You are King George III of England. After fighting
seven years with France, you have just won the
French and Indian War. However, even though your
county of England has won the war, you are now
faced with some BIG problems. The war cost a lot
of money and England has large debt as a result.
Your empire has grown larger as a result of the new
terroritory that you have gained from winning. You
now have to keep an army in the colonies to protect
your newly won lands. Keeping an army is expensive,
and you are already in debt.
How are you, as King, going to
solve these problems?
Possible solutions
• Make the French pay
• Raise taxes on people in
England
• Tax the colonists
• Enforce mercantilism
more strictly
• Give up the newly won
lands
Taxes
• What taxes might the British impose on
the American colonists?
• What problems may arise from any
taxation on the American colonists?
• What problems may arise in England if
American colonists were taxed?
Parliamentary Actions
and
Colonial Reaction
• In order to determine what actions the
British Parliament took against the
colonist and how the colonists
responded you are going to look at the
following Acts: Proclamation of 1763,
Stamp Act, Quartering Act, Townshend
Act, Tea Act, Intolerable/Coercive Act,
and Sugar Act.
Major laws imposed by
the British Government
Proclamation of 1763
Stamp Act
Quartering Act
Sugar Act
Townshend Act
Tea Act
Intolerable/Coercive Act
What the Law Said
How the Colonists
reacted
Navigation Acts 1650-1763
• Restricted colonial trade,
manufacturing and shipping
to other countries
• Colonists smuggle and
disregard Acts
• Salutary Neglect: Britain
has allowed the colonies to
prosper under their
protection with little or no
control
Stamp Act 1765
• Any item that was made of
paper required a stamped tax
payment to be made.
Including newspapers, books,
pamphlets, legal documents,
licenses, diplomas, and
playing cards and more.
• Colonists argue “taxation
with representation”,
Colonists, viewed the Stamp
Act crisis as a violation of
their rights and privileges as
British subjects . Stamp Act
is repealed
Quartering Act 1765
•
•
•
•
The Quartering Act of 1765 was
intended to help the British
defray the cost of maintaining
troops in America.
The Act required that the
colonists had to supply British
troops with food, munitions and
barracks.
The Act was bitterly resented
by the Americans, particularly
because the troops were used to
enforce Parliament’s new tax
policies in the
Colonial assemblies vote to
refuse to supply British soldiers
Sugar Act 1764
• Tax placed on sugar
and molasses
because colonists
are British subjects
• Colonist protest and
smuggle sugar and
molasses
Townshend Acts 1767
• Tax on glass, lead,
paper, paint and tea
• Colonist smuggle
goods, boycott
British goods, and
fight with British
troops
Tea Act 1773
• Tax on tea, it is a
plan to bail out East
India Tea company
through tax on tea
• Boston Tea Party
and smuggling of tea
Intolerable Acts 1774
• Response to Tea Party,
assembly and town
meetings dissolved, port
of Boston closed,and
British tried in England
• Militias form, colonies
send representatives to
1st Continental Congress
meets and starts
colonial boycott
• How did the British actions affect
colonial America?
• How did the colonial reactions influence
British actions?
• Which British Act do you feel was the
most unfair to the colonists?
• In your opinion, were the colonists’
reactions effective?