Was reconciliation between the American colonies and Great Britain possible in 1774? Why or why not?

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CHAPTER 5

Imperial Reforms and Colonial

Protests, 1763-1774

Figure 5.1 The Bostonians Paying the Excise-man, or Tarring and Feathering (1774),

attributed to Philip Dawe,

depicts the most publicized tarring and feathering incident of the American

Revolution. The victim is John Malcolm, a

customs official loyal to the British crown.

Chapter Outline

5.1 Confronting the National Debt: The Aftermath of the French and Indian War

5.2 The Stamp Act and the Sons and Daughters of Liberty

5.3 The Townshend Acts and Colonial Protest

5.4 The Destruction of the Tea and the Coercive Acts

5.5 Disaffection: The First Continental Congress and American Identity

Introduction

The Bostonians Paying the Excise-man, or Tarring and Feathering (Figure 5.1), shows

five Patriots tarring and

feathering the Commissioner of Customs, John Malcolm, a sea captain, army officer,

and staunch Loyalist.

The print shows the Boston Tea Party, a protest against the Tea Act of 1773, and

the Liberty Tree, an elm

tree near Boston Common that became a rallying point against the Stamp Act of 1765.

When the crowd

threatened to hang Malcolm if he did not renounce his position as a royal customs

officer, he reluctantly

agreed and the protestors allowed him to go home. The scene represents the

animosity toward those who

supported royal authority and illustrates the high tide of unrest in the colonies

after the British government

imposed a series of imperial reform measures during the years 1763–1774.

The government’s formerly lax oversight of the colonies ended as the architects of

the British Empire put

these new reforms in place. The British hoped to gain greater control over colonial

trade and frontier

settlement as well as to reduce the administrative cost of the colonies and the

enormous debt left by the

French and Indian War. Each step the British took, however, generated a backlash.

Over time, imperial

reforms pushed many colonists toward separation from the British Empire.

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Chapter 5 | Imperial Reforms and Colonial Protests, 1763-1774

5.1 Confronting the National Debt: The Aftermath of the French and

Indian War

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Discuss the status of Great Britain’s North American colonies in the years

directly

following the French and Indian War

• Describe the size and scope of the British debt at the end of the French

and Indian War

• Explain how the British Parliament responded to the debt crisis

• Outline the purpose of the Proclamation Line, the Sugar Act, and the

Currency Act

Great Britain had much to celebrate in 1763. The long and costly war with France

had finally ended, and

Great Britain had emerged victorious. British subjects on both sides of the

Atlantic celebrated the strength

of the British Empire. Colonial pride ran high; to live under the British

Constitution and to have defeated

the hated French Catholic menace brought great joy to British Protestants

everywhere in the Empire. From

Maine to Georgia, British colonists joyously celebrated the victory and sang the

refrain of “Rule, Britannia!

Britannia, rule the waves! Britons never, never, never shall be slaves!”

Despite the celebratory mood, the victory over France also produced major problems

within the British

Empire, problems that would have serious consequences for British colonists in the

Americas. During the

war, many Indian tribes had sided with the French, who supplied them with guns.

After the 1763 Treaty

of Paris that ended the French and Indian War (or the Seven Years’ War), British

colonists had to defend

the frontier, where French colonists and their tribal allies remained a powerful

force. The most organized

resistance, Pontiac’s Rebellion, highlighted tensions the settlers increasingly

interpreted in racial terms.

The massive debt the war generated at home, however, proved to be the most serious

issue facing Great

Britain. The frontier had to be secure in order to prevent another costly war.

Greater enforcement of

imperial trade laws had to be put into place. Parliament had to find ways to raise

revenue to pay off the

crippling debt from the war. Everyone would have to contribute their expected

share, including the British

subjects across the Atlantic.

Figure 5.2 (credit “1765”: modification of work by the United Kingdom Government)

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PROBLEMS ON THE AMERICAN FRONTIER

With the end of the French and Indian War, Great Britain claimed a vast new expanse

of territory, at least

on paper. Under the terms of the Treaty of Paris, the French territory known as New

France had ceased to

exist. British territorial holdings now extended from Canada to Florida, and

British military focus shifted to

maintaining peace in the king’s newly enlarged lands. However, much of the land in

the American British

Empire remained under the control of powerful native confederacies, which made any

claims of British

mastery beyond the Atlantic coastal settlements hollow. Great Britain maintained

ten thousand troops in

North America after the war ended in 1763 to defend the borders and repel any

attack by their imperial

rivals.

British colonists, eager for fresh land, poured over the Appalachian Mountains to

stake claims. The

western frontier had long been a “middle ground” where different imperial powers

(British, French,

Spanish) had interacted and compromised with native peoples. That era of

accommodation in the “middle

ground” came to an end after the French and Indian War. Virginians (including

George Washington) and

other land-hungry colonists had already raised tensions in the 1740s with their

quest for land. Virginia

landowners in particular eagerly looked to diversify their holdings beyond tobacco,

which had stagnated

in price and exhausted the fertility of the lands along the Chesapeake Bay. They

invested heavily in the

newly available land. This westward movement brought the settlers into conflict as

never before with

Indian tribes, such as the Shawnee, Seneca-Cayuga, Wyandot, and Delaware, who

increasingly held their

ground against any further intrusion by white settlers.

The treaty that ended the war between France and Great Britain proved to be a

significant blow to native

peoples, who had viewed the conflict as an opportunity to gain additional trade

goods from both sides.

With the French defeat, many Indians who had sided with France lost a valued

trading partner as well

as bargaining power over the British. Settlers’ encroachment on their land, as well

as the increased British

military presence, changed the situation on the frontier dramatically. After the

war, British troops took

over the former French forts but failed to court favor with the local tribes by

distributing ample gifts, as the

French had done. They also significantly reduced the amount of gunpowder and

ammunition they sold to

the Indians, worsening relationships further.

Indians’ resistance to colonists drew upon the teachings of Delaware (Lenni Lenape)

prophet Neolin and

the leadership of Ottawa war chief Pontiac. Neolin was a spiritual leader who

preached a doctrine of

shunning European culture and expelling Europeans from native lands. Neolin’s

beliefs united Indians

from many villages. In a broad-based alliance that came to be known as Pontiac’s

Rebellion, Pontiac led a

loose coalition of these native tribes against the colonists and the British army.

Pontiac started bringing his coalition together as early as 1761, urging Indians to

“drive [the Europeans]

out and make war upon them.” The conflict began in earnest in 1763, when Pontiac

and several hundred

Ojibwas, Potawatomis, and Hurons laid siege to Fort Detroit. At the same time,

Senecas, Shawnees, and

Delawares laid siege to Fort Pitt. Over the next year, the war spread along the

backcountry from Virginia to

Pennsylvania. Pontiac’s Rebellion (also known as Pontiac’s War) triggered horrific

violence on both sides.

Firsthand reports of Indian attacks tell of murder, scalping, dismemberment, and

burning at the stake.

These stories incited a deep racial hatred among colonists against all Indians.

The actions of a group of Scots-Irish settlers from Paxton (or Paxtang),

Pennsylvania, in December 1763,

illustrates the deadly situation on the frontier. Forming a mob known as the Paxton

Boys, these

frontiersmen attacked a nearby group of Conestoga of the Susquehannock tribe. The

Conestoga had

lived peacefully with local settlers, but the Paxton Boys viewed all Indians as

savages and they brutally

murdered the six Conestoga they found at home and burned their houses. When

Governor John Penn put

the remaining fourteen Conestoga in protective custody in Lancaster, Pennsylvania,

the Paxton Boys broke

into the building and killed and scalped the Conestoga they found there (Figure

5.3). Although Governor

Penn offered a reward for the capture of any Paxton Boys involved in the murders,

no one ever identified

the attackers. Some colonists reacted to the incident with outrage. Benjamin

Franklin described the Paxton

Boys as “the barbarous Men who committed the atrocious act, in Defiance of

Government, of all Laws

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Chapter 5 | Imperial Reforms and Colonial Protests, 1763-1774

human and divine, and to the eternal Disgrace of their Country and Colour,” stating

that “the Wickedness

cannot be covered, the Guilt will lie on the whole Land, till Justice is done on

the Murderers. The blood

of the innocent will cry to heaven for vengeance.” Yet, as the inability to bring

the perpetrators to justice

clearly indicates, the Paxton Boys had many more supporters than critics.

Figure 5.3 This nineteenth-century lithograph depicts the massacre of Conestoga in

1763 at Lancaster,

Pennsylvania, where they had been placed in protective custody. None of the

attackers, members of the Paxton

Boys, were ever identified.

