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Period: to
Timeline of Revenue Acts
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Sugar Act
cut the duty on foreign molasses from 6 to 3 pence per gallon, retained a high duty on foreign refined sugar, and prohibited the importation of all foreign rum. Obvious retaliation from colonists. British responded by giving the colonists another act. -
The Stamp Act
imposed a tax on all papers and official documents in the American colonies. The Act resulted in violent protests in America and the colonists argued that there should be "No Taxation without Representation" and that it went against the British constitution to be forced to pay a tax to which they had not agreed through representation in Parliament. After several months of protests and boycotts which damaged British trade, it was repealed on 18 March 1766. -
Quartering Act
Stated that Great Britain would house its soldiers in American barracks and public houses. Colonists resented the Quartering Act as unjust taxation, as it required colonial legislatures to pay to house the troops. References to the Quartering Act appear in the Declaration of Independence and in the U.S. Constitution. Parliament suspended the Province of New York's Governor and legislature in 1767 and 1769. -
Townshend Acts
a series of measures, passed by the British Parliament in 1767, that taxed goods imported to the American colonies. But American colonists, who had no representation in Parliament, saw the Acts as an abuse of power. Colonists organized boycotts of British goods to pressure Parliament to repeal the Townshend Acts. Sending naval and military officials to Boston to enforce the Acts, setting the stage for the Boston Massacre in 1770. -
Intolerable Acts
A series of punitive laws were passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea Party. A show of unity, convening the First Continental Congress to discuss and negotiate a unified approach to the British. Great Britain decided to use brute force to deal with the rebellious American colonies, particularly the colony of Massachusetts.