History Brief: The Stamp Act is Implemented

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Transcript:

The twelve years following the conclusion of the French and Indian War were vital in creating an independent drive in the colonies that ultimately led to the outbreak of the American Revolution. Why did the colonists become so jaded with their British overlords?

British officials in Parliament had decided that the American colonies needed to pay their share in taxes. In the early 1760s, the average British citizen was taxed 25 times more than the average colonist. When Parliament began attempting to exert influence on the colonists, many Americans began turning to smuggling (importing or exporting without paying lawful customs charges or duties).

In 1764, Parliament passed the Sugar Act in an attempt to curb smuggling and encourage colonists to purchase British goods. This marked the first time colonists' taxes were sent directly to the British Treasury. The act also set up courts to place alleged smugglers on trial. Judges appointed by the British government would determine a person's guilt or innocence, rather than a jury of colonists. This led to James Otis' famous phrase, "Taxation without representation is tyranny."

Then came the Stamp Act, expected to raise 45,000 pounds annually, far short of the 325,000 needed to fund British troops stationed in the colonies. Citizens in England already paid the Stamp Tax, and it provided nearly half of Britain's revenue. The new law stated that colonists would pay taxes on anything paper; wills, playing cards, diplomas, mortgages, etc., and the paper materials had to be produced on officially stamped paper from Britain. Violators would be tried in admiralty court, which again meant no jury.

Most colonists opposed the act because they sent no representatives of their own to Parliament and felt that they had no say over the matter, or how the money was spent. They argued that Parliament was violating the charters it had made with each of the 13 colonial governments. England also sent an army of stamp collectors to enforce the law (with the colonists expected to cover these expenses as well).

Angry mobs greeted the stamp distributors across the colonies and riots broke out. In New York, colonists smashed the home of a British officer who announced he would shove the stamps down American throats with the point of his sword. The governor became so frightened that he turned all of the stamps over to an angry mob who promptly burned them.

Around the colonies, several British officials were tarred and feathered, while others were placed in cages and spat on. Life-size dummies of stamp distributors and British leaders were hung in effigy (a crude figure or dummy representing a hated person or group). No distributor was safe.

Nowhere was the rioting worse than in Boston. Colonists stormed the home of stamp distributer Andrew Oliver, stealing furniture, smashing windows, ripping wallpaper from walls, and even chopping down fruit trees in his yard. They stole clothes from the household and removed all of the books from the home, building a huge bonfire out of them. He resigned the following day.

Lt. Governor Thomas Hutchinson, a royal appointee, and his family were evicted from their home, and most of their property, including valuable historical documents, was destroyed.

While citizen colonists were resorting to violent means of protest, the colonial leaders were seeking a more organized and respectable approach.

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