Economy
The Americans’ determined resistance to the Townshend Acts resulted, in part, from a profound transition in the colonial economy. Before 1754 the colonists had earned enough from their exports to pay for their imports from Great Britain. Then, British military expenditures in America during the French and Indian War bolstered the incomes of many colonists and unleashed a wave of spending for consumer items: equipment for their farms and all kinds of household goods—including cloth, blankets, china, and cooking utensils. British merchant houses aided this spree of consumption by extending to American traders a full year’s credit, instead of the traditional six months. The mainland colonists soon accounted for 20 percent of all British exports and had gone deeply into debt (Gordon, 2002).
At the end of the war in 1763, the boom came to an abrupt end. The postwar recession brought bankruptcy and disgrace to those Americans who had overextended their commitments and brought hard economic times to nearly everyone else. This financial hardship generated opposition to the Stamp Act in 1765, especially among urban artisans. They had suffered from the competition of low-priced British manufactures and now feared higher taxes. Similar economic pressures fueled resistance to the Townshend Acts in 1767.
In many respects the creation of a new political order was much easier than forging a new financial and economic system. During the War of Independence, British warships temporarily destroyed the New England fishing industry and seized many American merchant ships. Both the tobacco and the rice exporting states of the South and the grain-marketing regions of the North suffered from the disruption of Atlantic trade. The port cities had the greatest difficulty (Gordon, 2002). Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Charleston, and Newport were occupied for a time by British troops and suffered drastic declines in population as trade virtually ceased..........................
