American Revolution Dbq

During the 1760s, there were many laws and actions made by the British that the colonist were not too pleased with. Some of the main laws that the colonist tried to resist and go without following were the Stamp Act, and the Intolerable Acts. Some of the main actions taken that the colonist did not like were the Boston Massacre, and the Import Drop. These actions pushed the colonist to a whole new level, they wanted out.
The Stamp Act was passed by the British Parliament on March 22, 1765 and it was made to force American colonist to pay extra taxes. Great Britain knew that the colonist did not like paying taxes and were planning to resist, so this act required printed materials, paper and all legal documents to have a stamp on them. Not only did the documents require a stamp but the British Parliament placed taxes on both the legal documents and the stamps which forced the colonist to pay double taxes. Of course the colonist were upset with this act and wanted to come up with a plan to get rid of

it. So one of the main leaders Patrick Henry decided to present a speech to the Virginia House of Burgesses on May 1765. Patrick’s speech expressed the law “no taxation without representation,” meaning that since the colonist did not elect a representative to rule over them, they should not be getting taxed.
Although Patrick’s speech became very well known, the colonist did not believe that was good enough to get their point across.

So the colonist went a little overboard and through all the tea on the British ships overboard. The British Parliament then decided to pass the Intolerable Acts, which were a series of laws passed to punish the colonist for the Boston Tea Party. The Intolerable Acts were the port of Boston was closed until the colonists paid for the destroyed tea. The royal governor could have decided to ban town meetings, British officials accused of crimes would stand trial in Britain instead of in Massachusetts. The last act was the Quartering Act which allowed the British troops to live in unoccupied colonial buildings and homes. These acts were enacted to restore authority in its colonies. The colonist were the most angry about the Quartering Act because they felt that there was no reason for a soldier to be stationed in the colonies after the war

ended.
The Intolerable Acts lead to even more disaster in the colonies. Since the Intolerable Acts were enacted, the value of the British imports had dropped a tremendous amount in pounds of sterling. This made the leaders and people in each colony even more for two very important reasons. The colonists were mad because not only did the value of the British imports drop, but the colonists still had to pay taxes on all imported goods. This is now known as inflation where as the value of goods go down and the prices go up. In response to the new taxes and the value drop on imported goods, the colonies again decided to protest and discourage the purchase of British imports.
Eventually after all of this taxing on the goods and the protests against the new taxes, Great Britain and the colonists rooting for independence, also known as Patriots had a “little, big fight”. This fight was named the Boston Massacre which occurred on March 5, 1770 and it was a huge fight but only a few people were killed during. It started with a crowd in Boston violently protesting against new taxes, which lead to the British soldiers shooting into the crowd. Statistics say that eleven people were shot but only five of those people died. Paul Revere’s patriotic propaganda called it a massacre to stir up feelings against the government. His reasoning was to gain patriot soldiers in the war for independence.
All this to say there were many actions taken by the British Parliament which encouraged the colonies to react in many violent ways. As the actions went back and forth between the colonies and the parliament, they later caused the American Revolution. Finally the colonies received what they had spent years fighting for