BP1- Tensions between colonists and Britain 1770-75

Issue of customs collection/tea duties

- post-7 years war (1756-63)- GB demand taxation
- sugar duties 1764- sugar
- stamp act 1765- paper materials
- declaratory act 1766- GB can tax whenever they want
- townshend duties 1767- manufactured goods- china, led, paint, glass, paper, tea
- colonists saw tax as interference after being rules by salutary neglect for 100s of years
- Boston Massacre 1770- colonists riot against taxes on imports
- GB station 600 troops in Boston from Sept 1768
- riots every Thurs on market fay- boycott GB goods
- Hutchinson's house ransacked (civilian governor, loyal to GB)
- guards of customs house fire on protest crowd when they threw snowballs at them
- 5 dead
- no taxation without representation, glorious cause
- townshend duties/stamp act repealed- years of calm 1770-73
- Committees of Correspondence set up 1771 by Sam Adams- communication between colonies w/o GB aware- letters, news swapping
- by 1774 all but 2 of the 13 colonies had one
- Tea Act 1773- tax on tea to help EIC
- light tax but colonists smuggled tea out of principle
- Boston Tea Party 1773- Dartmouth, Eleanor, Beaver arrive in Boston harbour Dec 1773 loaded with tea
- 16th Dec- 60 Sons of Liberty board ships, sink 342 chests of tea worth £10,000
- Sons of Liberty led by Sam/John Adams
- point of no return

Coercive Acts 1774 and their impact

- acts:
- murder trials moved to GB to avoid bias
- Boston harbour closed until tea debt paid
- Hutchinson replaced with General Gage, governor can appoint/dismiss officials
- revised colonial charter- religious freedoms in Quebec
- assembly houses dissolved but kept meeting in secret- Continental Congress formed
- first met in Philadelphia 5th Sept 1774
- 13 delegates
- called upon Massachusetts to arm for defence
- defied GB law by meeting
- committees of safety set up to coordinate actions
- galvanised anti-GB feeling
- aimed at isolating Boston but failed- united the colonies
- Committees of Correspondence strengthened
- other states began protesting
- GB controls Boston under Gage but not in control of all Massachusetts
- 4000 troops in Boston
- open rebellion declared in New England/Boston
- Feb 1775- Massachusetts declared in open rebellion

13 colonies

New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia

13 colonies founded

17th-18th centuries