The British were starting to lose control of the American colonies. Taxes and acts enacted changed the relationship between Britain and the American colonists. The Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts both showed that Britain was trying to enforce its power after being lenient with the colonists since the beginning of British rule. The Boston Massacre of 1770 was the point of no return for the colonists in their British relations and led to the American Revolution. The incident inflamed the colonists based on rumors that the affected colonists were shot without provocation, and because the colonists were already fed up with all the acts imposed by the British Parliament. Taxes had forced some colonists to avoid or reduce consumption of taxed …show more content…
As the colonists defiantly stopped buying British goods and paying the accompanying taxes on them, the colonists felt more powerful and this sense of power spread revolutionary excitement. Regular, everyday colonists could be part of these colonial protests. The nonimportation agreements were enforced by the Sons of Liberty and the Daughters of Liberty. “The Sons of Liberty [wanted] to force all of the British stamp agents to resign and also stop many American merchants from ordering British trade goods.” Interestingly enough, the Sons of Liberty still proclaimed loyalty to the King as they only had a problem with Parliament. This fact shows how the colonists were on a revolutionary path, but still denied the revolution and were not yet at the point of no return. Both the Sons and Daughters of Liberty, along with other patriots, took money from and ransacked the homes of unpopular officials. As a result, the officials who were supposed to sell the stamps resigned. America had bought 25% of British exports and 50% of British shipping was bringing goods to America, and Britain suffered severely. Merchants and laborers in Britain were out of work and demanded the Stamp Act be repealed. Parliament reluctantly repealed the Stamp Act the next year. The American colonists had won the fight over the Stamp Act, but were still under British rule and the jurisdiction of …show more content…
The Townshend Acts were “to pay the salaries of the royal governors and judges in America.” They taxed glass, white lead, paper, paint, and even tea. The Townshend Acts affected and annoyed over one million colonists who drank tea twice each day. “Many Americans viewed the taxation as an abuse of power.” The colonists did not want to pay any taxes that Parliament put into place, whether or not the taxes were direct or indirect. They wanted to use self-government to set up taxes themselves. The Townshend Acts were not taken seriously, as some colonists decided to create nonimportation agreements and more could get cheap smuggled tea to avoid the tax
This surprised the British government. The colonists even threatened tax collects forcing them to quit their jobs or to even leave the colonies. Protests spread into the streets and groups like the Sons of Liberty encouraged the colonists to boycott British products. These boycotts soon hurt British businesses in the colonies. The British government was forced to repeal the Stamp Act.
Lots of the acts that were passed upset many of the colonists. The Stamp Act was passed in March of 1765. It made people pay for stamps or anything that seals documents and papers. It increased revenue by taxing supplies as in newspapers and much more. Although many people were upset about this passed act, parliament thought it was a fair tax.
Charles Townshend proposed a new series of act known as the Townshend Revenue Acts. “The Townshend Revenue Acts placed taxes on the importation of commodities such as lead, glass, paint, paper, and tea into the colonies”. John Dickinson was a lawyer who printed articles in the newspaper alerting the people of their rights and it was not their responsibility to pay for their debt. Some wanted to start violent protest, but Dickinson essays convinced them not to. The British colonies were still not independent and on their own.
Power began to change hands in 1767, and with this came new policies. Charles Townshend had become Treasurer and he proposed a new plan to get out of the depression that England was sliding into. With the Townshend Act, the colonies were more restricted than ever before. Under the Act it was deemed illegal to buy certain goods from England such as “tea, paper, glass, red and white lead, and painter’s colors.” (LEP,5-3a).
The colonists had decided that they had enough of Britain and the King being unfair. All of the colonies were unhappy with the fact that they were being taxed without representation in parliament. “Disregarding American protests that the colonies could not be taxed because they were not represented in Parliament, in March 1765 the British government enacted a stamp tax to take effect in the American colonies on November 1, 1765”(Alexander 174). Many of the colonists were not happy with the Tea Act that was passed to help the East India Company that was struggling. The Boston Tea Party created tension due to the fact that colonists disrespected British cargo.
Once again, angry Patriots revolted and so the Townshend Duties were repealed, which led to a short period of peace between the colonies and Britain. However, the peace was shattered in 1773, when Lord North imposed a new Act, the Tea Act. The British East India Tea Company was close to going broke because of the boycott against British tea that many colonists participated in. The Tea Act gave Britain complete control over the tea trade and lowered the cost of the tea so it was dirt cheap. Lord North hoped to trick the colonists into buying the tea since it was extremely inexpensive, but the colonists knew that Parliament was still trying to tax them even though they weren’t represented in the government.
