Townshend Acts and the Boston Massacre Prelude

Townshend, known as "Champagne Charley," leads Parliament to pass the Townshend Acts in $1767$ ; aims to curb colonial resistance with new taxes.
Core provision: light import duty on glass, white lead, paper, paint, and tea; an indirect customs duty payable at American ports.
Debate over internal vs external taxes: Townshend treats this as external, but colonists see it as taxation without representation.
Revenue intended to pay salaries of royal governors and judges in America; seen by colonists as a way to enchain colonial self-government.
Tea remains a focal point: about $10^6$ colonists drink tea daily, making the tax especially irksome.

Nonimportation agreements revived in response, but less effective than during the Stamp Act period.
London’s Townshend taxes intensify colonial fears about crown control; the “pocketbook” aspect (salaries) heightens suspicion.
A London measure (suspending the New York Assembly in $1767$ ) for defying the Quartering Act adds to colonial resentment.
A growth in smuggling, especially for tea, undermines the revenue goals and signals popular resistance.

Smuggling increases as cheap tea becomes available; colonists resist taxes by circumventing customs.
Prosperity in the colonies makes revenue costs less salient to many, dampening immediate outrage over the tax's existence.

In $1768$ , Britain lands two regiments in Boston to restore order; soldiers described as drunken and profane by locals.
Colonists resent and taunt the soldiers as "redcoats" or "bloody backs," heightening animosity and sense of occupation.

A crowd of about $60$ townspeople attacks a squad of about $10$ redcoats.
At least one redcoat is hit during the confrontation, signaling a deadly escalation yet to unfold.