-
British Parliament turns its attenetion to regulation the colonies in America.
-
To help pay for the war that just ended, the Parliament passed the Stamp Act, which required the colonists to pay taxes on printed papers and other items. It was the first tax that applied equally to all colonies. To the colonists it seemed that the Stamp Act is a flagrant denial of their rights as Britons. The Stamp Act caused many berserk protests and some of the stamp distributors were threatened and forced to resign.
-
The Declaratory Act asserted the Parliament rights to tax the colonies. The Parliament repealed the Stamp Act, but then they passed the Declaratory Act.
-
The Townshend Duties levied taxes on colonists for imports on tea, glass, paper, lead, and paint.
-
Resulting in 5 deaths, British troops in Boston fire into a crowd of angry colonists. Later the colonists called this event "the Boston Massacre," even though there were only a few deaths.
-
The Tea Act levied a tax that many colonists believed unfair, even though it lowered the price of tea. It even undercut the price of smuggled tea (a trade where many colonists participated as either sellers or buyers), which encouraged the colonists to buy the taxed tea.
-
Angry colonists protested the Tea Act by dumping more than three hundred chests of tea into the Boston Harbor.
-
This was also known as the Coercive Acts. This included the Boston Port Bill, which prohibited ships from loading and unloading in Boston until the city payed for damages from the destructions of the tea in December 1773.
-
-
-
The Second Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence. The document itself is not signed till August 2.