Tea Act, Coercive Acts, 1st Continental Congress

When was the Tea Act?

1773

Purpose of Tea Act

• To save EIC - allowed it to export tea directly to colonies and retail it there, using its own agents

• Abolished British duties on company’s tea, but Americans had to continue paying Townshend duty

• Tea so cheap that it undercut tea legitimately traded by American merchants + smuggled tea

Colonists’ response to Tea Act

• Would not buy until duty lifted

• Bitterly attacked in newspapers and pamphlets

• Tea sent to Philadelphia and New York rejected, and in all major ports tea agents forced to resign

When was the Boston Tea Party

16 Dec. 1773

Boston Tea Party events

• Sons of Liberty men, directed by Sam Adams, board 3 tea ships in Boston harbour

• Dump 342 tea chests (£10,000 worth of tea) in the harbour

• No one reacts, even the troops stationed at Castle William (island)

When were the Coercive Acts?

1774

On which colony were the Coercive (intolerable) Acts imposed?

Massachusetts

Boston Port Act

Closed Boston to all trade until paid for the tea destroyed (Boston Tea Party)

Massachusetts Government Act

Royal governor could appoint and remove most civil officials, no longer allowed town meetings (without permission)

Impartial Administration of Justice Act

Murder trials transferred to Britain

Quartering Act

Broader authority to military commanders to house troops

When was the Quebec Act?

June 1774

Terms of the Quebec Act

• Authority placed in hands of a governor in Quebec without an elected assembly

• Limited trial by jury

• Extension of Quebec boundary south and west to the Ohio and Mississippi → to check western expansion?

13 May 1774 what happens?

Boston Town Meeting asks all colonies to boycott British goods until Coercive Acts are repealed

5 June 1774 what happens?

Boston Committee of Correspondence → Solemn League and Covenant → commits itself to boycott, not all merchants commit however

What do committees of correspondence do?

Disseminate propaganda

May 1774 Virginia House of Burgesses

Pass resolution condemning the Coercive Acts, dissolved by governor Dunmore but many of burgesses meet and decide to adopt a non-importation agreement, non-consumption of tea, + denounced Boston Port Act → proposed intercontinental congress

1774 summer what do some colonies do

7 colonies other than Virginia (where governors forbidden assemblies to meet) follow example and set up extra-legal convention

1775 what happens → newspapers

42 colonial newspaper, all but 2 or 3 radical

Jefferson 1774

‘A summary of the rights of British America’ - British Parliament no right to exercise authority over Americans

1774-5 John Adams

In the ‘Boston Gazette’ Jan 1774-April 1775 → 12 essays here