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Navigaton Acts
The purpose of the act was to ensure only Britain benefited from trade with the colonies. Some of the facets of the law included colonial merchants only being able to use British ships to send goods to England, and preventing colonists from sending certain commodities such as sugar and tobacco, outside of the area that made up England's empire. While colonists at first accepted the laws, they came to resent the restrictions, leading to some of them illegally trading with other nations. -
Proclamation of 1763
The purpose of the act was to prevent fighting akin to the French/Indian War, and protect Britain's interest in trading. The law put a halt to the colonists' westward expansion by setting the Appalachian Mountains as the temporary western border of the colonies. It angered those who had shares in land companies, and those who had already bought land west of the Appalachian Mountains because Britain ignored their land claims. -
Sugar Act
The act's purpose was to gain more revenue in the form of a tax on the colonies in order to pay troop expenses and the debt following the French/Indian War. In addition to lowereing the tax on imported molasses in hopes that more colonists would pay it rather than turning to acts of smuggling, the act also let officers seize goods from smugglers without going to court. The act angered many colonists because it was based on the colonists being taxed without their consent. -
Stamp Act
The purpose of the law was to gain more revenue for Britain. All colonists opposed the law because Parliament had interfered with their affairs directly, and without their consent. Organizations such as the Sons of Liberty protested the act in Boston. A petition was formed by delegates at the Stamp Act Congress stating the colonies could only be taxed by their own local assemblies. Soon, so many colonial merchants had boycotted goods from Britain that Britain repealed the law in 1766. -
Declaratory Act
The purpose of the law was to declare that Parliament had the right and make decisions for the colonies "in all cases". Many of the colonists saw the act as a political victory, while a smaller amount of others were outraged because they thought it implied there would be more taxes on the way. Nevertheless, none of the colonists ever explicitly called for the act to be repealed. -
Townshend Acts
The purpose of the Townshend Acts, similar to the both the Sugar and Stamp Acts, was to gain more revenue for Britain. Parliament, aware of the resentment the colonists contained for the internal taxes put into effect by the Stamp Act, made the Townshend Acts only put taxes on imported goods such as glass, lead, paints, paper, and tea. The laws were still met with anger from the colonists, leading to British troops being sent to enforce them, resulting in incidents such as the Boston Massacre. -
Tea Act
The act's purpose was to save the British East India Company from financial ruin by allowing the company sole control of the trade of tea in the colonies. The law angered colonial merchants and colonists, who refused to allow the company's ships to unload, and called for new boycotts. On December 16, 1773, the Boston Sons of Liberty boarded one of the company's ships located in Boston Harbor, and threw all 343 chests of the tea overboard in an event now known as the Boston Tea Party. -
Coercive Acts (Intolerable Acts)
The purpose of the acts was for Briatin to regain tighter control of the colonies, which it had lost with the colonists' constant opposition to the laws Parliament had been passing. The laws were a way for Britain to punish the colonists for the Boston Tea Party incident. Colonists resented these new laws, which they dubbed the Intolerable Acts due to their harshness, because they limited both their political and geographical freedom. -
Quebec Act
The purpose of the act was to institue a permanent administration in Canada to replace the temporary government created in the Proclamation of 1763. Just as with the other acts recently passed by Parliament, colonists (considering it to be one of the Intolerable Acts) were opposed to it, because the act invalidated many claims of the coastal colonies by extending the boundaries of the province of Quebec all the way down to the Ohio River in the south.
