Before the Townshend Acts
Before the Townshend Acts
Before the Townshend Acts were passed, the colonists were being controlled by the British government in other ways, such as the Quartering Act and the Stamp Act.
- The Quartering Act was passed in 1765,requiring all Americans in the colonies to house, or "quarter" the British soldiers.
- The colonists were outraged. This affected the occurrence of the Boston Massacre.
- The Boston Massacre was when five British soldiers were standing guard outside of a building in Boston and they got in a fight with a group of American colonists.
- The colonists' anger was directed towards the British soldiers because of the recent Quartering Act that forced the colonists to house the soldiers.
- Although five Americans were killed and no soldiers were, the American colonists propagandized the event in order to make it seem like the British soldiers were murderers, hence the word "massacre" in the title.
- Stamp Act.
- Similar to the Townshend Acts - a tax that the colonists had to pay.
- More indirect. Required all papers, cards, and playing cards to have the official stamp of England on them.
- The stamps cost money.
- American colonists bought their paper with the stamps already on it.
- It was the paper sellers that had to pay the tax, so the Stamp Act was less infuriating than the Townshend Acts.