Click and Explore

Visit Explore PAhistory.com

(http://openstaxcollege.org/l/paxton) to read the full

text of Benjamin Franklin’s “Benjamin Franklin,

An Account of the Paxton Boys’ Murder

of the Conestoga Indians, 1764.”

Pontiac’s Rebellion and the Paxton Boys’ actions were examples of early American

race wars, in which

both sides saw themselves as inherently different from the other and believed the

other needed to be

eradicated. The prophet Neolin’s message, which he said he received in a vision

from the Master of Life,

was: “Wherefore do you suffer the whites to dwell upon your lands? Drive them away;

wage war against

them.” Pontiac echoed this idea in a meeting, exhorting tribes to join together

against the British: “It is

important for us, my brothers, that we exterminate from our lands this nation which

seeks only to destroy

us.” In his letter suggesting “gifts” to the natives of smallpox-infected blankets,

Field Marshal Jeffrey

Amherst said, “You will do well to inoculate the Indians by means of blankets, as

well as every other

method that can serve to extirpate this execrable race.” Pontiac’s Rebellion came

to an end in 1766, when it

became clear that the French, whom Pontiac had hoped would side with his forces,

would not be returning.

The repercussions, however, would last much longer. Race relations between Indians

and whites remained

poisoned on the frontier.

Well aware of the problems on the frontier, the British government took steps to

try to prevent bloodshed

and another costly war. At the beginning of Pontiac’s uprising, the British issued

the Proclamation of 1763,

which forbade white settlement west of the Proclamation Line, a borderline running

along the spine of

the Appalachian Mountains (Figure 5.4). The Proclamation Line aimed to forestall

further conflict on the

frontier, the clear flashpoint of tension in British North America. British

colonists who had hoped to move

west after the war chafed at this restriction, believing the war had been fought

and won to ensure the right

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Chapter 5 | Imperial Reforms and Colonial Protests, 1763-1774

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to settle west. The Proclamation Line therefore came as a setback to their vision

of westward expansion.

Figure 5.4 This map shows the status of the American colonies in 1763, after the

end of the French and Indian War.

Although Great Britain won control of the territory east of the Mississippi, the

Proclamation Line of 1763 prohibited

British colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains. (credit:

modification of work by the National Atlas of

the United States)

THE BRITISH NATIONAL DEBT

Great Britain’s newly enlarged empire meant a greater financial burden, and the

mushrooming debt from

the war was a major cause of concern. The war nearly doubled the British national

debt, from £75 million

in 1756 to £133 million in 1763. Interest payments alone consumed over half the

national budget, and the

continuing military presence in North America was a constant drain. The Empire

needed more revenue to

replenish its dwindling coffers. Those in Great Britain believed that British

subjects in North America, as

the major beneficiaries of Great Britain’s war for global supremacy, should

certainly shoulder their share

of the financial burden.

The British government began increasing revenues by raising taxes at home, even as

various interest

groups lobbied to keep their taxes low. Powerful members of the aristocracy, well

represented in

Parliament, successfully convinced Prime Minister John Stuart, third earl of Bute,

to refrain from raising

taxes on land. The greater tax burden, therefore, fell on the lower classes in the

form of increased import

duties, which raised the prices of imported goods such as sugar and tobacco. George

Grenville succeeded

Bute as prime minister in 1763. Grenville determined to curtail government spending

and make sure that,

as subjects of the British Empire, the American colonists did their part to pay

down the massive debt.

IMPERIAL REFORMS

The new era of greater British interest in the American colonies through imperial

reforms picked up in

pace in the mid-1760s. In 1764, Prime Minister Grenville introduced the Currency

Act of 1764, prohibiting

the colonies from printing additional paper money and requiring colonists to pay

British merchants in

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Chapter 5 | Imperial Reforms and Colonial Protests, 1763-1774

gold and silver instead of the colonial paper money already in circulation. The

Currency Act aimed to

standardize the currency used in Atlantic trade, a logical reform designed to help

stabilize the Empire’s

economy. This rule brought American economic activity under greater British

control. Colonists relied on

their own paper currency to conduct trade and, with gold and silver in short

supply, they found their

finances tight. Not surprisingly, they grumbled about the new imperial currency

regulations.

Grenville also pushed Parliament to pass the Sugar Act of 1764, which actually

lowered duties on British

molasses by half, from six pence per gallon to three. Grenville designed this

measure to address the

problem of rampant colonial smuggling with the French sugar islands in the West

Indies. The act

attempted to make it easier for colonial traders, especially New England mariners

who routinely engaged

in illegal trade, to comply with the imperial law.

To give teeth to the 1764 Sugar Act, the law intensified enforcement provisions.

Prior to the 1764 act,

colonial violations of the Navigation Acts had been tried in local courts, where

sympathetic colonial juries

refused to convict merchants on trial. However, the Sugar Act required violators to

be tried in vice-

admiralty courts. These crown-sanctioned tribunals, which settled disputes that

occurred at sea, operated

without juries. Some colonists saw this feature of the 1764 act as dangerous. They

argued that trial by

jury had long been honored as a basic right of Englishmen under the British

Constitution. To deprive

defendants of a jury, they contended, meant reducing liberty-loving British

subjects to political slavery. In

the British Atlantic world, some colonists perceived this loss of liberty as

parallel to the enslavement of

Africans.

As loyal British subjects, colonists in America cherished their Constitution, an

unwritten system of

government that they celebrated as the best political system in the world. The

British Constitution

prescribed the roles of the King, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons.

Each entity provided a

check and balance against the worst tendencies of the others. If the King had too

much power, the result

would be tyranny. If the Lords had too much power, the result would be oligarchy.

If the Commons

had the balance of power, democracy or mob rule would prevail. The British

Constitution promised

representation of the will of British subjects, and without such representation,

even the indirect tax of the

Sugar Act was considered a threat to the settlers’ rights as British subjects.

Furthermore, some American

colonists felt the colonies were on equal political footing with Great Britain. The

Sugar Act meant they

were secondary, mere adjuncts to the Empire. All subjects of the British crown knew

they had liberties

under the constitution. The Sugar Act suggested that some in Parliament labored to

deprive them of what

made them uniquely British.

5.2 The Stamp Act and the Sons and Daughters of Liberty

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Explain the purpose of the 1765 Stamp Act

• Describe the colonial responses to the Stamp Act

In 1765, the British Parliament moved beyond the efforts during the previous two

years to better regulate

westward expansion and trade by putting in place the Stamp Act. As a direct tax on

the colonists, the

Stamp Act imposed an internal tax on almost every type of printed paper colonists

used, including

newspapers, legal documents, and playing cards. While the architects of the Stamp

Act saw the measure

as a way to defray the costs of the British Empire, it nonetheless gave rise to the

first major colonial protest

against British imperial control as expressed in the famous slogan “no taxation

without representation.”

The Stamp Act reinforced the sense among some colonists that Parliament was not

treating them as equals

of their peers across the Atlantic.

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THE STAMP ACT AND THE QUARTERING ACT

Prime Minister Grenville, author of the Sugar Act of 1764, introduced the Stamp Act

in the early spring

of 1765. Under this act, anyone who used or purchased anything printed on paper had

to buy a revenue

stamp (Figure 5.5) for it. In the same year, 1765, Parliament also passed the

Quartering Act, a law that

attempted to solve the problems of stationing troops in North America. The

Parliament understood the

Stamp Act and the Quartering Act as an assertion of their power to control colonial

policy.

Figure 5.5 Under the Stamp Act, anyone who used or purchased anything printed on

paper had to buy a revenue

stamp for it. Image (a) shows a partial proof sheet of one-penny stamps. Image (b)

provides a close-up of a one-

penny stamp. (credit a: modification of work by the United Kingdom Government;

credit b: modification of work by the

United Kingdom Government)

The Stamp Act signaled a shift in British policy after the French and Indian War.

Before the Stamp Act,

the colonists had paid taxes to their colonial governments or indirectly through

higher prices, not directly

to the Crown’s appointed governors. This was a time-honored liberty of

representative legislatures of the

colonial governments. The passage of the Stamp Act meant that starting on November

1, 1765, the colonists

would contribute £60,000 per year—17 percent of the total cost—to the upkeep of the

ten thousand British

soldiers in North America (Figure 5.6). Because the Stamp Act raised constitutional

issues, it triggered the

first serious protest against British imperial policy.

