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Battle on April 19th 1775

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This was a meeting of delegates from 12 of the 13 colonies.

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Britain's House of Lords, the upper house of Parliament, helped issue a series of acts in response to the Boston Tea Party and the American colonies' continual rebellion.

Someone was going to pay.

Parliament was utterly fed up with colonial antics. The British could tolerate strongly worded letters or trade boycotts. They could put up with defiant legislatures and harassed customs officials to an extent.

But they saw the destruction of 342 chests of tea belonging to the British East India Company as wanton destruction of property by Boston thugs who did not even have the courage to admit responsibility.

Someone was going to pay.

Calami-tea

The British called their responsive measures to the Boston Tea Party the Coercive Acts. Boston Harbor was closed to trade until the owners of the tea were compensated. Only food and firewood were permitted into the port. Town meetings were banned, and the authority of the royal governor was increased.

To add insult to injury, General Gage, the British commander of North American forces, was appointed governor of Massachusetts. British troops and officials would now be tried outside Massachusetts for crimes of murder. Greater freedom was granted to British officers who wished to house their soldiers in private dwellings.

This Town has received the Copy of an Act of the British Parliament, wherein it appears that we have been tried and condemned, and are to be punished, by the shutting up of the harbor and other marks of revenge, until we shall disgrace ourselves by servilely yielding up, in effect, the just and righteous claims of America....The people receive this cruel edict with abhorrence and indignation. They consider themselves as suffering the stroke ministerial...I hope they will sustain the blow with a becoming fortitude, and that the cursed design of intimidating and subduing the spirits of all America, will, by the joint efforts of all, be frustrated.

- Samuel Adams, letter to James Warren (May 14, 1774)

Colonists sometimes took out their anger over unfair taxes on the tax collector, as depicted in this drawing from 1774.

The Quebec Act

Parliament seemed to have a penchant for bad timing in these years. Right after passing the Coercive Acts, it passed the , a law that recognized the Roman Catholic Church as the established church in Quebec. An appointed council, rather than an elected body, would make the major decisions for the colony. The boundary of Quebec was extended into the Ohio Valley.

In the wake of the passage of the Quebec Act, rage spread through the 13 colonies. With this one act, the British Crown granted land to the French in Quebec that was clearly desired by the American colonists. The extension of tolerance to Catholics was viewed as a hostile act by predominantly Protestant America.

Democracy took another blow with the establishment of direct rule in Quebec. Although the British made no connection between the Coercive Acts and the Quebec Act, they were seen on the American mainland as malicious deed and collectively called the Intolerable Acts.

INTOLERABLE ACTS

Boston Port Act
An act to discontinue, in such manner, and for or such time as are therein mentioned, the landing and discharging, lading or shipping, of goods, wares, and merchandise, at the town, and within the harbour, of Boston, in the province of Massachusetts Bay, in North America.

Massachusetts Government Act
An Act for the better regulating the government of the province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England.

Administration of Justice Act
An act for the impartial administration of justice in the case of persons questioned for any acts done by them in the execution of the law, or for the suppression of riots and tumults, in the province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England.

Quebec Act
An Act for making effectual Provision for the Government of the Province of Quebec in North America.

Throughout the colonies, the message was clear: what could happen in Massachusetts could happen anywhere. The British had gone too far. Supplies were sent to the beleaguered colony from the other twelve. For the first time since the Stamp Act Crisis, an intercolonial conference was called.

It was under these tense circumstances that the First Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia on September 5, 1774.

Fairfax Resolves
In response to the closing of the Port of Boston and the passage of the other Intolerable Acts by Parliament, colonists voiced their opposition on a local level. In July 1774, Fairfax County, Virginia, passed the Fairfax County Resolves in protest. This website offers the text of this document, which was drafted by George Mason and George Washington.

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The Intolerable Acts
The series of acts British Parliament passed in 1774 in reaction to the Boston Tea Party came to be known in the American colonies as the Intolerable Acts. This U.S. History website offers a brief description of the Intolerable Acts with a link to each specific act.

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The Declaration of Rights and Grievances
What was the colonies' reaction to the "impolitic, unjust, and cruel" Intolerable Acts? They called a Continental Congress in September of the same year and listed their grievences against the British. This U.S. Constitution website looks at the First Continental Congress.

