Throughout history, we have seen nations across the world have governments wielding varying degrees of power. Some are good uses and some are abusive and unjust. Unfair power has existed during the American Revolution from 1607 and up until 1783 when the Americans took back their country and claimed what was rightfully theirs. The enduring issue of power can be defined as the ability to influence or control behavior of people. War is used to gain power, something England wanted to have over the American colonists. England was left owing a tremendous amount of debt after the French and Indian War. This led to them taxing the Americans, and the Americans responded by violently protesting. They went to war and America won their independence. England …show more content…
Parliament passed many acts to the colonists as laws that had to be followed and could not be disobeyed. As seen in “Various British Act and the Colonists Responses” (Doc 3) One of the acts is the Quartering Act. The Quartering Act was passed in 1765 and required colonists to let the British soldiers stay in their homes and they had to house and feed them. This was seen as unfair and was an invasion of the colonists' privacy and violation of their rights because they were forced to bring the strangers into their home and give them the best bed in the house. Another act was the Tea Act. This was a tax the crown used to reduce the tax on tea to encourage the colonists to buy British Tea. The colonists wanted this unreasonable tax completely gone, but all the British did was lower it slightly. The colonists took this as a spit in the face and offensive. This led to the Boston Tea Party. The Boston Tea Party was an historical event that took place on December 16th, 1773. A group of Massachusetts colonists disguised themselves as Mohawk Indians and boarded 3 British tea ships and dumped 342 chests of tea worth 1.7 million dollars into the harbor. This was their way of protesting and boycotting the tea and showing the crown that they did not want to buy from the East India Tea Company. In 1774, England passed yet another unfair act called the Intolerable Acts. This was a form of “punishment” for the Boston Tea Party and this act closed the Boston Harbor to all ships; supplies could not be loaded or loaded. The colonists' response was forming the 1st Continental Congress, a meeting to discuss how to deal with England's laws in the colonies. This was a misuse of power because Great Britain was taking advantage of the colonists and was forcing them to follow these unjust laws and pointless
on December 16, 1773, Samuel Adams organized a group of men called the Sons of Liberty. They dressed up as Mohawk Indians. They boarded three ships in the Boston Harbor and threw 342 chests of tea overboard. It took nearly three hours to accomplish this. The British Parliament passed the Tea Act on April 27, 1773 which was a import tax and it raised the price of tea to three cents per pound on all tea sent to America.
In our Social Studies book it states that the British kept making acts to put the colonists in line. The British made acts like the Quartering Act , (where British soldiers invaded colonists home and forced them to serve them) colonists barely had enough money to support their family and then the British enforce this law. Don’t even get me started on the Counting Act where King George III just had to come in and make some act just so he can put colonists in line. I mean I get that King George III had to pay for the French and Indian war but that just made the colonists angry so then they started to rebel and and then the King made more acts to wallop the
In efforts to raise money to pay off the large amount of debt caused by the French and Indian War, the British parliament imposed a long string of taxes to make the colonists pay for the expensive colonial war. These imposed taxes are the Sugar Act (1764), Stamp Act (1765), Townsend Acts (1767), and the last straw for the Colonists was the Tea Act (1773). Because of these legislations passed by parliament, with no representation of colonists' wishes and ideas, a covert group of angered colonists, the Sons of Liberty, forcefully boarded British cargo ships dressed as Native Americans and damaged approximately $1760.42 of British teas in protest in today’s economy. The British Soldiers brutally punished the colonists by not allowing any citizen
The colonies were justified in their actions to rebel against the crown was since a vast amount of various taxes was imposed upon
This resulted in the colonists ultimately sabotaging three of the East India Company’s ships by dumping 340 chests of their tea into the Boston Harbor on December 16
From the years 1775 to 1783 American colonists fought a war for independence against the authoritarian rule of the British. King George imposed unfair laws on the colonist while giving them no representation in parliament. The colonists were justified in their war against the British for many reasons, such as the Proclamation of 1765, the unfair acts placed on the colonists, and the Boston Massacre. Great Britain wanted American colonists to only live within their grounds. The Proclamation of 1763 restricted their ability to settle anywhere outside of the colonies, keeping them confined to the east coast.
In attempt to protest the colonists made the situation worse, in 1774 the Parliament passed the Intolerable Acts. The act consisted of various rules; the closing of Boston Harbor, the Quartering act, and Boston was to be put under martial law (). The outcome was negative, many colonists felt that the law violated their natural rights as if they had no voice. The Intolerable Acts violated the people's privacy by the quartering act, colonist were forced to take care of troops in their own home. () Shutting down Boston Harbor hurt many tea companies and in order to reopen it, the colonists had to repay the damage, which was almost impossible.
