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Townshend Act
A series of British acts passed at the beginning of 1767 and relating to the British American colonies in North America. -
Charles Townshed
The acts are named after Charles Townshed, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who proposed the program. -
Purpose
The purpose of the Townshend Acts was to raise the revenue in the colonies to pay the salaries of governors and judges so that they would remain loyal to Great Britain. -
Background
After the seven year the British Empire was deep in debt. To help pay the cost British Parliament decided to levy new taxes on the colonies of the British Empire -
Towards The Beginning
The first of the Townshend Acts, sometimes simply known as the Townshend Act, was a Revenue Act of 1767. This act represented the Chatham ministry's new approach for generating tax revenue in the American colonies after the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766. -
12 Essays
The most influential colonial response to the Townshend Acts was a series of twelve essays by John Dickerson entitled "Letters from a farmer in Pennsylvania", which began in December 1767 -
Boycotts
Merchants in the colonies, some of them smugglers, organized economic boycotts to put pressure on their British counterparts to work for repeal of the Townshend Acts. -
Boston Involved
The Townshend Acts were met with resistance in the colonies, prompting the occupation of Boston by British troops in 1768, which eventually resulted in the Boston Massacre of 1770. -
American Board of Customs
To better collect the new taxes from the new colonies they made the Commissioners of Customs Acts. -
Repeal
March 5th 1770 the same day as the boston massacre the House of Commons called for a repeal of the Townshend Act