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Chapter 5 | Imperial Reforms and Colonial Protests, 1763-1774

Figure 5.6 The announcement of the Stamp Act, seen in this newspaper publication

(a), raised numerous concerns

among colonists in America. Protests against British imperial policy took many

forms, such as this mock stamp (b)

whose text reads “An Emblem of the Effects of the STAMP. O! the Fatal STAMP.”

Parliament also asserted its prerogative in 1765 with the Quartering Act. The

Quartering Act of 1765

addressed the problem of housing British soldiers stationed in the American

colonies. It required that they

be provided with barracks or places to stay in public houses, and that if extra

housing were necessary,

then troops could be stationed in barns and other uninhabited private buildings. In

addition, the costs

of the troops’ food and lodging fell to the colonists. Since the time of James II,

who ruled from 1685 to

1688, many British subjects had mistrusted the presence of a standing army during

peacetime, and having

to pay for the soldiers’ lodging and food was especially burdensome. Widespread

evasion and disregard

for the law occurred in almost all the colonies, but the issue was especially

contentious in New York, the

headquarters of British forces. When fifteen hundred troops arrived in New York in

1766, the New York

Assembly refused to follow the Quartering Act.

COLONIAL PROTEST: GENTRY, MERCHANTS, AND THE STAMP ACT CONGRESS

For many British colonists living in America, the Stamp Act raised many concerns.

As a direct tax, it

appeared to be an unconstitutional measure, one that deprived freeborn British

subjects of their liberty,

a concept they defined broadly to include various rights and privileges they

enjoyed as British subjects,

including the right to representation. According to the unwritten British

Constitution, only representatives

for whom British subjects voted could tax them. Parliament was in charge of

taxation, and although it was

a representative body, the colonies did not have “actual” (or direct)

representation in it. Parliamentary

members who supported the Stamp Act argued that the colonists had virtual

representation, because

the architects of the British Empire knew best how to maximize returns from its

possessions overseas.

However, this argument did not satisfy the protesters, who viewed themselves as

having the same right

as all British subjects to avoid taxation without their consent. With no

representation in the House of

Commons, where bills of taxation originated, they felt themselves deprived of this

inherent right.

The British government knew the colonists might object to the Stamp Act’s expansion

of parliamentary

power, but Parliament believed the relationship of the colonies to the Empire was

one of dependence,

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Chapter 5 | Imperial Reforms and Colonial Protests, 1763-1774

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not equality. However, the Stamp Act had the unintended and ironic consequence of

drawing colonists

from very different areas and viewpoints together in protest. In Massachusetts, for

instance, James Otis,

a lawyer and defender of British liberty, became the leading voice for the idea

that “Taxation without

representation is tyranny.” In the Virginia House of Burgesses, firebrand and

slaveholder Patrick Henry

introduced the Virginia Stamp Act Resolutions, which denounced the Stamp Act and

the British crown in

language so strong that some conservative Virginians accused him of treason (Figure

5.7). Henry replied

that Virginians were subject only to taxes that they themselves—or their

representatives—imposed. In

short, there could be no taxation without representation.

Figure 5.7 Patrick Henry Before the Virginia House of Burgesses (1851), painted by

Peter F. Rothermel, offers a

romanticized depiction of Henry’s speech denouncing the Stamp Act of 1765.

Supporters and opponents alike

debated the stark language of the speech, which quickly became legendary.

The colonists had never before formed a unified political front, so Grenville and

Parliament did not

fear true revolt. However, this was to change in 1765. In response to the Stamp

Act, the Massachusetts

Assembly sent letters to the other colonies, asking them to attend a meeting, or

congress, to discuss how

to respond to the act. Many American colonists from very different colonies found

common cause in their

opposition to the Stamp Act. Representatives from nine colonial legislatures met in

New York in the fall

of 1765 to reach a consensus. Could Parliament impose taxation without

representation? The members of

this first congress, known as the Stamp Act Congress, said no. These nine

representatives had a vested

interest in repealing the tax. Not only did it weaken their businesses and the

colonial economy, but it also

threatened their liberty under the British Constitution. They drafted a rebuttal to

the Stamp Act, making

clear that they desired only to protect their liberty as loyal subjects of the

Crown. The document, called the

Declaration of Rights and Grievances, outlined the unconstitutionality of taxation

without representation

and trials without juries. Meanwhile, popular protest was also gaining force.

Click and Explore

Browse the collection of the Massachusetts

Historical Society

(http://openstaxcollege.org/l/masshist1) to

examine digitized primary sources of the

documents that paved the way to the fight for

liberty.

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Chapter 5 | Imperial Reforms and Colonial Protests, 1763-1774

MOBILIZATION: POPULAR PROTEST AGAINST THE STAMP ACT

The Stamp Act Congress was a gathering of landowning, educated white men who

represented the

political elite of the colonies and was the colonial equivalent of the British

landed aristocracy. While

these gentry were drafting their grievances during the Stamp Act Congress, other

colonists showed their

distaste for the new act by boycotting British goods and protesting in the streets.

Two groups, the Sons of

Liberty and the Daughters of Liberty, led the popular resistance to the Stamp Act.

Both groups considered

themselves British patriots defending their liberty, just as their forebears had

done in the time of James II.

Forming in Boston in the summer of 1765, the Sons of Liberty were artisans,

shopkeepers, and small-

time merchants willing to adopt extralegal means of protest. Before the act had

even gone into effect, the

Sons of Liberty began protesting. On August 14, they took aim at Andrew Oliver, who

had been named

the Massachusetts Distributor of Stamps. After hanging Oliver in effigy—that is,

using a crudely made

figure as a representation of Oliver—the unruly crowd stoned and ransacked his

house, finally beheading

the effigy and burning the remains. Such a brutal response shocked the royal

governmental officials,

who hid until the violence had spent itself. Andrew Oliver resigned the next day.

By that time, the mob

had moved on to the home of Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson who, because of

his support

of Parliament’s actions, was considered an enemy of English liberty. The Sons of

Liberty barricaded

Hutchinson in his home and demanded that he renounce the Stamp Act; he refused, and

the protesters

looted and burned his house. Furthermore, the Sons (also called “True Sons” or

“True-born Sons” to make

clear their commitment to liberty and distinguish them from the likes of

Hutchinson) continued to lead

violent protests with the goal of securing the resignation of all appointed stamp

collectors (Figure 5.8).

Figure 5.8 With this broadside of December 17, 1765, the Sons of Liberty call for

the resignation of Andrew Oliver,

the Massachusetts Distributor of Stamps.

Starting in early 1766, the Daughters of Liberty protested the Stamp Act by

refusing to buy British goods

and encouraging others to do the same. They avoided British tea, opting to make

their own teas with local

herbs and berries. They built a community—and a movement—around creating homespun

cloth instead

of buying British linen. Well-born women held “spinning bees,” at which they

competed to see who could

spin the most and the finest linen. An entry in The Boston Chronicle of April 7,

1766, states that on March

12, in Providence, Rhode Island, “18 Daughters of Liberty, young ladies of good

reputation, assembled at

the house of Doctor Ephraim Bowen, in this town. . . . There they exhibited a fine

example of industry, by

spinning from sunrise until dark, and displayed a spirit for saving their sinking

country rarely to be found

among persons of more age and experience.” At dinner, they “cheerfully agreed to

omit tea, to render

their conduct consistent. Besides this instance of their patriotism, before they

separated, they unanimously

resolved that the Stamp Act was unconstitutional, that they would purchase no more

British manufactures

unless it be repealed, and that they would not even admit the addresses of any

gentlemen should they

have the opportunity, without they determined to oppose its execution to the last

extremity, if the occasion

required.”

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Chapter 5 | Imperial Reforms and Colonial Protests, 1763-1774

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The Daughters’ non-importation movement broadened the protest against the Stamp

Act, giving women

a new and active role in the political dissent of the time. Women were responsible

for purchasing goods for

the home, so by exercising the power of the purse, they could wield more power than

they had in the past.

Although they could not vote, they could mobilize others and make a difference in

the political landscape.

From a local movement, the protests of the Sons and Daughters of Liberty soon

spread until there was a

chapter in every colony. The Daughters of Liberty promoted the boycott on British

goods while the Sons

enforced it, threatening retaliation against anyone who bought imported goods or

used stamped paper. In

the protest against the Stamp Act, wealthy, lettered political figures like John

Adams supported the goals

of the Sons and Daughters of Liberty, even if they did not engage in the Sons’

violent actions. These men,

who were lawyers, printers, and merchants, ran a propaganda campaign parallel to

the Sons’ campaign

of violence. In newspapers and pamphlets throughout the colonies, they published

article after article

outlining the reasons the Stamp Act was unconstitutional and urging peaceful

protest. They officially

condemned violent actions but did not have the protesters arrested; a degree of

cooperation prevailed,

despite the groups’ different economic backgrounds. Certainly, all the protesters

saw themselves as acting

in the best British tradition, standing up against the corruption (especially the

extinguishing of their right

to representation) that threatened their liberty (Figure 5.9).