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Class Conflicts among Americans in the Revolutionary Period
Not every colonist supported the rebellious actions of the Sons of Liberty and the call to action of the Committees of Correspondence. Loyalists, men and women loyal to Britain and the king, could be found throughout the colonies. Tensions between loyalists and patriots were fueled by class conflicts. One loyalist, Gouverneur Morris, penned letters voicing his concern about the American Revolution, excerpts of which are presented and explained at this Montclair State College website.

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About one-third of all American colonists remained loyal to the British during the Revolution. Take this quiz to uncover other fun facts about the road to revolution.
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In response to the Boston Tea Party, the British Parliament attempted to crack down on the defiant American colonists with the passage of harsh laws severely restricting the colonists' freedoms. The Americans referred to this oppresive legislation as The Intolerable Acts

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On March 24, 1765, Parliament passes the Quartering Act, outlining the locations and conditions in which British soldiers are to find room and board in the American colonies.

The Quartering Act of 1765 required the colonies to house British soldiers in barracks provided by the colonies. If the barracks were too small to house all the soldiers, then localities were to accommodate the soldiers in local inns, livery stables, ale houses, victualling houses and the houses of sellers of wine. "Should there still be soldiers without accommodation after all such publick houses were filled," the act read, "the colonies were then required to take, hire and make fit for the reception of his Majesty's forces, such and so many uninhabited houses, outhouses, barns, or other buildings as shall be necessary."
READ MORE: 7 Events That Enraged Colonists and Led to the American Revolution
As the language of the act makes clear, the popular image of Redcoats tossing colonists from their bedchambers in order to move in themselves was not the intent of the law; neither was it the practice. However, the New York colonial assembly disliked being commanded to provide quarter for British troops-they preferred to be asked and then to give their consent, if they were going to have soldiers in their midst at all. Thus, they refused to comply with the law, and in 1767, Parliament passed the New York Restraining Act. The Restraining Act prohibited the royal governor of New York from signing any further legislation until the assembly complied with the Quartering Act.

In New York, the governor managed to convince Parliament that the assembly had complied. In Massachusetts, where barracks already existed on an island from which soldiers had no hope of keeping the peace in a city riled by the Townshend Revenue Acts, British officers followed the Quartering Act's injunction to quarter their soldiers in public places, not in private homes. Within these constraints, their only option was to pitch tents on Boston Common. The soldiers, living cheek by jowl with riled Patriots, were soon involved in street brawls and then the Boston Massacre of 1770, during which not only five rock-throwing colonial rioters were killed but any residual trust between Bostonians and the resident Redcoats. That breach would never be healed in the New England port city, and the British soldiers stayed in Boston until George Washington drove them out with the Continental Army in 1776.

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On March 24, 1765, Parliament passes the Quartering Act, outlining the locations and conditions in which British soldiers are to find room and board in the American colonies. The Quartering Act of 1765 required the colonies to house British soldiers in barracks provided by the colonies.

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The Townshend Acts were a series of acts passed by the British government in 1767 and 1768.

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This was the primary grievance of American colonists in 13 colonies.

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The Sugar Act

Titled The American Revenue Act of 1764

On April 5, 1764, Parliament passed a modified version of the Sugar and Molasses Act (1733), which was about to expire. Under the Molasses Act colonial merchants had been required to pay a tax of six pence per gallon on the importation of foreign molasses. But because of corruption, they mostly evaded the taxes and undercut the intention of the tax - that the English product would be cheaper than that from the French West Indies. This hurt the British West Indies market in molasses and sugar and the market for rum, which the colonies had been producing in quantity with the cheaper French molasses. The First Lord of the Treasury, and Chancellor of the Exchequer Lord Grenville was trying to bring the colonies in line with regard to payment of taxes. He had beefed up the Navy presence and instructed them to become more active in customs enforcement. Parliament decided it would be wise to make a few adjustments to the trade regulations. The Sugar Act reduced the rate of tax on molasses from six pence to three pence per gallon, while Grenville took measures that the duty be strictly enforced. The act also listed more foreign goods to be taxed including sugar, certain wines, coffee, pimiento, cambric and printed calico, and further, regulated the export of lumber and iron. The enforced tax on molasses caused the almost immediate decline in the rum industry in the colonies. The combined effect of the new duties was to sharply reduce the trade with Madeira, the Azores, the Canary Islands, and the French West Indies (Guadelupe, Martinique and Santo Domingo (now Haiti)), all important destination ports for lumber, flour, cheese, and assorted farm products. The situation disrupted the colonial economy by reducing the markets to which the colonies could sell, and the amount of currency available to them for the purchase of British manufactured goods. This act, and the Currency Act, set the stage for the revolt at the imposition of the Stamp Act.

