Apr 5 1764 The Sugar Act
The Revenue Act of 1764, also known as the Sugar Act, was the first tax on the American colonies imposed by the British Parliament.
Its purpose was to raise revenue through the colonial customs service and to give customs agents more power and latitude with respect to executing seizures and enforcing customs law. That the Act came from an external body rather than a colonial legislature alarmed a handful of colonial leaders in Boston who held that the Act violated their “British privileges”. Their principle complaint was against taxation without representation. Just as important, however, were the Act’s profound implications for the colonial judicial system, for the Revenue Act of 1764 allowed British officers to try colonists who violated the new duties at a new Vice-Admiralty court in Halifax, Nova Scotia, thus depriving the colonists of their right to trial by a jury of their peers.
Source: The Manhattan Rare Book Company Added by: bob armour The Sugar Act reduced the rate of tax on molasses from six pence to three pence per gallon, while Grenville took measures that the duty be strictly enforced. The act also listed more foreign goods to be taxed including sugar, certain wines, coffee, pimiento, cambric and printed calico, and further, regulated the export of lumber and iron. The enforced tax on molasses caused the almost immediate decline in the rum industry in the colonies. The combined effect of the new duties was to sharply reduce the trade with Madeira, the Azores, the Canary Islands, and the French West Indies (Guadelupe, Martinique and Santo Domingo (now Haiti)), all important destination ports for lumber, flour, cheese, and assorted farm products. The situation disrupted the colonial economy by reducing the markets to which the colonies could sell, and the amount of currency available to them for the purchase of British manufactured goods.
Source: USHistory.org Added by: Lindsay Johnson The Sugar Act was passed by Parliament on April 5, 1764, and it arrived in the colonies at a time of economic depression. It was an indirect tax, although the colonists were well informed of its presence. A good part of the reason was that a significant portion of the colonial economy during the Seven Years War was involved with supplying food and supplies to the British Army. Colonials, however, especially those affected directly as merchants and shippers, assumed that the highly visible new tax program was the major culprit. As protests against the Sugar Act developed, it was the economic impact rather than the constitutional issue of taxation without representation, that was the main focus for the Americans.
New England especially suffered economic losses from the Sugar Act. The stricter enforcement made smuggling more dangerous and risky, and the profit margin on rum, so the colonists argued, was too small to support any tax. Forced to increase their prices, many Americans, it was feared, would be priced out of the market. The British West Indies, on the other hand, now had undivided access to colonial exports and with supply well exceeding demand the islands prospered with their reduced expenses while all New Englanders saw the revenue from their exports decrease. The foreign West Indies had also been the primary colonial source for specie, and as the reserves of specie were depleted the soundness of colonial currency was threatened.
Source: Wikipedia Added by: Lindsay Johnson
Stamp Act 1765
The Stamp Act of 1765 was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain which imposed a direct tax on the British colonies in America and required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper produced in London, carrying an embossed revenue stamp. Printed materials included legal documents, magazines, playing cards, newspapers, and many other types of paper used throughout the colonies, and it had to be paid in British currency, not in colonial paper money. The purpose of the tax was to pay for British military troops stationed in the American colonies after the French and Indian War, but the colonists had never feared a French invasion to begin with, and they contended that they had already paid their share of the war expenses. They suggested that it was actually a matter of British patronage to surplus British officers and career soldiers who should be paid by London. The Stamp Act was very unpopular among colonists.Wikipedia
Long title:An act for granting and applying certain stamp duties, and other duties, in the British colonies and plantations in America, towards further defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the same, and for amending such parts of the several acts of parliament relating to the trade and revenues of the said colonies and plantations, as direct the manner of determining and recovering the penalties and forfeitures therein mentioned.
Citation:5 George III, c. 12
Introduced by:The Right Honourable George Grenville, MP, Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Leader of the House of Commons
Territorial extent:British America and the British West Indies
Royal assent:22 March 1765
Commencement:1 November 1765
Repealed:18 March 1766
Repealed by:Act Repealing the Stamp Act 1766
Relates to:Declaratory Act
The Stamp Act of 1765 was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain which imposed a direct tax on the British colonies in America and required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper produced in London, carrying an embossed revenue stamp. Printed materials included legal documents, magazines, playing cards, newspapers, and many other types of paper used throughout the colonies, and it had to be paid in British currency, not in colonial paper money. The purpose of the tax was to pay for British military troops stationed in the American colonies after the French and Indian War, but the colonists had never feared a French invasion to begin with, and they contended that they had already paid their share of the war expenses. They suggested that it was actually a matter of British patronage to surplus British officers and career soldiers who should be paid by London. The Stamp Act was very unpopular among colonists.Wikipedia
Long title:An act for granting and applying certain stamp duties, and other duties, in the British colonies and plantations in America, towards further defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the same, and for amending such parts of the several acts of parliament relating to the trade and revenues of the said colonies and plantations, as direct the manner of determining and recovering the penalties and forfeitures therein mentioned.