Figure 5.9 This 1766 illustration shows a funeral procession for the Stamp Act.

Reverend William Scott leads the

procession of politicians who had supported the act, while a dog urinates on his

leg. George Grenville, pictured fourth

in line, carries a small coffin. What point do you think this cartoon is trying to

make?

THE DECLARATORY ACT

Back in Great Britain, news of the colonists’ reactions worsened an already

volatile political situation.

Grenville’s imperial reforms had brought about increased domestic taxes and his

unpopularity led to his

dismissal by King George III. While many in Parliament still wanted such reforms,

British merchants

argued strongly for their repeal. These merchants had no interest in the philosophy

behind the colonists’

desire for liberty; rather, their motive was that the non-importation of British

goods by North American

colonists was hurting their business. Many of the British at home were also

appalled by the colonists’

violent reaction to the Stamp Act. Other Britons cheered what they saw as the manly

defense of liberty by

their counterparts in the colonies.

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Chapter 5 | Imperial Reforms and Colonial Protests, 1763-1774

In March 1766, the new prime minister, Lord Rockingham, compelled Parliament to

repeal the Stamp Act.

Colonists celebrated what they saw as a victory for their British liberty; in

Boston, merchant John Hancock

treated the entire town to drinks. However, to appease opponents of the repeal, who

feared that it would

weaken parliamentary power over the American colonists, Rockingham also proposed

the Declaratory

Act. This stated in no uncertain terms that Parliament’s power was supreme and that

any laws the colonies

may have passed to govern and tax themselves were null and void if they ran counter

to parliamentary

law.

Click and Explore

Visit USHistory.org

(http://openstaxcollege.org/l/decact) to read the full text of the

Declaratory Act, in which Parliament asserted the

supremacy of parliamentary power.

5.3 The Townshend Acts and Colonial Protest

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Describe the purpose of the 1767 Townshend Acts

• Explain why many colonists protested the 1767 Townshend Acts and the

consequences

of their actions

Colonists’ joy over the repeal of the Stamp Act and what they saw as their defense

of liberty did not last

long. The Declaratory Act of 1766 had articulated Great Britain’s supreme authority

over the colonies, and

Parliament soon began exercising that authority. In 1767, with the passage of the

Townshend Acts, a tax

on consumer goods in British North America, colonists believed their liberty as

loyal British subjects had

come under assault for a second time.

THE TOWNSHEND ACTS

Lord Rockingham’s tenure as prime minister was not long (1765–1766). Rich

landowners feared that if he

were not taxing the colonies, Parliament would raise their taxes instead,

sacrificing them to the interests

of merchants and colonists. George III duly dismissed Rockingham. William Pitt,

also sympathetic to the

colonists, succeeded him. However, Pitt was old and ill with gout. His chancellor

of the exchequer, Charles

Townshend (Figure 5.10), whose job was to manage the Empire’s finances, took on

many of his duties.

Primary among these was raising the needed revenue from the colonies.

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Figure 5.10 Charles Townshend, chancellor of the exchequer, shown here in a 1765

painting by Joshua Reynolds,

instituted the Townshend Revenue Act of 1767 in order to raise money to support the

British military presence in the

colonies.

Townshend’s first act was to deal with the unruly New York Assembly, which had

voted not to pay for

supplies for the garrison of British soldiers that the Quartering Act required. In

response, Townshend

proposed the Restraining Act of 1767, which disbanded the New York Assembly until

it agreed to pay for

the garrison’s supplies, which it eventually agreed to do.

The Townshend Revenue Act of 1767 placed duties on various consumer items like

paper, paint, lead,

tea, and glass. These British goods had to be imported, since the colonies did not

have the manufacturing

base to produce them. Townshend hoped the new duties would not anger the colonists

because they were

external taxes, not internal ones like the Stamp Act. In 1766, in arguing before

Parliament for the repeal of

the Stamp Act, Benjamin Franklin had stated, “I never heard any objection to the

right of laying duties to

regulate commerce; but a right to lay internal taxes was never supposed to be in

parliament, as we are not

represented there.”

The Indemnity Act of 1767 exempted tea produced by the British East India Company

from taxation

when it was imported into Great Britain. When the tea was re-exported to the

colonies, however, the

colonists had to pay taxes on it because of the Revenue Act. Some critics of

Parliament on both sides of

the Atlantic saw this tax policy as an example of corrupt politicians giving

preferable treatment to specific

corporate interests, creating a monopoly. The sense that corruption had become

entrenched in Parliament

only increased colonists’ alarm.

In fact, the revenue collected from these duties was only nominally intended to

support the British army

in America. It actually paid the salaries of some royally appointed judges,

governors, and other officials

whom the colonial assemblies had traditionally paid. Thanks to the Townshend

Revenue Act of 1767,

however, these officials no longer relied on colonial leadership for payment. This

change gave them a

measure of independence from the assemblies, so they could implement parliamentary

acts without fear

that their pay would be withheld in retaliation. The Revenue Act thus appeared to

sever the relationship

between governors and assemblies, drawing royal officials closer to the British

government and further

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away from the colonial legislatures.

The Revenue Act also gave the customs board greater powers to counteract smuggling.

It granted “writs

of assistance”—basically, search warrants—to customs commissioners who suspected

the presence of

contraband goods, which also opened the door to a new level of bribery and trickery

on the waterfronts

of colonial America. Furthermore, to ensure compliance, Townshend introduced the

Commissioners of

Customs Act of 1767, which created an American Board of Customs to enforce trade

laws. Customs

enforcement had been based in Great Britain, but rules were difficult to implement

at such a distance,

and smuggling was rampant. The new customs board was based in Boston and would

severely curtail

smuggling in this large colonial seaport.

Townshend also orchestrated the Vice-Admiralty Court Act, which established three

more vice-admiralty

courts, in Boston, Philadelphia, and Charleston, to try violators of customs

regulations without a jury.

Before this, the only colonial vice-admiralty court had been in far-off Halifax,

Nova Scotia, but with

three local courts, smugglers could be tried more efficiently. Since the judges of

these courts were paid

a percentage of the worth of the goods they recovered, leniency was rare. All told,

the Townshend Acts

resulted in higher taxes and stronger British power to enforce them. Four years

after the end of the French

and Indian War, the Empire continued to search for solutions to its debt problem

and the growing sense

that the colonies needed to be brought under control.

REACTIONS: THE NON-IMPORTATION MOVEMENT

Like the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts produced controversy and protest in the

American colonies. For

a second time, many colonists resented what they perceived as an effort to tax them

without representation

and thus to deprive them of their liberty. The fact that the revenue the Townshend

Acts raised would pay

royal governors only made the situation worse, because it took control away from

colonial legislatures that

otherwise had the power to set and withhold a royal governor’s salary. The

Restraining Act, which had

been intended to isolate New York without angering the other colonies, had the

opposite effect, showing

the rest of the colonies how far beyond the British Constitution some members of

Parliament were willing

to go.

The Townshend Acts generated a number of protest writings, including “Letters from

a Pennsylvania

Farmer” by John Dickinson. In this influential pamphlet, which circulated widely in

the colonies,

Dickinson conceded that the Empire could regulate trade but argued that Parliament

could not impose

either internal taxes, like stamps, on goods or external taxes, like customs

duties, on imports.

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AMERICANA

“Address to the Ladies” Verse from The Boston Post-Boy and

Advertiser

This verse, which ran in a Boston newspaper in November 1767,

highlights how women were

encouraged to take political action by boycotting British goods. Notice

that the writer especially

encourages women to avoid British tea (Bohea and Green Hyson) and

linen, and to manufacture their

own homespun cloth. Building on the protest of the 1765 Stamp Act by

the Daughters of Liberty, the non-

importation movement of 1767–1768 mobilized women as political actors.

Young ladies in town, and those that live round,

Let a friend at this season advise you:

Since money’s so scarce, and times growing worse

Strange things may soon hap and surprize you:

First then, throw aside your high top knots of pride

Wear none but your own country linnen;

of economy boast, let your pride be the most

What, if homespun they say is not quite so gay

As brocades, yet be not in a passion,

For when once it is known this is much wore in town,

One and all will cry out, ’tis the fashion!

