Causes of American Revolution Lesson #3 New Taxes and Tensions.

Causes of American Revolution

Lesson #3

New Taxes and Tensions

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*Review

• By 1766, Parliament had passed two tax laws that angered the American colonists…

-What were the two tax laws passed?

-What are three ways colonists protested these laws?

-What eventually happened to both of these laws?

*Today, we will discuss how the British responded to the protesting from the Americans.

I. Townshend Acts

• June 1767-tax on everyday items like tea, glass, lead, paper, and paint

-writs of assistance passed to enforce Townshend Acts

*allowed tax collectors to go into any American’s house at any

time to look for smuggled goods

• Colonists respond by boycotting

• Colonial legislatures sent letters to Parliament explaining these laws violated their rights as Englishmen

• Sons of Liberty continue to attack tax collectors

• British soldiers are sent to Boston, Massachusetts to restore order in October 1768.

II. The Boston Massacre

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• March 5, 1770• Soldiers who were sent to enforce the Townshend Acts in

Boston were on patrol when they were confronted by a group of Bostonians

*Bostonians cursed and threw snowballs at soldiers

*Mob of Bostonians saw event, began to gather around• Soldiers fired into unarmed crowd, killing five civilians• Sons of Liberty and Sam Adams use propaganda to make

event seem worse than it really was….

*Called event “Boston Massacre”

* Americans began to despise the British soldiers in the colonies

III. The Tea Act

• Passed by Parliament in May 1773• This was an extension on the Townshend Acts, and was made

to help a British company that had an excess of 18 million pounds of tea

*Made the colonists buy tea from the British East India Tea Company

• American colonists upset because this would hurt local tea merchants

• Boston Tea Party occurs on December 16, 1773

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IV. Intolerable (Coercive) Acts

• Laws passed in 1774 to punish the colonists for all the protesting of the British taxes*main idea of acts was to tell the colonists they had to listen to the British government “in all cases, whatsoever”

• Colonists felt these laws violated their natural rights*right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness

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