The Boston Tea Party, an iconic event in American history, played a crucial role in fueling the revolution against British colonial rule. This audacious act of defiance showcased the determination and resolution of American colonists to fight for their rights and liberty. The origins of the Boston Tea Party can be traced back to a series of grievances and tensions between American colonists and the British Crown. The British government, seeking to alleviate the financial burden of the French and Indian War, imposed a series of taxes on the American colonies. One of the most contentious measures was the Tea Act of 1773, which granted a monopoly on tea sales to the British East India Company and eliminated colonial merchants from the tea trade,
In 1767, the British Parliament passed the "Townshend Acts", the North American colonies of a variety of imported goods (glass, lead Dan, lead white, paint, paper and tea) tax. Colonial residents responded with violent demonstrations- one of the riots that led to the Boston massacre- and the boycott of the British goods again. In 1770 the British abolished all taxes except the tea tax; the retention of the tea tax was a symbol of the British taxation of the North American colonies. 1773 British Parliament passed the "Tea Act", abolished the England tea import tax, but retained the North American colonies. This practice angered the North American patriots, they will be three British merchant loaded with tea poured into the Boston Port, Known
Some of these laws include but are not limited to not allowing the colonists to move west into the newly gained territory through the Proclamation of 1763, the banning of the colonists creating their own money through the Currency Act, and the forced housing of British soldiers through the Quartering Act (Bragdon). On top of all the discontent many pamphlets, and essays were released that promoted the Revolution that made the matter worse for Britain. One example of the propaganda that was being used in the colonies is from Thomas Paine’s The American Crisis when he states that “Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to tax) but ‘to bind us in all cases whatsoever’ and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God” (“American Crisis”).
The British felt it was the right way to get out of the debt from ongoing wars with French. Several acts such as the Sugar Act and Stamp act were levied to because they felt america should “pay” since they received benefits from the victory,but the acts didn 't last and then were later repealed. In reprisal of the taxes the colonies produced a showdown known as The Boston Tea Party. A group of american colonists disguised as Native Americans threw over 300 trunks cargo from the british tea ships into the boston harbor. This resulted in the Quartering Act which required american colonists to provide food and housing for British soldiers at the colonies’ expense.
Sugar act and Townshend Act which imposed taxes on sugar and tea respectively, were despised by colonists (especially the Townshend) as they were common household items and further stirred conflict as to why colonists had to pay taxes. Other unfavorable acts includes quartering act where colonists must have soldiers stay at their house or the writs of assistance which is the past version of a search warrant. The later caused heated arguments as showed in Document 1, it “places the liberty of every man in the hands of every petty officer.” Britain justified these actions as a way to help repay the debt caused by the French and Indian war, colonists believed that under the right of an Englishman "that no taxes be imposed on them but with their own consent, given personally or by their representative (Document 2)". In other words, no Taxation without representation.
The Declaration of Independence expresses the unjust application of the Parliament on colonists, “He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution… For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us” (Grievance 14). A direct example of this can be seen with the Quartering Act which made the housing of British troops legal, thus forcing the colonists to pay for it, even in private homes (Out of Many, 119). The Quartering Act, part of the Intolerable Acts, was passed in 1774 to make sure colonists paid their taxes, as the British were so focused on collecting revenue (Out of Many, 119). Along with the other acts, all of them sought to punish Massachusetts and other colonies in response to the Boston Tea Party.
These laws were called the Intolerable Acts by the colonists. These laws were considered extreme by the colonists as they closed Boston Harbor, made it so all law cases pertaining to British officials had to be held in Britain, banned town meetings, and made Massachusetts colonists house and feed the British regulars. The colonists thought this was an unreasonable reaction, but in all reality Britain really should have done this
The colonists in Boston were so outraged that the Sons of Liberty snuck to the shipyard in Native American costumes and threw 342 chests of tea into the harbor. This event is famously known as the Boston Tea Party. As a result, in 1774 the Coercive Acts, nicknamed the Intolerable Acts by the colonists, were a new set of taxes that only affected Boston. It forbade trade between Boston and the other colonies and it took away their rights to self-govern. These actions toward Boston were unfair considering that there were many other similar Tea Parties that were completely ignored by the British.