And as one, all agree that you’ll not married be

To such as will wear London Fact’ry:

But at first sight refuse, tell’em such you do chuse

As encourage our own Manufact’ry.

No more Ribbons wear, nor in rich dress appear,

Love your country much better than fine things,

Begin without passion, ’twill soon be the fashion

To grace your smooth locks with a twine string.

Throw aside your Bohea, and your Green Hyson Tea,

And all things with a new fashion duty;

Procure a good store of the choice Labradore,

For there’ll soon be enough here to suit ye;

These do without fear and to all you’ll appear

Fair, charming, true, lovely, and cleaver;

Tho’ the times remain darkish, young men may be sparkish.

And love you much stronger than ever. !O!

In Massachusetts in 1768, Samuel Adams wrote a letter that became known as the

Massachusetts Circular.

Sent by the Massachusetts House of Representatives to the other colonial

legislatures, the letter laid out

the unconstitutionality of taxation without representation and encouraged the other

colonies to again

protest the taxes by boycotting British goods. Adams wrote, “It is, moreover, [the

Massachusetts House

of Representatives] humble opinion, which they express with the greatest deference

to the wisdom of the

Parliament, that the acts made there, imposing duties on the people of this

province, with the sole and

express purpose of raising a revenue, are infringements of their natural and

constitutional rights; because,

as they are not represented in the Parliament, his Majesty’s Commons in Britain, by

those acts, grant their

property without their consent.” Note that even in this letter of protest, the

humble and submissive tone

shows the Massachusetts Assembly’s continued deference to parliamentary authority.

Even in that hotbed

of political protest, it is a clear expression of allegiance and the hope for a

restoration of “natural and

constitutional rights.”

Great Britain’s response to this threat of disobedience served only to unite the

colonies further. The

colonies’ initial response to the Massachusetts Circular was lukewarm at best.

However, back in Great

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Britain, the secretary of state for the colonies—Lord Hillsborough—demanded that

Massachusetts retract

the letter, promising that any colonial assemblies that endorsed it would be

dissolved. This threat had

the effect of pushing the other colonies to Massachusetts’s side. Even the city of

Philadelphia, which had

originally opposed the Circular, came around.

The Daughters of Liberty once again supported and promoted the boycott of British

goods. Women

resumed spinning bees and again found substitutes for British tea and other goods.

Many colonial

merchants signed non-importation agreements, and the Daughters of Liberty urged

colonial women to

shop only with those merchants. The Sons of Liberty used newspapers and circulars

to call out by name

those merchants who refused to sign such agreements; sometimes they were threatened

by violence. For

instance, a broadside from 1769–1770 reads:

WILLIAM JACKSON,

an IMPORTER;

at the BRAZEN HEAD,

North Side of the TOWN-HOUSE,

and Opposite the Town-Pump, [in]

Corn-hill, BOSTON

It is desired that the SONS

and DAUGHTERS of LIBERTY,

would not buy any one thing of

him, for in so doing they will bring

disgrace upon themselves, and their

Posterity, for ever and ever, AMEN.

The boycott in 1768–1769 turned the purchase of consumer goods into a political

gesture. It mattered what

you consumed. Indeed, the very clothes you wore indicated whether you were a

defender of liberty in

homespun or a protector of parliamentary rights in superfine British attire.

Click and Explore

For examples of the types of luxury items that

many American colonists favored, visit

the National Humanities Center

(http://openstaxcollege.org/l/britlux) to see

pictures and documents relating to home interiors

of the wealthy.

TROUBLE IN BOSTON

The Massachusetts Circular got Parliament’s attention, and in 1768, Lord

Hillsborough sent four thousand

British troops to Boston to deal with the unrest and put down any potential

rebellion there. The troops

were a constant reminder of the assertion of British power over the colonies, an

illustration of an unequal

relationship between members of the same empire. As an added aggravation, British

soldiers moonlighted

as dockworkers, creating competition for employment. Boston’s labor system had

traditionally been

closed, privileging native-born laborers over outsiders, and jobs were scarce. Many

Bostonians, led by the

Sons of Liberty, mounted a campaign of harassment against British troops. The Sons

of Liberty also helped

protect the smuggling actions of the merchants; smuggling was crucial for the

colonists’ ability to maintain

their boycott of British goods.

John Hancock was one of Boston’s most successful merchants and prominent citizens.

While he

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141

maintained too high a profile to work actively with the Sons of Liberty, he was

known to support their

aims, if not their means of achieving them. He was also one of the many prominent

merchants who had

made their fortunes by smuggling, which was rampant in the colonial seaports. In

1768, customs officials

seized the Liberty, one of his ships, and violence erupted. Led by the Sons of

Liberty, Bostonians rioted

against customs officials, attacking the customs house and chasing out the

officers, who ran to safety at

Castle William, a British fort on a Boston harbor island. British soldiers crushed

the riots, but over the next

few years, clashes between British officials and Bostonians became common.

Conflict turned deadly on March 5, 1770, in a confrontation that came to be known

as the Boston Massacre.

On that night, a crowd of Bostonians from many walks of life started throwing

snowballs, rocks, and

sticks at the British soldiers guarding the customs house. In the resulting

scuffle, some soldiers, goaded by

the mob who hectored the soldiers as “lobster backs” (the reference to lobster

equated the soldiers with

bottom feeders, i.e., aquatic animals that feed on the lowest organisms in the food

chain), fired into the

crowd, killing five people. Crispus Attucks, the first man killed—and, though no

one could have known it

then, the first official casualty in the war for independence—was of Wampanoag and

African descent. The

bloodshed illustrated the level of hostility that had developed as a result of

Boston’s occupation by British

troops, the competition for scarce jobs between Bostonians and the British soldiers

stationed in the city,

and the larger question of Parliament’s efforts to tax the colonies.

The Sons of Liberty immediately seized on the event, characterizing the British

soldiers as murderers

and their victims as martyrs. Paul Revere, a silversmith and member of the Sons of

Liberty, circulated

an engraving that showed a line of grim redcoats firing ruthlessly into a crowd of

unarmed, fleeing

civilians. Among colonists who resisted British power, this view of the “massacre”

confirmed their fears

of a tyrannous government using its armies to curb the freedom of British subjects.

But to others, the

attacking mob was equally to blame for pelting the British with rocks and insulting

them.

It was not only British Loyalists who condemned the unruly mob. John Adams, one of

the city’s strongest

supporters of peaceful protest against Parliament, represented the British soldiers

at their murder trial.

Adams argued that the mob’s lawlessness required the soldiers’ response, and that

without law and order,

a society was nothing. He argued further that the soldiers were the tools of a much

broader program,

which transformed a street brawl into the injustice of imperial policy. Of the

eight soldiers on trial, the jury

acquitted six, convicting the other two of the reduced charge of manslaughter.

Adams argued: “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our

inclinations, or the

dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence: nor is

the law less stable than

the fact; if an assault was made to endanger their lives, the law is clear, they

had a right to kill in their

own defense; if it was not so severe as to endanger their lives, yet if they were

assaulted at all, struck and

abused by blows of any sort, by snow-balls, oyster-shells, cinders, clubs, or

sticks of any kind; this was

a provocation, for which the law reduces the offence of killing, down to

manslaughter, in consideration

of those passions in our nature, which cannot be eradicated. To your candour and

justice I submit the

prisoners and their cause.”

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AMERICANA

Propaganda and the Sons of Liberty

Long after the British soldiers had been tried and punished, the Sons

of Liberty maintained a relentless

propaganda campaign against British oppression. Many of them were

printers or engravers, and they

were able to use public media to sway others to their cause. Shortly

after the incident outside the

customs house, Paul Revere created “The bloody massacre perpetrated in

King Street Boston on March

5th 1770 by a party of the 29th Regt.” (Figure 5.11), based on an image

by engraver Henry Pelham.

The picture—which represents only the protesters’ point of view—shows

the ruthlessness of the British

soldiers and the helplessness of the crowd of civilians. Notice the

subtle details Revere uses to help

convince the viewer of the civilians’ innocence and the soldiers’

cruelty. Although eyewitnesses said the

crowd started the fight by throwing snowballs and rocks, in the

engraving they are innocently standing

by. Revere also depicts the crowd as well dressed and well-to-do, when

in fact they were laborers and

probably looked quite a bit rougher.

