Farnsworth Street Garage. Stillings Street Garage. While it ended French influence in North America east of the Mississippi River, it generated a large amount of debt for the British Crown. Because portions of the war took place in North America and British forces protected the Colonies from attack, the British government expected the colonists to pay a portion of the debt. The British also needed the revenue to fund the administration of the larger empire.
Before the war, the government in London had maintained a relatively hands-off policy regarding taxes in the 13 Colonies. The Sugar Act of was the first direct tax on the Colonies for the sole purpose of raising revenue.
It was also the first time that American colonists raised the issue of no taxation without representation. The issue would become a major point of contention the following year with the passage of the widely unpopular Stamp Act of The answer came a year later.
Because the act was copied almost verbatim from the Irish Declaratory Act, many colonists believed that more taxes and harsher treatment were on the horizon. Patriots like Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry spoke out against the act believing that it violated the principles of the Magna Carta. Seeking reconciliation up to the Revolution, American political leaders never asked for the repeal of the Declaratory Act.
This series of legislative acts, which became known as the Townshend Acts, included the Revenue and Indemnity acts of The Revenue Act imposed an indirect tax on the Colonies by levying duties on various imported goods, including tea.
The legislation also taxed paper, paint, lead and glass, which were not produced in the Colonies. The Townshend duties went into effect on November 20, , close on the heels of the Declaratory Act of , which stated that British Parliament had the same authority to tax the American colonies as they did in Great Britain. By December, two widely circulated documents had united colonists in favor of a boycott of British goods.
With the exception of necessities, such as fishing hooks and wire, New England merchants agreed not to import British goods for one year. New York followed suit in April, with an even more restrictive non-importation agreement. In response to protests and boycotts, the British sent troops to occupy Boston and quell the unrest.
By , more than 2, British troops had arrived in Boston to restore order—a large number considering only about 16, people lived in Boston at the time.
Skirmishes between patriot colonists and British soldiers—as well as colonists loyal to the British Crown—became increasingly common. To protest taxes, patriots often vandalized stores selling British goods and intimidated store merchants and their customers. Tensions between the colonists and British troops finally boiled over on March 5, , when British soldiers shot into an angry mob, killing five American colonists in an event known as the Boston Massacre.
All of the Townshend Acts—except for the tax on tea—were repealed in April The tax on tea would remain a flashpoint and a contributing factor to the Boston Tea Party of , in which angry colonists destroyed an entire shipment of tea in Boston Harbor.
To quell resistant and punish the colonists—particularly the demonstrators in Boston—Parliament passed The Coercive Acts of , which colonists referred to as the Intolerable Acts. The four Intolerable Acts included the Massachusetts Government Act, instituting an appointed government over the previously-elected, local one; the Boston Port Bill closing Boston Harbor; the Administration of Justice Act, which dictated that British officials could be tried in another colony or in England if charged with capital offenses; and the Quartering Act, which said unoccupied buildings could be used to quarter British troops.
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The Tea Act of was one of several measures imposed on the American colonists by the heavily indebted British government in the decade leading up to the American Revolutionary War The Stamp Act of 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 and Though Parliament rescinded most of the Townshend duties and the American merchants began trading again with British merchants, there continued to be confrontations between British soldiers and colonists.
Continued enforcement of British trade laws and the presence of British soldiers in several major port cities caused many of these conflicts. On March 5, , one such incident occurred when British soldiers in Boston fired into a mob, killing five people. The incident became known as the Boston Massacre and received widespread publicity throughout the colonies.
Though there was a general outcry throughout the colonies to the Boston Massacre, the British government allowed the soldiers to be tried in Massachusetts. John Adams, a well-respected attorney, was considered more moderate in his political views than Samuel Adams. John Adams argued that the British soldiers were not guilty of a criminal offense as they were only protecting themselves from an angry mob.
Six of the eight British soldiers on trial were acquitted while the remaining two were convicted of manslaughter.
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