POLITICAL TENSIONS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE POLITICAL IDEOLOGY OF THE VIRGINIAN STAMP ACT CRISIS AND THE JAMAICAN PRIVILEGE CONTROVERSY

During the eighteenth century, the exportation of British political ideology was an important imperial tool that was utilized by Great Britain to maintain control across the large expanse of their empire. The settlers of Virginia and Jamaica held onto essential principles of British political ideology into their own colonies and espoused them in their own manner as evident in their political discourse and provincial government systems. During the years of 1764-1766, the American Stamp Act crisis and the Jamaican privilege controversy were an imperial test of these shared political principles. Through a comparative analysis between these two significant imperial conflicts, an apparent ideological disconnect occurred between the British metropole and the Virginian and Jamaican colonies which played a significant role within the Stamp Act crisis and the Jamaican privilege controversy.