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Friday, April 30, 2010

The resistance the colonists had against the taxed took three different types:

- Intellectual Protests
- Economic Boycotts
- Violent Intimidation

Protests for their rights were influenced by many ideas, one of them being the Enlightenment. This movement was initiated at Europe long before the 18th century. The Enlighten believed that human reason could be used to combat ignorance, superstition, and tyranny and to build a better world; John Locke being one of them.

People thought that theses were three basic rights: life, liberty & property. They considered a government to be good if they protected these three rights.

One of the Intellectual Protest was led by Patrick Henry in which he drafted a document called “Virginia Resolves” in which he declared that only colonists had the right to tax themselves.

During this time, a group of people that defended their rights of taxing were called Sons of Liberty, being Samuel Adams one of them. They led groups for public protests. The angry crowds assaulted anyone who was with the King or anyone who collected taxes. Tax Collectors suffered the Tarring and Feathering assaults, in which colonist poured tar and then feathered the man; sometimes they also poured hot tea in their mouth. By the end of 1765, there was no one to collect who collected the taxes.

To describe the Economic protests, the colonies agreed on abstaining from buying anything that came from England; this action is called a boycott. English merchants’ economy became endangered because they lived from exporting their products to the colonists.

During this time, women became very important, they were called Daughters of Liberty and they became much respected. Their job was to make homespun clothes.

The three combinations of protests did work; the Parliament repelled the Stamp Act in 1766. But the Parliament also emitted another act in which they stated that they had the right to tax the colony because they were part of the British Empire.



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Tuesday, April 27, 2010

New Taxes Upset Colonists
Because of the war that was taking place in America, the British were running out of money. In order to gather more money, the British government decided to levy taxes on the colonists saying that they were the ones who were being protected.
In order to gather the missing money, they decided to impose the Quartering, Sugar and Stamp Act.

The Quartering Act: This act, permited any British soldier to take over any building they wanted, making the colonists that were there to leave the building. It also permited them to be housed in any of the colonist's home. All of this was made to make it easy for British men to keep track of colonists. According to another source "Under the terms of this legislation, each colonial assembly was directed to provide for the basic needs of soldiers stationed within its borders. Specified items included bedding, cooking utensils, firewood, beer or cider and candles."

The Sugar Act: It lowered duty in molasses to avoid smugglers and enforced everyone to pay the duties. According to Wikipedia, the colonists had to pay six pence per gallon of molasses, but it didn't work out becuase of colonial evasion.



The Stamp Act: Tax was imposed on every written thing that colonist would buy. This would include: playing cards, cards, newspapers, books. The written paper must have had the royal stamp for it to be legal. The tax had to be paid with valid British currency, not with colonial paper.

Colonists were mad against the British Government, not beacuase they had to pay taxes, but becuase the Parliament that were imposing them all theses taxes had no colonist in their own representation. They thought that is wasnt fair that someone that didn't know what lifestyle they had came put of nowhere and imposed to give money to the British Government. Colonists would pay taxes they AGREED with the Parliament on paying, any other way, they wouldn't.

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