After the Seven Year's War (1756-1763), tensions between the American colonies and the British escalated as the British no longer followed the concept of salutary neglect and tried in many different ways to impose their imperialist ideals onto the colonies. The colonies disliked this idea to a great extent, not supporting the idea that the British should have control over the colonies. Certain acts such as the Townshend Acts in 1767, which were taxes on paper, lead, paint, and tea, and the Coercive Acts of 1774, the acts enacted by the British to punish the colonies for the event known as the Boston Tea Party of 1773, a act of retaliation of the colonies against the British due to the idea of "no taxation without representation". After the
For one, “taxation without representation” attacked the “free colonists’ well-being” (Holton 18). The taxation started with the Sugar Act in 1764, which taxed molasses but ultimately raised revenue. Although the act would prove to be beneficial, the colonists believed that they should be represented in Parliament if their products would be taxed. When the British subjected the colonists to the first internal tax, the Stamp Act of 1765, the colonists became even more furious and the thought of independence seemed better than ever. Previously, the British had created the Proclamation Line of 1763, which protected Native American land but infuriated many including the Founding Fathers who “dreamed of vastly enhancing their wealth by speculating in western land” (Holton 18).
The mindsets of the British government and the American colonists differed greatly leading up to the American Revolution because of Britain's need to recoup some of their losses from previous wars and the cost of keeping up their vast empire. The colonist’s mindset leading up to the American Revolution was that the British had taxes on everything and the colonists felt that they did not need the British government to meddle in their affairs. This lead to popular resistance from the colonists and the eventual start of the American Revolution. Before the American Revolution, the Seven Years’ War was the cause of significant debt for the British.
The tragic events that took place on March of 1770 only took a few hours to progress, but the Boston Massacre is better understood in combination of several historic events. Beginning with a conflict with the British soldiers and finishing with the demise of five colonists, the events of the Boston Massacre took several years to get to. The large presence of British troops in Boston that resulted in the fatal shooting was the direct outcome of the Townshend Acts. The acts passed by British Parliament imposed extra taxes on common products imported into the Colonies.
Undoubtedly, it was more important than the tax acts, since The British’s reaction to one of the tax acts, ‘The Stamp Act’, was only disappointment of the repeal and another tax act, ‘The Townshend acts’ to replace it. Yet, The British were much more furious with the Boston Tea Party and needed to impose a ‘punishment’. This came in the form of Intolerable Acts, which was a punishment that caused the colonists’ to be very angry, which was a very important cause, leading to the American Revolution. This evidence shows that this event caused both sides to fume up instead of only one like the Stamp act. The Boston Tea Party was also important for its inspiration, not only to Americans but also to other rebels against injustice around the world.
In 1770, the Townshend Acts were undone except for the small tax on tea. The general meaning of this was to show that Parliament still had the right to tax the groups of people. For the majority of the time, the tax was ignored as the colonists bought most of their tea from Dutch smugglers, who sneak illegal things into or out of places. In 1773, the East India Company had all of its warehouses in England full of tea. To get away from ruins of money, Parliament adopted the Tea Act.
Imports of lead, glass, paper, paint, and tea were taxed; the British government wanted the colonists to pay so they created punishments for colonists who
In result, economic changes would come to the colonies. Parliament met in 1763 and came to the conclusion that they were not receiving the profit they needed from the colonies (Document F). As a result, many taxes were passed by British Parliament upon the colonies, including the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act (Document H) and the Tea Act. The American colonies were not happy, to say the least. Americans protested, saying that these taxes were unnecessary and unfair.
Soon after the Seven Years’ War, the British and the colonists learned that victory came with a rather expensive price (Kennedy, Cohen, & Bailey, 2010). Great Britain tightened its grip on the colonies in North America, expecting colonists to pay for their financial struggles. In order to make colonists pay for the war, Great Britain reminded the North American colonies who had authority by controlling the colonists to submit to various ordinances ratified by British Parliament. This action only showed that arrogance leads to rebellion socially, economically, and politically. Socially, a lack of communication between Great Britain and the North American colonies was to blame for the Revolutionary War.