face. You see, because the Americans had rioted, rebelled, and boycotted, they thought, they had stopped the Stamp Act. The fact that the American colonists considered that they had gotten their way through rebellion is particularly important to note.
So after the Declaratory Act everything was hunky-dory for both the British Parliament and the American colonists, until the Quartering Act.
To better explain the Quartering Act, let’s go back to the French and Indian War (The Seven Years’ War.) After that gigantic and costly war, the Regulars—AKA the redcoats, British’s standing Army, were needed to remain in the American colonies. Why? For a number of reasons: 1.) The redcoats needed to be there to keep the peace. There were many colonists and a few Native American tribes who had sided with the French, and after their loss, there were quite a few land grabs as well as outright slaughter. 2.) Although France had signed the Paris Treaty of Peace, that did not mean they were not ready to strike back in less outright ways at the British. The redcoats had to be stationed at New York, especially, to make sure no French spies had too much information, as well as France could not trade with the American colonies. And the final reason mentioned here, but definitely not the last, was 3.) The Regulars needed to be stationed in the frontiers to ensure that American colonists would not cross the Proclamation Line, the boundary that ensured that many Native American tribes had their own territory. With the unflattering name of the French and Indian War, it is assumed that all Native Americans sided with the French, but the Proclamation Line helped the many tribes who allied themselves with the British during that war.
So back to the Quartering Act of 1766, which ordered the American colonists to “provide barracks and supplies such as candles, fuel, vinegar, beer, and salt for the Regulars.” This was considered as “another form of internal taxation.” And this was a very big no-no for the Americans. They began to call Parliament tyrannical again, and they knew there was one way to make Parliament stop.
Do you know what the American colonists did next? Do you wonder why we Americans call the French Indian War such, instead of the Seven Years’ War, like most of the world? Do you think Parliament could have done something different, other than instate the Quartering Act? I mean, after all the Regulars were there, on American soil, FOR the Americans. Why not have the American colonists help pay for their own defense? Do you think the Americans were complaining too much? Do you think Americans today would do the same?
