Chapter 6 – Three Crises & Revolt

Key Terms:
Protectionism - Refers to policies or doctrines which protect businesses and workers within a country by restricting
or regulating trade with foreign nations.

Revenue Measures - Income generation for government.

Nonimportation Agreements - Attempts to force British recognition of political rights through application of economic
pressure. In reaction to the Stamp Act & Townshend Acts, colonial nonimportation associations were organized to boycott
English goods.
The Navigation Acts required that colonists use England as an “entrepot.” This resulted in
 Additional shipping and handling costs for colonial trade.
 Increased prices for colonial imports.
 A disproportionately large economic burden on Southern exports.
 An estimated total economic burden of less than 1 percent of colonial income.
 Wages of New England sailors increased
 The Navigation Acts made it more difficult (raised the price) for foreign sailors and ships to trade with the
colonies. This increase in the price of trading with the colonies led to an increase in demand for merchant
ships and companies from New England, and this increase in demand led to higher wages and numbers of
sailors hired. Southern plantation owners and Middle colony farmers produced their goods for export. The
Navigation Acts, raised the cost of exports to foreign nations, which reduced the quantity sold and
produced.

British Colonial Policy

Old Colonial Policy New Colonial Policy

Parliament Allowed Parliament Asserted
Colonies Self-Rule its Authority
Very Low Series of
Taxes Increased Taxes
Britain Funded Americans No Longer
Defense “Free Riders”
No Standing Armies Standing Army Positioned
in America in North America
 In a Crown colony both its governor and upper house were appointed by the Crown and only the lower house
could initiate fiscal legislation.
 Pre-1763 British colonial policy:
- Colonial governors and the Privy Council rarely used their veto power to overturn colonial laws.
- English taxes imposed on colonists were much lower than the taxes imposed on English residents.
- England passed certain laws (the Navigation Acts) designed to reduce colonial production of goods
that duplicated popular English products to protect well-lobbied interests in England
 One of the few industries that benefited from the Navigation Acts was the New England
shipbuilders
 Why did the British change its approach to the Colonies?
- £= Enormous debt from the French & Indian War (aka Seven Years War)

French & Indian War (Seven Years War)

 French lost Canada
 Britain became the dominant power in North America
  Many colonists had been actively trading with England’s enemies.
 Enormous British war debt
 War ended in 1763

British Debt
 Following the war, property taxes doubled in England in order to finance the large war debt.
 Financed its wars by borrowing:

Debt In Today’s
Year
(In pounds) Dollars

1700 £16.3 Million $43.4 Billion

1748 £76 Million $181.3 Billion

1763 £131 Million $295.5 Billion

 £100 per year - A family could live in reasonable comfort

 £1,000 per year - A family could live very rich
 The interest on the debt was 60% of gov’t spending or £5 million
British Budget

