Sugar Act – Reduced the tax on molasses but increased enforcement Stamp Act – A tax on all printed materials including legal documents, magazines, playing cards, newspapers and many other types of paper used throughout the colonies. SUGAR ACT & STAMP ACT

COLONIAL RESPONSE TO THE SUGAR ACT & STAMP ACT BOYCOTTS …an act of voluntarily abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest, usually for social or political reasons.

TOWNSHEND ACTS A series of measures introduced into the English Parliament by Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend in 1767, the Townshend Acts imposed duties on glass, lead, paints, paper and tea imported into the colonies. Townshend hoped the acts would defray imperial expenses in the colonies, but many Americans viewed the taxation as an abuse of power, resulting in the passage of agreements to limit imports from Britain. In 1770, Parliament repealed all the Townshend duties except the tax on tea, leading to a temporary truce between the two sides in the years before the American Revolution.

COLONIAL RESPONSE TO THE TOWNSHEND ACTS Committees of Correspondence – Groups that acted as informal colonial leaders and stayed connected through writings. The increase in the number of troops in Boston lead to the BOSTON MASSACRE - a street fight that occurred on March 5, 1770, between a "patriot" mob, throwing snowballs, stones, and sticks, and a squad of British soldiers. Several colonists were killed and this led to a campaign by speech-writers to rouse the ire of the citizenry.

PROPAGANDA

TEA ACT A tax on tea (this would be like taxing coffee, tea, sodas, and kool-aid today) The Tea Act was the final straw in a series of unpopular policies and taxes imposed by Britain on her American colonies. The policy ignited a “powder keg” of opposition and resentment among American colonists.

COLONIAL RESPONSE TO THE TEA ACT Boston Tea Party - a political protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, on December 16, The demonstrators, some disguised as American Indians, destroyed an entire shipment of tea sent by the East India Company, in defiance of the Tea Act of May 10, They boarded the ships and threw the chests of tea into Boston Harbor, ruining the tea. The British government responded harshly and the episode escalated into the American Revolution. Considered by the state of Texas (incorrectly) to be Civil Disobedience

COERCIVE/INTOLERABLE ACTS The Intolerable Acts were the American Patriots' name for a series of punitive laws (called the Coercive Acts by the British) that were passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea party. They were meant to punish the Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in throwing a large tea shipment into Boston harbor. Closed Boston Harbor Ended self rule in Massachusetts Trials of British officials in England Quartering Act

COLONIAL RESPONSE TO THE COERCIVE/INTOLERABLE ACTS The Patriots viewed the acts as an arbitrary violation of the rights of Massachusetts, and in September of 1774 they organized the First Continental Congress to coordinate a protest.