Figure 5.11 The Sons of Liberty circulated this sensationalized version

of the events of March 5, 1770,

in order to promote the rightness of their cause. The verses below the

image begin as follows:

“Unhappy Boston! see thy Sons deplore, Thy hallowed Walks besmeared

with guiltless Gore.”

Newspaper articles and pamphlets that the Sons of Liberty circulated

implied that the “massacre” was a

planned murder. In the Boston Gazette on March 12, 1770, an article

describes the soldiers as striking

first. It goes on to discuss this version of the events: “On hearing

the noise, one Samuel Atwood came up

to see what was the matter; and entering the alley from dock square,

heard the latter part of the combat;

and when the boys had dispersed he met the ten or twelve soldiers

aforesaid rushing down the alley

towards the square and asked them if they intended to murder people?

They answered Yes, by God, root

and branch! With that one of them struck Mr. Atwood with a club which

was repeated by another; and

being unarmed, he turned to go off and received a wound on the left

shoulder which reached the bone

and gave him much pain.”

What do you think most people in the United States think of when they

consider the Boston Massacre?

How does the propaganda of the Sons of Liberty still affect the way we

think of this event?

PARTIAL REPEAL

As it turned out, the Boston Massacre occurred after Parliament had partially

repealed the Townshend

Acts. By the late 1760s, the American boycott of British goods had drastically

reduced British trade. Once

again, merchants who lost money because of the boycott strongly pressured

Parliament to loosen its

restrictions on the colonies and break the non-importation movement. Charles

Townshend died suddenly

in 1767 and was replaced by Lord North, who was inclined to look for a more

workable solution with

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143

the colonists. North convinced Parliament to drop all the Townshend duties except

the tax on tea. The

administrative and enforcement provisions under the Townshend Acts—the American

Board of Customs

Commissioners and the vice-admiralty courts—remained in place.

To those who had protested the Townshend Acts for several years, the partial repeal

appeared to be a

major victory. For a second time, colonists had rescued liberty from an

unconstitutional parliamentary

measure. The hated British troops in Boston departed. The consumption of British

goods skyrocketed after

the partial repeal, an indication of the American colonists’ desire for the items

linking them to the Empire.

5.4 The Destruction of the Tea and the Coercive Acts

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Describe the socio-political environment in the colonies in the early 1770s

• Explain the purpose of the Tea Act of 1773 and discuss colonial reactions

to it

• Identify and describe the Coercive Acts

The Tea Act of 1773 triggered a reaction with far more significant consequences

than either the 1765 Stamp

Act or the 1767 Townshend Acts. Colonists who had joined in protest against those

earlier acts renewed

their efforts in 1773. They understood that Parliament had again asserted its right

to impose taxes without

representation, and they feared the Tea Act was designed to seduce them into

conceding this important

principle by lowering the price of tea to the point that colonists might abandon

their scruples. They also

deeply resented the East India Company’s monopoly on the sale of tea in the

American colonies; this

resentment sprang from the knowledge that some members of Parliament had invested

heavily in the

company.

SMOLDERING RESENTMENT

Even after the partial repeal of the Townshend duties, however, suspicion of

Parliament’s intentions

remained high. This was especially true in port cities like Boston and New York,

where British customs

agents were a daily irritant and reminder of British power. In public houses and

squares, people met

and discussed politics. Philosopher John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government,

published almost a century

earlier, influenced political thought about the role of government to protect life,

liberty, and property. The

Sons of Liberty issued propaganda ensuring that colonists remained aware when

Parliament overreached

itself.

Violence continued to break out on occasion, as in 1772, when Rhode Island

colonists boarded and burned

the British revenue ship Gaspée in Narragansett Bay (Figure 5.12). Colonists had

attacked or burned

British customs ships in the past, but after the Gaspée Affair, the British

government convened a Royal

Commission of Inquiry. This Commission had the authority to remove the colonists,

who were charged

with treason, to Great Britain for trial. Some colonial protestors saw this new

ability as another example of

the overreach of British power.

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Chapter 5 | Imperial Reforms and Colonial Protests, 1763-1774

Figure 5.12 This 1883 engraving, which appeared in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine,

depicts the burning of the

Gaspée. This attack provoked the British government to convene a Royal Commission

of Inquiry; some regarded the

Commission as an example of excessive British power and control over the colonies.

Samuel Adams, along with Joseph Warren and James Otis, re-formed the Boston

Committee of

Correspondence, which functioned as a form of shadow government, to address the

fear of British

overreach. Soon towns all over Massachusetts had formed their own committees, and

many other colonies

followed suit. These committees, which had between seven and eight thousand members

in all, identified

enemies of the movement and communicated the news of the day. Sometimes they

provided a version

of events that differed from royal interpretations, and slowly, the committees

began to supplant royal

governments as sources of information. They later formed the backbone of

communication among the

colonies in the rebellion against the Tea Act, and eventually in the revolt against

the British crown.

THE TEA ACT OF 1773

Parliament did not enact the Tea Act of 1773 in order to punish the colonists,

assert parliamentary power,

or even raise revenues. Rather, the act was a straightforward order of economic

protectionism for a British

tea firm, the East India Company, that was on the verge of bankruptcy. In the

colonies, tea was the one

remaining consumer good subject to the hated Townshend duties. Protest leaders and

their followers still

avoided British tea, drinking smuggled Dutch tea as a sign of patriotism.

The Tea Act of 1773 gave the British East India Company the ability to export its

tea directly to the

colonies without paying import or export duties and without using middlemen in

either Great Britain or

the colonies. Even with the Townshend tax, the act would allow the East India

Company to sell its tea at

lower prices than the smuggled Dutch tea, thus undercutting the smuggling trade.

This act was unwelcome to those in British North America who had grown displeased

with the pattern of

imperial measures. By granting a monopoly to the East India Company, the act not

only cut out colonial

merchants who would otherwise sell the tea themselves; it also reduced their

profits from smuggled

foreign tea. These merchants were among the most powerful and influential people in

the colonies, so

their dissatisfaction carried some weight. Moreover, because the tea tax that the

Townshend Acts imposed

remained in place, tea had intense power to symbolize the idea of “no taxation

without representation.”

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COLONIAL PROTEST: THE DESTRUCTION OF THE TEA

The 1773 act reignited the worst fears among the colonists. To the Sons and

Daughters of Liberty and those

who followed them, the act appeared to be proof positive that a handful of corrupt

members of Parliament

were violating the British Constitution. Veterans of the protest movement had grown

accustomed to

interpreting British actions in the worst possible light, so the 1773 act appeared

to be part of a large

conspiracy against liberty.

As they had done to protest earlier acts and taxes, colonists responded to the Tea

Act with a boycott. The

Committees of Correspondence helped to coordinate resistance in all of the colonial

port cities, so up and

down the East Coast, British tea-carrying ships were unable to come to shore and

unload their wares. In

Charlestown, Boston, Philadelphia, and New York, the equivalent of millions of

dollars’ worth of tea was

held hostage, either locked in storage warehouses or rotting in the holds of ships

as they were forced to

sail back to Great Britain.

In Boston, Thomas Hutchinson, now the royal governor of Massachusetts, vowed that

radicals like Samuel

Adams would not keep the ships from unloading their cargo. He urged the merchants

who would have

accepted the tea from the ships to stand their ground and receive the tea once it

had been unloaded. When

the Dartmouth sailed into Boston Harbor in November 1773, it had twenty days to

unload its cargo of tea

and pay the duty before it had to return to Great Britain. Two more ships, the

Eleanor and the Beaver,

followed soon after. Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty tried to keep the

captains of the ships from

paying the duties and posted groups around the ships to make sure the tea would not

be unloaded.

On December 16, just as the Dartmouth’s deadline approached, townspeople gathered

at the Old South

Meeting House determined to take action. From this gathering, a group of Sons of

Liberty and their

followers approached the three ships. Some were disguised as Mohawks. Protected by

a crowd of

spectators, they systematically dumped all the tea into the harbor, destroying

goods worth almost $1

million in today’s dollars, a very significant loss. This act soon inspired further

acts of resistance up and

down the East Coast. However, not all colonists, and not even all Patriots,

supported the dumping of the

tea. The wholesale destruction of property shocked people on both sides of the

Atlantic.

Click and Explore

To learn more about the Boston Tea Party, explore

the extensive resources in the

Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum collection

(http://openstaxcollege.org/l/

teapartyship) of articles, photos, and video. At

the museum itself, you can board

replicas of the Eleanor and the Beaver and

experience a recreation of the dumping of

the tea.

