My parents are downstairs having a conversation about the new act passed by Britain. Britain has just passed an act taxing people and making them buy stamps for their printed and mailed goods. They are not very happy about this new tax because they have already been taxed by acts such as the Sugar Act and the Molasses Act. They’ve noticed that Britain has started to pass more taxes in the colonies lately. I was going to my room to go to bed when I overheard their conversation. “I can’t believe they’re making us pay taxes to send letters!” My mom exclaimed. “I’ve noticed that Britain has been creating many new taxes on the colonies. They have passed four new tax laws in the past fourteen years!” My dad said. “This is absurd! There needs to be a revolt against Britain for our freedom.” My mom stated. …show more content…
“I agree.
It doesn’t seem like the other colonists like these new taxes that are being passed by Britain. Maybe some of the other colonists have the same idea as us. Maybe they are thinking of working together to start a revolt too!” I heard my dad say. It was the end of my parents’ conversation so I decided to go to bed. I brushed my teeth with my bamboo toothbrush and went into my room. I blew the candle out and went to bed. I woke up early the next morning and went downstairs to eat breakfast. I heard my parents having another conversation about the new Stamp act and then when I walked downstairs their conversation stopped. “Good morning, Jimmy.” they both said. Then they continued on with their conversation as my mom cooked me oatmeal and bacon. The next day a group of colonists decided to start petitions and protests. “No taxation without representation!” they chanted. They didn’t like how Parliament taxed them without consent of a colonial legislature. Many colonists participated in this protest and fought to get the Stamp Act
removed. My parents wanted to fight too, so they created a Committee of Correspondence. A few local merchants joined their committee. They worked to petition and protest against the Stamp Act. Every day after my parents finished their work as merchants, they would meet up with the other members of their committee and think of ideas to use to help convince Britain to remove the taxes. Around a month later, my dad joined a new secret organization called the Sons of Liberty. They worked together and tried to get the Stamp Act removed. They tried to get rid of the Stamp Act with violence. They created many revolutions which often would involve violence and killing. They did whatever they had to do to cause an end to the Stamp Act. My dad didn’t like that there was killing involved but he was willing to do anything to fight for the rights of the 13 colonies. After some time, the people of the colonies began to notice that there was some success coming out of their violent revolutions. Some of the collectors of the stamp taxes would stop coming because they got scared of all the violence. They knew it was too dangerous to try to go collect the taxes because of the revolts and the violence. They didn’t want to get killed in a revolt so some of them didn’t come to collect the taxes. The colonies knew that their hard work was paying off when many of the tax collectors soon started resigning. Since most of the people working to collect the tax resigned from their jobs, colonists knew that they would have their victory. When my parents came home they were talking about how the Stamp Act was falling apart and how the colonies would get their way. “I’m so happy we won’t have stamp taxes anymore!” my mom said. “All of the colonists hard work finally payed off. We won.” my dad said.
1. What kinds of taxes did colonists pay according to Franklin? What did the interviewer seem to think of the colonists' tax burden? What disagreements existed between Franklin and his interviewer on the purpose, legality, and feasibility of the stamp tax.
After the Seven Years Way England was broke for she had spent more money needed to win the war. Also winning the war gave the colonist a “we can do it spirit”. However because England now was facing debt she decided to tax the colonies. One the first acts passed was the sugar act passed in 1764. This Act was the raise revenue in American colonies. What it did was lowered the tax from six penses to three penses per gallon on foreign molasses. Molasses is a product made by refining sugarcane, grapes or sugar beets into sugar. This upset the colonist because before the sugar act they didn’t have to pay the tax so even if it was lowered that meant nothing for they now had to pay for it. A year later, in 1765, the Britain’s passed another act known as the Stamp Act. The Stamp Act put a tax on stamped paper, publications, playing cards, etc. Because it was on all paper products in a way it affected everyone; from the papers for the upper class such as lawyers, publications such as newspapers for the middle class, and playing cards for the lower class for entertainment. Next, the Townshend Act passed by Charles Townshend. This came in 1767, which imposed taxes on colonial tea, lead, paint, paper, and glass which just like the Stamp Act affected all of the classes in the colonist in the Americas. Though this act was removed three years later in 1770, it still left colonists with a warning that conditions may become worse. Around 1773, parliament passed the Intolerable Acts one of those acts which affected taxation was the Bost...
One of the British actions that angered the colonists was the Stamp Act. The Stamp Act was passed in response to colonist's complaints about the Sugar Act. The Stamp Act, according to the chart in document one, forced colonists to buy a stamp and place it on all of their paper products. Colonists boycotted the Stamp Act and and formed the Committees of Correspondence and the Sons of Liberty. The Sons of Liberty, according to document two, tarred and feathered British officials and tax collectors to protest the Stamp A...
...no loyalty to the Crown now, in future conflicts, the colonists may turn against us and become our enemy. Radical action must be taken in order to regulate their behavior. They must recognize the royal authority.