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Copyright ©1999- by the Independence Hall Association, a nonprofit organization in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, founded in 1942. Publishing electronically as ushistory.org. On the Internet since July 4, 1995.

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On April 5, 1764, Parliament passed a modified version of the Sugar and Molasses Act (1733), which was about to expire. Under the Molasses Act colonial merchants had been required to pay a tax of six pence per gallon on the importation of foreign molasses.

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The Stamp Act of 1765 was the first internal tax levied directly on American colonists by the British Parliament. The act, which imposed a tax on all paper documents in the colonies, came at a time when the British Empire was deep in debt from the Seven Years' War (1756-63) and looking to its North American colonies as a revenue source.

Arguing that only their own representative assemblies could tax them, the colonists insisted that the act was unconstitutional, and they resorted to mob violence to intimidate stamp collectors into resigning. Parliament passed the Stamp Act on March 22, 1765 and repealed it in 1766, but issued a Declaratory Act at the same time to reaffirm its authority to pass any colonial legislation it saw fit. The issues of taxation and representation raised by the Stamp Act strained relations with the colonies to the point that, 10 years later, the colonists rose in armed rebellion against the British.

Why The Stamp Act Was Passed

British Parliament passed the Stamp Act to help replenish their finances after the costly Seven Years' War with France. Part of the revenue from the Stamp Act would be used to maintain several regiments of British soldiers in North America to maintain peace between Native Americans and the colonists. Moreover, since colonial juries had proven notoriously reluctant to find smugglers guilty of their crimes, violators of the Stamp Act could be tried and convicted without juries in the vice-admiralty courts.

Raising Revenue

The Seven Years' War (1756-63) ended the long rivalry between France and Britain for control of North America, leaving Britain in possession of Canada and France without a footing on the continent. Victory in the war, however, had saddled the British Empire with a tremendous debt. Since the war benefited the American colonists (who had suffered 80 years of intermittent warfare with their French neighbors) as much as anyone else in the British Empire, the British government decided that those colonists should shoulder part of the war's cost.

Britain had long regulated colonial trade through a system of restrictions and duties on imports and exports. In the first half of the 18th century, however, British enforcement of this system had been lax. Starting with the Sugar Act of 1764, which imposed new duties on sugar and other goods, the British government began to tighten its reins on the colonies. Shortly thereafter, George Grenville (1712-70), the British first lord of the treasury and prime minister, proposed the Stamp Act; Parliament passed the act without debate in 1765.

Stamp Act opponent Patrick Henry is known for his "Give me liberty, or give me death!" speech, delivered before a meeting of Virginia's colonial leaders in 1775 in an effort to mobilize a militia against a possible attack by the British. He later served as Virginia's governor (1776-79, 1784-86).

Instead of levying a duty on trade goods, the Stamp Act imposed a direct tax on the colonists. Specifically, the act required that, starting in the fall of 1765, legal documents and printed materials must bear a tax stamp provided by commissioned distributors who would collect the tax in exchange for the stamp. The law applied to wills, deeds, newspapers, pamphlets and even playing cards and dice.

The Roots of Colonial Resistance

Coming in the midst of economic hardship in the colonies, the Stamp Act aroused vehement resistance. Although most colonists continued to accept Parliament's authority to regulate their trade, they insisted that only their representative assemblies could levy direct, internal taxes, such as the one imposed by the Stamp Act. They rejected the British government's argument that all British subjects enjoyed virtual representation in Parliament, even if they could not vote for members of Parliament.