PARLIAMENT RESPONDS: THE COERCIVE ACTS

In London, response to the destruction of the tea was swift and strong. The violent

destruction of property

infuriated King George III and the prime minister, Lord North (Figure 5.13), who

insisted the loss be

repaid. Though some American merchants put forward a proposal for restitution, the

Massachusetts

Assembly refused to make payments. Massachusetts’s resistance to British authority

united different

factions in Great Britain against the colonies. North had lost patience with the

unruly British subjects in

Boston. He declared: “The Americans have tarred and feathered your subjects,

plundered your merchants,

burnt your ships, denied all obedience to your laws and authority; yet so clement

and so long forbearing

has our conduct been that it is incumbent on us now to take a different course.

Whatever may be the

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Chapter 5 | Imperial Reforms and Colonial Protests, 1763-1774

consequences, we must risk something; if we do not, all is over.” Both Parliament

and the king agreed that

Massachusetts should be forced to both pay for the tea and yield to British

authority.

Figure 5.13 Lord North, seen here in Portrait of Frederick North, Lord North (1773–

1774), painted by Nathaniel

Dance, was prime minister at the time of the destruction of the tea and insisted

that Massachusetts make good on the

loss.

In early 1774, leaders in Parliament responded with a set of four measures designed

to punish

Massachusetts, commonly known at the Coercive Acts. The Boston Port Bill shut down

Boston Harbor

until the East India Company was repaid. The Massachusetts Government Act placed

the colonial

government under the direct control of crown officials and made traditional town

meetings subject to the

governor’s approval. The Administration of Justice Act allowed the royal governor

to unilaterally move

any trial of a crown officer out of Massachusetts, a change designed to prevent

hostile Massachusetts juries

from deciding these cases. This act was especially infuriating to John Adams and

others who emphasized

the time-honored rule of law. They saw this part of the Coercive Acts as striking

at the heart of fair and

equitable justice. Finally, the Quartering Act encompassed all the colonies and

allowed British troops to be

housed in occupied buildings.

At the same time, Parliament also passed the Quebec Act, which expanded the

boundaries of Quebec

westward and extended religious tolerance to Roman Catholics in the province. For

many Protestant

colonists, especially Congregationalists in New England, this forced tolerance of

Catholicism was the most

objectionable provision of the act. Additionally, expanding the boundaries of

Quebec raised troubling

questions for many colonists who eyed the West, hoping to expand the boundaries of

their provinces. The

Quebec Act appeared gratuitous, a slap in the face to colonists already angered by

the Coercive Acts.

American Patriots renamed the Coercive and Quebec measures the Intolerable Acts.

Some in London

also thought the acts went too far; see the cartoon “The Able Doctor, or America

Swallowing the Bitter

Draught” (Figure 5.14) for one British view of what Parliament was doing to the

colonies. Meanwhile,

punishments designed to hurt only one colony (Massachusetts, in this case) had the

effect of mobilizing

all the colonies to its side. The Committees of Correspondence had already been

active in coordinating an

approach to the Tea Act. Now the talk would turn to these new, intolerable assaults

on the colonists’ rights

as British subjects.

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Chapter 5 | Imperial Reforms and Colonial Protests, 1763-1774

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Figure 5.14 The artist of “The Able Doctor, or America Swallowing the Bitter

Draught” (London Magazine, May 1,

1774) targets select members of Parliament as the perpetrators of a devilish scheme

to overturn the constitution; this

is why Mother Britannia weeps. Note that this cartoon came from a British

publication; Great Britain was not united in

support of Parliament’s policies toward the American colonies.

5.5 Disaffection: The First Continental Congress and American

Identity

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Describe the state of affairs between the colonies and the home government

in 1774

• Explain the purpose and results of the First Continental Congress

Disaffection—the loss of affection toward the home government—had reached new

levels by 1774. Many

colonists viewed the Intolerable Acts as a turning point; they now felt they had to

take action. The result

was the First Continental Congress, a direct challenge to Lord North and British

authority in the colonies.

Still, it would be a mistake to assume there was a groundswell of support for

separating from the British

Empire and creating a new, independent nation. Strong ties still bound the Empire

together, and colonists

did not agree about the proper response. Loyalists tended to be property holders,

established residents

who feared the loss of their property. To them the protests seemed to promise

nothing but mob rule, and

the violence and disorder they provoked were shocking. On both sides of the

Atlantic, opinions varied.

After the passage of the Intolerable Acts in 1774, the Committees of Correspondence

and the Sons of

Liberty went straight to work, spreading warnings about how the acts would affect

the liberty of all

colonists, not just urban merchants and laborers. The Massachusetts Government Act

had shut down the

colonial government there, but resistance-minded colonists began meeting in

extralegal assemblies. One of

these assemblies, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, passed the Suffolk

Resolves in September 1774,

which laid out a plan of resistance to the Intolerable Acts. Meanwhile, the First

Continental Congress was

convening to discuss how to respond to the acts themselves.

The First Continental Congress was made up of elected representatives of twelve of

the thirteen American

colonies. (Georgia’s royal governor blocked the move to send representatives from

that colony, an

indication of the continued strength of the royal government despite the crisis.)

The representatives met

in Philadelphia from September 5 through October 26, 1774, and at first they did

not agree at all about the

appropriate response to the Intolerable Acts. Joseph Galloway of Pennsylvania

argued for a conciliatory

approach; he proposed that an elected Grand Council in America, like the Parliament

in Great Britain,

should be paired with a royally appointed President General, who would represent

the authority of the

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Crown. More radical factions argued for a move toward separation from the Crown.

In the end, Paul Revere rode from Massachusetts to Philadelphia with the Suffolk

Resolves, which became

the basis of the Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress. In the

Declaration and

Resolves, adopted on October 14, the colonists demanded the repeal of all

repressive acts passed since 1773

and agreed to a non-importation, non-exportation, and non-consumption pact against

all British goods

until the acts were repealed. In the “Petition of Congress to the King” on October

24, the delegates adopted

a further recommendation of the Suffolk Resolves and proposed that the colonies

raise and regulate their

own militias.

The representatives at the First Continental Congress created a Continental

Association to ensure that the

full boycott was enforced across all the colonies. The Continental Association

served as an umbrella group

for colonial and local committees of observation and inspection. By taking these

steps, the First Continental

Congress established a governing network in opposition to royal authority.

Click and Explore

Visit the Massachusetts Historical Society

(http://openstaxcollege.org/l/

firstcongress) to see a digitized copy and read

the transcript of the First Continental

Congress’s petition to King George.

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Chapter 5 | Imperial Reforms and Colonial Protests, 1763-1774

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DEFINING "AMERICAN"

The First List of Un-American Activities

In her book Toward A More Perfect Union: Virtue and the Formation of

American Republics, historian

Ann Fairfax Withington explores actions the delegates to the First

Continental Congress took during the

weeks they were together. Along with their efforts to bring about the

repeal of the Intolerable Acts, the

delegates also banned certain activities they believed would undermine

their fight against what they saw

as British corruption.

In particular, the delegates prohibited horse races, cockfights, the

theater, and elaborate funerals. The

reasons for these prohibitions provide insight into the state of

affairs in 1774. Both horse races and

cockfights encouraged gambling and, for the delegates, gambling

threatened to prevent the unity of

action and purpose they desired. In addition, cockfighting appeared

immoral and corrupt because the

roosters were fitted with razors and fought to the death (Figure 5.15).

Figure 5.15 Cockfights, as depicted in The Cockpit (1759) by British

artist and engraver William

Hogarth, were among the entertainments the First Continental Congress

sought to outlaw, considering

them un-American.

The ban on the theater aimed to do away with another corrupt British

practice. Critics had long believed

that theatrical performances drained money from working people.

Moreover, they argued, theatergoers

learned to lie and deceive from what they saw on stage. The delegates

felt banning the theater would

demonstrate their resolve to act honestly and without pretence in their

fight against corruption.

Finally, eighteenth-century mourning practices often required lavish

spending on luxury items and even

the employment of professional mourners who, for a price, would shed

tears at the grave. Prohibiting

these practices reflected the idea that luxury bred corruption, and the

First Continental Congress wanted

to demonstrate that the colonists would do without British vices.

Congress emphasized the need to be

frugal and self-sufficient when confronted with corruption.

The First Continental Congress banned all four activities—horse races,

cockfights, the theater, and

elaborate funerals—and entrusted the Continental Association with

enforcement. Rejecting what they

saw as corruption coming from Great Britain, the delegates were also

identifying themselves as standing

apart from their British relatives. They cast themselves as virtuous

defenders of liberty against a corrupt

Parliament.