Parliamentary taxes on the colonial peoples started with the Navigation Acts in 1660, but they were not an issue to the colonial people because they were too difficult to enforce. Then in 1764 the Stamp Act was passed, this was the first direct tax on the colonists. The Navigations Acts and the Sugar Acts of 1764, which was a tax placed on imported molasses and sugar, had not directly affected colonists, it affected the merchants. The merchants in hand would just raise prices. The stamp act was completely different. It said that any document or printed item would need to have a stamp placed on it purchased from the British government. The Stamp Act upset the colonist...
It was said, and is very true, that the British gave a lot to the colonists and we see such helpings as in the French and Indian war. The British gave up a lot of troops and money and numerous others in fighting that war, that the least that the colonist could do is to pay the taxes. Well they do have a good right to say that since they were the contributing factor in the colonists being safe from the French and Indians. The people, in the end should go about daily lives and pay the normal taxes, but you do have to draw the line somewhere. (DCT 1)
The Sons of Liberty answered the call. In an act of defiance, “a few dozen of the Sons of Liberty, opposing new British laws in the colonies, systematically dumped three shiploads of tea into Boston harbor. They acted to prevent the royal authorities from collecting taxes on that import” (Bell). This left Parliament infuriated. They did what they only knew how to do and put a tighter squeeze on the colonists.
In the 1760s King George III enacted the Sugar Act and the Stamp act to gain extra revenue from his colonies. King George III decided to enact heavier taxes to put money back into the empire that had been lost after the French and Indian War. This act levied heavy taxes on sugar imported from the West Indies. The Stamp Act in 1765 required that many items have a stamp to prove that the owner had payed for the taxes on the item. The problem the colonists had with it was that it increased the presence of English troops in the Colonies and they felt it was unneeded and only meant to put more control into Great Britain's hands.
Without colonial consent, the British started their bid to raise revenue with the Sugar Act of 1764 which increased duties colonists would have to pay on imports into America. When the Sugar Act failed, the Stamp Act of 1765 which required a stamp to be purchased with colonial products was enacted. This act angered the colonists to no limit and with these acts, the British Empire poked at the up to now very civil colonists. The passing of the oppressive Intolerable Acts that took away the colonists’ right to elected officials and Townshend Acts which taxed imports and allowed British troops without warrants to search colonist ships received a more aggravated response from the colonist that would end in a Revolution.
So the government decided to place taxes in. The Stamp Act was taxes, the Stamp Act it states, “Right and Power to lay Taxes and Impositions upon the inhabitants of this Colony.” It was hard for the merchant to trade because they had to pay taxes to people. In Zinn it said that merchants helped start a protest against the stamp act, “A political group in Boston called the Loyal Nine-merchants, distillers, shipowners, and master craftsmen who opposed the Stamp Act-organized a procession in August 1765 to protest it.” This shows that they didn’t like being tax. In “We are equally Free,” in said “Two years earlier, some merchants had organized boycotts against certain products imported from Great Britain (a strategy known as nonimportation) to resist British taxation measures aimed at the rebellious Americans.” As shown by this tried to protest
After the Great War for Empire, the British parliament began carrying out taxes on the colonists to help pay for the war. It was not long from the war that salutary neglect was brought on the colonies for an amount of time that gave the colonists a sense of independence and identity. A farmer had even wrote once: “Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world” (Doc H). They recognized themselves as different than the British, so when parliament began passing bills to tax without representation there was an outcry of mistreatment. Edmund Burke, a man from parliament, sympathized with the colonists: “Govern America as you govern an English town which happens not to be represented in Parl...
Even though the colonists resisted the Sugar Act, Britain issued another tax, the Stamp Act in March of 1765. The Stamp Act placed taxes on all legal documents from newspapers, pamphlets, licenses, legal documents and even playing...
The imperial tactics of the British Empire were exercised on the colonists through heavy taxes trade restrictions because of their mercantilist economy. The Stamp Act taxed the colonists directly on paper goods ranging from legal documents to newspapers. Colonists were perturbed because they did not receive representation in Parliament to prevent these acts from being passed or to decide where the tax money was spent. The colonists did not support taxation without representation. The Tea Act was also passed by Parliament to help lower the surplus of tea that was created by the financially troubled British East India Company. The colonists responded to this act by executing the Boston Tea Party which tossed all of the tea that was imported into the port of Boston. This precipitated the Boston Port Act which did not permit the colonists to import goods through this port. The colonists protested and refused all of these acts which helped stir the feelings of rebellion among the colonists. The British Mercantilist economy prevented the colonists from coin...
Assume for a moment that you are an American colonist who is attempting to break away from the imperialistic power of Great Britain. During the time of Great Britain’s reign over the colonies, you feel as though Great Britain has progressed into a mother country that is both unfair and untrustworthy to the colonists of America. Although there may be numerous explanations as to why the colonists transformed into revolutionaries against the mother country of Great Britain, there is one recognizable reason that drove the colonists towards independence. The colonists of America hated the implementation of taxes on the colonies, which drove the revolutionaries to act out against Great Britain. Some relevant ways the colonists approached their disgust with the taxes is through documents, events, and prominent key figures.
After the British signed the Quartering Act, anger filled the colonists: The British were taxing goods without the colonists’ input. “No taxation without representation,” became a common slogan for the colonists (Lukes 10). Stephen Johnson, an angry colonist, said, “Why not tax us for the light of the sun, the air we breathe and the ground we are buried in?” (Lukes 35).