The colonists also took exception with the provision denying offenders trials by jury. A vocal minority hinted at dark designs behind the Stamp Act. These radical voices warned that the tax was part of a gradual plot to deprive the colonists of their freedoms and to enslave them beneath a tyrannical regime. Playing off traditional fears of peacetime armies, they wondered aloud why Parliament saw fit to garrison troops in North America only after the threat from the French had been removed. These concerns provided an ideological basis that intensified colonial resistance.

Colonists React to the Stamp Act

Parliament pushed forward with the Stamp Act in spite of the colonists' objections. Colonial resistance to the act mounted slowly at first, but gained momentum as the planned date of its implementation drew near. In Virginia, Patrick Henry (1736-99), whose fiery orations against British tyranny would soon make him famous, submitted a series of resolutions to his colony's assembly, the House of Burgesses. These resolutions denied Parliament's right to tax the colonies and called on the colonists to resist the Stamp Act.

Newspapers throughout the colonies reprinted the resolutions, spreading their radical message to a broad audience. The resolutions provided the tenor for the proclamations of the Stamp Act Congress, an extralegal convention composed of delegates from nine colonies that met in October 1765. The Stamp Act Congress wrote petitions to the king affirming both their loyalty and the conviction that only the colonial assemblies had the constitutional authority to tax the colonists.

While the Congress and the colonial assemblies passed resolutions and issued petitions against the Stamp Act, the colonists took matters into their own hands. The most famous popular resistance took place in Boston, where opponents of the Stamp Act, calling themselves the Sons of Liberty, enlisted the rabble of Boston in opposition to the new law. This mob paraded through the streets with an effigy of Andrew Oliver, Boston's stamp distributor, which they hanged from the Liberty Tree and beheaded before ransacking Oliver's home. Oliver agreed to resign his commission as stamp distributor.

Similar events transpired in other colonial towns, as crowds mobbed the stamp distributors and threatened their physical well-being and their property. By the beginning of 1766, most of the stamp distributors had resigned their commissions, many of them under duress. Mobs in seaport towns turned away ships carrying the stamp papers from England without allowing them to discharge their cargoes. Determined colonial resistance made it impossible for the British government to bring the Stamp Act into effect. In 1766, Parliament repealed it.

The Stamp Act's Legacy

The end of the Stamp Act did not end Parliament's conviction that it had the authority to impose taxes on the colonists. The British government coupled the repeal of the Stamp Act with the Declaratory Act, a reaffirmation of its power to pass any laws over the colonists that it saw fit. However, the colonists held firm to their view that Parliament could not tax them. The issues raised by the Stamp Act festered for 10 years before giving rise to the Revolutionary War and, ultimately, American independence.

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Stamp Act - Fact, Reaction & Legacy | HISTORY

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The Stamp Act of 1765 was the first internal tax levied directly on American colonists by the British Parliament. The issues raised by the Stamp Act festered for 10 years before giving rise to the Revolutionary War and, ultimately, American independence.

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Why Did the Boston Massacre Happen?

Tensions ran high in Boston in early 1770. More than 2,000 British soldiers occupied the city of 16,000 colonists and tried to enforce Britain's tax laws, like the Stamp Act and Townshend Acts. American colonists rebelled against the taxes they found repressive, rallying around the cry, "no taxation without representation."

Skirmishes between colonists and soldiers-and between patriot colonists and colonists loyal to Britain (loyalists)-were increasingly common. To protest taxes, patriots often vandalized stores selling British goods and intimidated store merchants and their customers.

On February 22, a mob of patriots attacked a known loyalist's store. Customs officer Ebenezer Richardson lived near the store and tried to break up the rock-pelting crowd by firing his gun through the window of his home. His gunfire struck and killed an 11-year-old boy named Christopher Seider and further enraged the patriots.

Several days later, a fight broke out between local workers and British soldiers. It ended without serious bloodshed but helped set the stage for the bloody incident yet to come.

How Many Died After Violence Erupted?

On the frigid, snowy evening of March 5, 1770, Private Hugh White was the only soldier guarding the King's money stored inside the Custom House on King Street. It wasn't long before angry colonists joined him and insulted him and threatened violence.

At some point, White fought back and struck a colonist with his bayonet. In retaliation, the colonists pelted him with snowballs, ice and stones. Bells started ringing throughout the town-usually a warning of fire-sending a mass of male colonists into the streets. As the assault on White continued, he eventually fell and called for reinforcements.