In the Declaration and Resolves and the Petition of Congress to the King, the

delegates to the First

Continental Congress refer to George III as “Most Gracious Sovereign” and to

themselves as “inhabitants

of the English colonies in North America” or “inhabitants of British America,”

indicating that they still

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considered themselves British subjects of the king, not American citizens. At the

same time, however, they

were slowly moving away from British authority, creating their own de facto

government in the First

Continental Congress. One of the provisions of the Congress was that it meet again

in one year to mark its

progress; the Congress was becoming an elected government.

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Chapter 5 | Imperial Reforms and Colonial Protests, 1763-1774

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Key Terms

Boston Massacre a confrontation between a crowd of Bostonians and British soldiers

on March 5, 1770,

which resulted in the deaths of five people, including Crispus

Attucks, the first official

casualty in the war for independence

Coercive Acts four acts (Administration of Justice Act, Massachusetts Government

Act, Port Bill,

Quartering Act) that Lord North passed to punish Massachusetts for

destroying the tea

and refusing to pay for the damage

Committees of Correspondence colonial extralegal shadow governments that convened

to coordinate

plans of resistance against the British

Daughters of Liberty well-born British colonial women who led a non-importation

movement against

British goods

direct tax a tax that consumers pay directly, rather than through merchants’ higher

prices

indirect tax a tax imposed on businesses, rather than directly on consumers

Intolerable Acts the name American Patriots gave to the Coercive Acts and the

Quebec Act

Loyalists colonists in America who were loyal to Great Britain

Massachusetts Circular a letter penned by Son of Liberty Samuel Adams that laid out

the

unconstitutionality of taxation without representation

and encouraged the other

colonies to boycott British goods

no taxation without representation the principle, first articulated in the Virginia

Stamp Act Resolutions,

that the colonists needed to be represented in

Parliament if they

were to be taxed

non-importation movement a widespread colonial boycott of British goods

Proclamation Line a line along the Appalachian Mountains, imposed by the

Proclamation of 1763, west

of which British colonists could not settle

Sons of Liberty artisans, shopkeepers, and small-time merchants who opposed the

Stamp Act and

considered themselves British patriots

Suffolk Resolves a Massachusetts plan of resistance to the Intolerable Acts that

formed the basis of the

eventual plan adopted by the First Continental Congress for

resisting the British,

including the arming of militias and the adoption of a widespread non-importation,

non-exportation, and

non-consumption agreement

vice-admiralty courts British royal courts without juries that settled disputes

occurring at sea

Summary

5.1 Confronting the National Debt: The Aftermath of the French and Indian War

The British Empire had gained supremacy in North America with its victory over the

French in 1763.

Almost all of the North American territory east of the Mississippi fell under Great

Britain’s control, and

British leaders took this opportunity to try to create a more coherent and unified

empire after decades of

lax oversight. Victory over the French had proved very costly, and the British

government attempted to

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better regulate their expanded empire in North America. The initial steps the

British took in 1763 and 1764

raised suspicions among some colonists about the intent of the home government.

These suspicions would

grow and swell over the coming years.

5.2 The Stamp Act and the Sons and Daughters of Liberty

Though Parliament designed the 1765 Stamp Act to deal with the financial crisis in

the Empire, it had

unintended consequences. Outrage over the act created a degree of unity among

otherwise unconnected

American colonists, giving them a chance to act together both politically and

socially. The crisis of the

Stamp Act allowed colonists to loudly proclaim their identity as defenders of

British liberty. With the

repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766, liberty-loving subjects of the king celebrated

what they viewed as a

victory.

5.3 The Townshend Acts and Colonial Protest

Like the Stamp Act in 1765, the Townshend Acts led many colonists to work together

against what

they perceived to be an unconstitutional measure, generating the second major

crisis in British Colonial

America. The experience of resisting the Townshend Acts provided another shared

experience among

colonists from diverse regions and backgrounds, while the partial repeal convinced

many that liberty had

once again been defended. Nonetheless, Great Britain’s debt crisis still had not

been solved.

5.4 The Destruction of the Tea and the Coercive Acts

The colonial rejection of the Tea Act, especially the destruction of the tea in

Boston Harbor, recast the

decade-long argument between British colonists and the home government as an

intolerable conspiracy

against liberty and an excessive overreach of parliamentary power. The Coercive

Acts were punitive in

nature, awakening the worst fears of otherwise loyal members of the British Empire

in America.

5.5 Disaffection: The First Continental Congress and American Identity

The First Continental Congress, which comprised elected representatives from twelve

of the thirteen

American colonies, represented a direct challenge to British authority. In its

Declaration and Resolves,

colonists demanded the repeal of all repressive acts passed since 1773. The

delegates also recommended

that the colonies raise militias, lest the British respond to the Congress’s

proposed boycott of British goods

with force. While the colonists still considered themselves British subjects, they

were slowly retreating

from British authority, creating their own de facto government via the First

Continental Congress.

Review Questions

1. Which of the following was a cause of the 2.

What was the main purpose of the Sugar Act of

British National Debt in 1763?

1764?

A. drought in Great Britain

A. It raised taxes on sugar.

B. the French and Indian War

B. It raised taxes on molasses.

C. the continued British military presence in

C. It strengthened enforcement of molasses

the American colonies

smuggling laws.

D. both B and C

D. It required colonists to purchase only sugar

distilled in Great Britain.

3.

What did British colonists find so onerous

about the acts that Prime Minister Grenville

passed?

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Chapter 5 | Imperial Reforms and Colonial Protests, 1763-1774

153

4. Which of the following was not a goal of the 9. Which of the

following is true of the Gaspée

Stamp Act? affair?

A. to gain control over the colonists A. Colonists

believed that the British response

B. to raise revenue for British troops stationed represented

an overreach of power.

in the colonies B. It was the

first time colonists attacked a

C. to raise revenue to pay off British debt from revenue

ship.

the French and Indian War C. It was the

occasion of the first official death

D. to declare null and void any laws the in the war

for independence.

colonies had passed to govern and tax D. The ship’s

owner, John Hancock, was a

themselves respectable

Boston merchant.

5. For which of the following activities were the 10. What was the

purpose of the Tea Act of 1773?

Sons of Liberty responsible? A. to punish the

colonists for their boycotting

A. the Stamp Act Congress of British

tea

B. the hanging and beheading of a stamp B. to raise

revenue to offset the British

commissioner in effigy national debt

C. the massacre of Conestoga in Pennsylvania C. to help

revive the struggling East India

D. the introduction of the Virginia Stamp Act Company

Resolutions D. to pay the

salaries of royal appointees

6. Which of the following was not one of the goals 11. What was the

significance of the Committees

of the Townshend Acts? of Correspondence?

A. higher taxes

B. greater colonial unity 12. Which of the

following was decided at the

C. greater British control over the colonies First Continental

Congress?

D. reduced power of the colonial governments A. to declare

war on Great Britain

B. to boycott

all British goods and prepare for

7. Which event was most responsible for the possible

military action

colonies’ endorsement of Samuel Adams’s C. to offer a

conciliatory treaty to Great Britain

Massachusetts Circular? D. to pay for

the tea that was dumped in

A. the Townshend Duties Boston

Harbor

B. the Indemnity Act

C. the Boston Massacre 13. Which colony

provided the basis for the

D. Lord Hillsborough’s threat to dissolve the Declarations and

Resolves?

colonial assemblies that endorsed the letter A. Massachusetts

B. Philadelphia

8. What factors contributed to the Boston C. Rhode Island

Massacre? D. New York

Critical Thinking Questions

14. Was reconciliation between the American colonies and Great Britain possible in

1774? Why or why

not?

15. Look again at the painting that opened this chapter: The Bostonians Paying the

Excise-man, or Tarring

and Feathering (Figure 5.1). How does this painting represent the relationship

between Great Britain and

the American colonies in the years from 1763 to 1774?

16. Why did the colonists react so much more strongly to the Stamp Act than to the

Sugar Act? How did

the principles that the Stamp Act raised continue to provide points of contention

between colonists and

the British government?

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17. History is filled with unintended consequences. How do the British government’s

attempts to control

and regulate the colonies during this tumultuous era provide a case in point? How

did the aims of the

British measure up against the results of their actions?

18. What evidence indicates that colonists continued to think of themselves as

British subjects throughout

this era? What evidence suggests that colonists were beginning to forge a separate,

collective “American”

identity? How would you explain this shift?

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