| Britain
tried to raise additional revenue by the Townshend Duties
passed by Parliament in 1767. They used the distinction that
the colonies had made during the Stamp Act debate about internal
and external taxes. Duties were placed on colonial imports
of lead, glass, paper, and tea. The money collected on these
imports was used to pay the salaries of British officials
in America. They hoped to make these officials more loyal
to Britain and more independent of colonial legislatures.
Colonists
objected to the tax without representation waged a campaign
of nonimportation and tarring
and feathering. Finally in 1770, Parliament
gave up and repealed all the duties except for the tax on
tea. At first colonists accepted this compromise and often
evaded the tax by smuggling.
But
when Parliament allowed the near bankrupt East India Company,
the English monopoly on the trade of Indian goods, to sell
its tea directly to the colonies without paying the usual
import duties in England, colonists were outraged. This meant
that the East India Company could sell tea more cheaply than
the local merchants, who had to pay high duties on the tea
they imported. All the old opposition to the tax returned.
In New York and Boston the company's ships were not allowed
to land.
In
Boston a group of colonists dressed as Indians showed their
opposition by dumping company tea into the harbor. Colonial
resistance had resulted in damage to private property and
Britain felt that it could not let this episode (later known
as the Boston Tea Party) go unpunished. The result was the
Five Intolerable Acts.
Part
of These United Colonies: The
American War of Independence
exhibit |