Other
Expenses
40%
Interest
on Debt
60%

 The war had plunged the British government deep into debt from the French & Indian War
 British Parliament enacted a series of measures to increase tax revenue from the colonies
 Including:
- Closing of the Boston harbor
- Placing of 4,000 British troops into Boston.
 Parliament believed that these acts were legitimate means of having the colonies pay their fair
share of the costs of maintaining the British Empire.
 Many colonists, however, had developed a different conception of the British Empire. Under the
British Constitution, they argued, a British subject's property (in the form of taxes) could not be
taken from him without his consent (in the form of representation in government). Therefore,
because the colonies were not directly represented in Parliament, some colonists insisted that
Parliament had no right to levy taxes upon them, a view expressed by the slogan "No taxation
without representation".
First Crisis
 10,000 man army proposed to be stationed in North America
 Americans to help fund these costs
 Molasses Act 1733 – aimed to decrease trade between the colonies and the French West Indies, Placed a
high tariff on colonial imports of foreign sugar, molasses and rum. England flaunted by the colonists and if
it had been enforced it would have disrupted one of the major colonial trades
 External tax
 Sugar Act of 1764 - Placed a duty on non-British West Indies sugar & molasses to assist British West Indies
planters & rum-makers (Protectionist Statute)
 Decreased the tariff that had been established by the Molasses Act but was more vigorously enforced
 Designed to raise revenue and achieve mercantilists goals
 External tax
 Stamp Act of 1765 - Required stamps on paper such as legal documents, newspapers, cards, dice, etc
(Revenue Measure)
 Designed only to raise revenue
 Colonials’ Response - Protests, violence & boycotts (Non-Importation Agreements)
Second Crisis
 1765 Quartering Act
Colonial assemblies to provide room/board/transportation costs of British troops in the colonies
 1766 Declaratory Act
Reaffirmed Parliament's right to enact laws regarding the American colonies
 1767 Townsend Act
Placed duties on goods imported to America – Tea, Glass, Paper, etc.
 External Tax
 Act had real enforcement powers:
 Writs of Assistance
 Admiralty Courts
 Colonials’ Response – Protests & Boycotts
Third Crisis
 Tea Act of 1773
 Allowed the British East India Company to sell tea directly to the colonies
 Saved the British East India Company from bankruptcy
 Gave East India Company a tea monopoly in American colonies & eliminated the
American middlemen
 This made British tea less expensive, which Parliament thought would be a welcome
change in the colonies
 It harmed those that smuggled in Dutch Tea
 There was added a small tax on which the colonists were not allowed to give their consent
 Again, Parliament taxed the colonists without their representation
 Colonials’ Response - Protests, Boycotts & Boston Tea Party
Boston Tea Party Facts
 The Boston Tea Party occurred on December 16, 1773 between 7-10 PM
 More than 5,000 people showed up for the meeting
 116 people participated in the destruction of tea
 90,000 lbs (45 tons) of tea in 342 containers was thrown overboard
 The destroyed tea was worth an estimated $1 million today
 News of the Boston Tea Party reached England in January 1774.
The Intolerable (Coercive) Acts
 The Patriot name for a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 relating to Massachusetts after
the Boston Tea party.
 Acts that were intended to punish Boston for this destruction of private property, restore British authority in
Massachusetts, and otherwise reform colonial government in America.
 The acts stripped Massachusetts of self-government and historic rights
• Tried to make an example of Massachusetts
 Triggering outrage and resistance in the Thirteen Colonies.
 They were key developments in the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775.
• Four of the acts were issued in direct response to the Boston Tea Party of December 1773
 I. The Boston Port Act
• The first of the acts passed in response to the Boston Tea Party
• Closed the port of Boston until the East India Company had been repaid for the destroyed
tea and until the king was satisfied that order had been restored.
• Colonists objected that the Port Act punished all of Boston rather than just the individuals
who had destroyed the tea, and that they were being punished without having been given
an opportunity to testify in their own defense.
II. The Massachusetts Government Act
• Provoked even more outrage than the Port Act because it unilaterally altered the
government of Massachusetts to bring it under control of the British government.
• Under the terms of the Government Act, almost all positions in the colonial government
were to be appointed by the governor or the king.
• Severely limited the activities of town meetings in Massachusetts to one meeting a year,
unless the Governor calls for one.
• Colonists outside Massachusetts feared that their governments could now also be
changed by the legislative fiat of Parliament.
III. The Administration of Justice Act
This Patriot cartoon depicting the • Allowed the governor to move trials of accused royal officials to another colony or even
Coercive Acts as the rape of an to Great Britain if he believed the official could not get a fair trial in Massachusetts.
American woman (a symbol of the • Although the act stipulated that witnesses would be paid for their travel expenses, in
American colonies) was copied and practice few colonists could afford to leave their work and cross the ocean to testify in a
distributed in the Thirteen Colonies trial.
• George Washington called this the "Murder Act" because he believed that it allowed
British officials to harass Americans and then escape justice
IV. The Quartering Act
• Applied to all of the colonies, and sought to create a more effective method of housing
British troops in America.
• In a previous act, the colonies had been required to provide housing for soldiers, but
colonial legislatures had been uncooperative in doing so.
• The new Quartering Act allowed a governor to house soldiers in other buildings if
suitable quarters were not provided.
The Royal Proclamation of 1763 and the Quebec Act of 1774
Increased the price of farm land and decreased competition for existing farmers
Encouraged Scottish, Irish, and German immigrants to rebel against England
Benefited farmers with large land holdings
 Falling land prices.
 Lower taxes on farm land.
 Increased supplies of western farm land.
• The Quebec Act,
- Was a fifth act and although not explicitly related to the events in Boston came to be regarded as
one of the Intolerable Acts.
- Enlarged the boundaries of what was then the British Province of Quebec south to the Ohio River
and west to the Mississippi
- Instituted reforms generally favorable to the French Catholic inhabitants of the region, although
denying them an elected legislative assembly and instituted reforms generally favorable to the
French Catholic inhabitants of the region
- 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
Effects from the Colonist’s Side
 Many colonists saw the Coercive Acts as a violation of their constitutional rights, their natural rights, and their
colonial charters.
 They therefore viewed the acts as a threat to the liberties of all of British America, not just Massachusetts.
 The citizens of Boston not only viewed this as an act of unnecessary and cruel punishment, but the Coercive Acts
drew the revolting hate against Britain even further.
 As a result of the Coercive Acts, even more colonists wanted to go against Britain
Effects from Great Britain’s Side
 Great Britain hoped that the Coercive Acts would isolate radicals in Massachusetts and cause American colonists
to concede the authority of Parliament over their elected assemblies.
Grievances at the Continental Congress of 1774
 Taxation without representation - taxes had been imposed upon the colonies by the British Parliament
 England had confiscated western colonial land.
 Persons could be transported out of the colonies for trials.

Colonial Land Claims Reassignment of Claims