In response to White's plea and fearing mass riots and the loss of the King's money, Captain Thomas Preston arrived on the scene with several soldiers and took up a defensive position in front of the Custom House.

Worried that bloodshed was inevitable, some colonists reportedly pleaded with the soldiers to hold their fire as others dared them to shoot. Preston later reported a colonist told him the protestors planned to "carry off [White] from his post and probably murder him."

The violence escalated, and the colonists struck the soldiers with clubs and sticks. Reports differ of exactly what happened next, but after someone supposedly said the word "fire," a soldier fired his gun, although it's unclear if the discharge was intentional.

Once the first shot rang out, other soldiers opened fire, killing five colonists-including Crispus Attucks, a local dockworker of mixed racial heritage-and wounding six. Among the other casualties of the Boston Massacre was Samuel Gray, a rope maker who was left with a hole the size of a fist in his head. Sailor James Caldwell was hit twice before dying, and Samuel Maverick and Patrick Carr were mortally wounded.

Boston Massacre Fueled Anti-British Views

Within hours, Preston and his soldiers were arrested and jailed and the propaganda machine was in full force on both sides of the conflict.

Preston wrote his version of the events from his jail cell for publication, while Sons of Liberty leaders such as John Hancock and Samuel Adams incited colonists to keep fighting the British. As tensions rose, British troops retreated from Boston to Fort William.

Paul Revere encouraged anti-British attitudes by etching a now-famous engraving depicting British soldiers callously murdering American colonists. It showed the British as the instigators though the colonists had started the fight.

It also portrayed the soldiers as vicious men and the colonists as gentlemen. It was later determined that Revere had copied his engraving from one made by Boston artist Henry Pelham.

John Adams Defends the British

It took seven months to arraign Preston and the other soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre and bring them to trial. Ironically, it was American colonist, lawyer and future President of the United States John Adams who defended them.

Adams was no fan of the British but wanted Preston and his men to receive a fair trial. After all, the death penalty was at stake and the colonists didn't want the British to have an excuse to even the score. Certain that impartial jurors were nonexistent in Boston, Adams convinced the judge to seat a jury of non-Bostonians.

During Preston's trial, Adams argued that confusion that night was rampant. Eyewitnesses presented contradictory evidence on whether Preston had ordered his men to fire on the colonists.

But after witness Richard Palmes testified that, "...After the Gun went off I heard the word 'fire!' The Captain and I stood in front about half between the breech and muzzle of the Guns. I don't know who gave the word to fire," Adams argued that reasonable doubt existed; Preston was found not guilty.

The remaining soldiers claimed self-defense and were all found not guilty of murder. Two of them-Hugh Montgomery and Matthew Kilroy-were found guilty of manslaughter and were branded on the thumbs as first offenders per English law.

To Adams' and the jury's credit, the British soldiers received a fair trial despite the vitriol felt towards them and their country.

Aftermath of the Boston Massacre

The Boston Massacre had a major impact on relations between Britain and the American colonists. It further incensed colonists already weary of British rule and unfair taxation and roused them to fight for independence.

Yet perhaps Preston said it best when he wrote about the conflict and said, "None of them was a hero. The victims were troublemakers who got more than they deserved. The soldiers were professionals...who shouldn't have panicked. The whole thing shouldn't have happened."

Over the next five years, the colonists continued their rebellion and staged the Boston Tea Party, formed the First Continental Congress and defended their militia arsenal at Concord against the redcoats, effectively launching the American Revolution. Today, the city of Boston has a Boston Massacre site marker at the intersection of Congress Street and State Street, a few yards from where the first shots were fired.

Sources

After the Boston Massacre. John Adams Historical Society.
Boston Massacre Trial. National Park Service: National Historical Park of Massachusetts.
Paul Revere's Engraving of the Boston Massacre, 1770. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.
The Boston Massacre. Bostonian Society Old State House.
The Boston "Massacre." H.S.I. Historical Scene Investigation.

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Boston Massacre: Causes, Date & Facts | HISTORY

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The Boston Massacre was a deadly riot that occurred on March 5, 1770, on King Street in Boston between American colonists and British soldiers. It helped pave the way for the American Revolution.

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The Boston Tea Party was the cause of the Intolerable Act.