Citation:5 George III, c. 12
Introduced by:The Right Honourable George Grenville, MP, Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Leader of the House of Commons
Territorial extent:British America and the British West Indies
Royal assent:22 March 1765
Commencement:1 November 1765
Repealed:18 March 1766
Repealed by:Act Repealing the Stamp Act 1766
Relates to:Declaratory Act
The Quartering Act of 1765
Posted on March 26, 2015, by ciniva
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This illustration of a British soldier practicing a military drill is from “A Plan of Discipline for the Use of the Norfolk [England] Militia,” published in 1768. Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation collection.
On March 24, 1765, the British Parliament passed the Quartering Act, one of a series of measures primarily aimed at raising revenue from the British colonies in America. Although the Quartering Act did not provoke the immediate and sometimes violent protests that opposed the Stamp Act, it did prove to be a source of contention between some colonies and Great Britain during the years leading up to the Revolution.
During the Seven Years (or French and Indian) War, British military commanders in North America often found it difficult to persuade the assemblies of some uncooperative colonies to pay for the costs of housing and provisioning the soldiers sent over to fight the French. Once the war had ended, the king’s advisors decided that some British troops should remain in North America, in theory to defend the colonies. Since the war had left Britain with a large national debt, it also was especially important that the colonies should pay their share of the costs of keeping these men in America.
Contrary to popular belief, the Quartering Act of 1765 did not require that colonists bivouac soldiers in their private homes. The act did require colonial governments to provide and pay for feeding and sheltering any troops stationed in their colony. If enough barracks were not made available, then soldiers could be housed in inns, stables, outbuildings, uninhabited houses, or private homes that sold wine or alcohol. The act did not provoke widespread or violent opposition, partly because significant numbers of British troops were stationed in only a few colonies and also because most colonies managed to evade fully complying with its provisions. To a certain extent the act was overshadowed by the response to the Stamp Act, also passed in 1765.
Nevertheless many American colonists saw the Quartering Act as one more way Parliament was attempting to tax them without their consent. Others suspected that the real purpose of keeping a small standing army in America – stationed in coastal cities, not on the frontier – was not for defense, but to enforce new British policies and taxes. The Quartering Act did become a divisive issue in 1766, however, after 1,500 British soldiers disembarked at New York City. The New York Provincial Assembly refused to provide funds to cover the costs of feeding and housing these men as required by the law. In response, the British Parliament voted to suspend the Provincial Assembly until it complied with the act. As it turned out, the suspension was never put into effect since the New York Assembly later agreed to allocate revenue to cover some of the costs of quartering these troops. The Quartering Act of 1765 was largely circumvented by most colonies during the years before the Revolution.
American colonists resented and opposed the Quartering Act of 1765, not because it meant they had to house British soldiers in their homes, but because they were being taxed to pay for provisions and barracks for the army – a standing army that they thought was unnecessary during peacetime and an army that they feared might be used against them.
Posted on March 26, 2015, by ciniva
Back to Blog Listing
This illustration of a British soldier practicing a military drill is from “A Plan of Discipline for the Use of the Norfolk [England] Militia,” published in 1768. Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation collection.
On March 24, 1765, the British Parliament passed the Quartering Act, one of a series of measures primarily aimed at raising revenue from the British colonies in America. Although the Quartering Act did not provoke the immediate and sometimes violent protests that opposed the Stamp Act, it did prove to be a source of contention between some colonies and Great Britain during the years leading up to the Revolution.
During the Seven Years (or French and Indian) War, British military commanders in North America often found it difficult to persuade the assemblies of some uncooperative colonies to pay for the costs of housing and provisioning the soldiers sent over to fight the French. Once the war had ended, the king’s advisors decided that some British troops should remain in North America, in theory to defend the colonies. Since the war had left Britain with a large national debt, it also was especially important that the colonies should pay their share of the costs of keeping these men in America.
Contrary to popular belief, the Quartering Act of 1765 did not require that colonists bivouac soldiers in their private homes. The act did require colonial governments to provide and pay for feeding and sheltering any troops stationed in their colony. If enough barracks were not made available, then soldiers could be housed in inns, stables, outbuildings, uninhabited houses, or private homes that sold wine or alcohol. The act did not provoke widespread or violent opposition, partly because significant numbers of British troops were stationed in only a few colonies and also because most colonies managed to evade fully complying with its provisions. To a certain extent the act was overshadowed by the response to the Stamp Act, also passed in 1765.
Nevertheless many American colonists saw the Quartering Act as one more way Parliament was attempting to tax them without their consent. Others suspected that the real purpose of keeping a small standing army in America – stationed in coastal cities, not on the frontier – was not for defense, but to enforce new British policies and taxes. The Quartering Act did become a divisive issue in 1766, however, after 1,500 British soldiers disembarked at New York City. The New York Provincial Assembly refused to provide funds to cover the costs of feeding and housing these men as required by the law. In response, the British Parliament voted to suspend the Provincial Assembly until it complied with the act. As it turned out, the suspension was never put into effect since the New York Assembly later agreed to allocate revenue to cover some of the costs of quartering these troops. The Quartering Act of 1765 was largely circumvented by most colonies during the years before the Revolution.
American colonists resented and opposed the Quartering Act of 1765, not because it meant they had to house British soldiers in their homes, but because they were being taxed to pay for provisions and barracks for the army – a standing army that they thought was unnecessary during peacetime and an army that they feared might be used against them.