AMERICAN REVOLUTION | zachs-website

COERCIVE ACTS

Date enacted and repealed

Four of these acts were issued in direct response to the Boston Tea Party of 1774. It repealed in September 1774

Purpose

The Intolerable Acts were a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament after ther Boston Tea Party. One of its purposes was to punish the Massachusetts colonists for their defiance of boarding three British ships, dressed like indians throwing tea into the Boston Harbor, to protest against the Tea Act. It was a series of four acts established by the British government

Provisions

The Intolerable Acts included: The Boston Port Act, which closed the port of Boston until damages from the Boston Tea Party were paid; The Massachusetts Goverment Act, which restricted Massachusetts; The Administration of Justice Acts, which made British officials immune to criminal prosecution in Massachusetts; The Quartering Act, which required colonists to house and quarter British troops on demand ; and the fifth act, the Quebec Act, which extended freedom of worship to Catholics in Canada, as well as granting Canadians the continuation of their judicial system.

It also punished the colonists for what they did to the Boston Harbor. The British Parliment felt like the American colonists needed to be punished for going against the British in such a way that wasted millions of dollars.

Most Affected

The colonists were the most affected because they were really the purpose of these acts. They were being punished for the damage they did at the Boston Tea Party by destroying the Boston Harbor and ruined millions of dollars worth of tea in the Massachusetts Bay. Parliament hoped that the acts would cut Boston and New England off from the rest of the colonies and prevent unified resistance to British rule. They wanted the rest of the colonies to abandon Bostonians to British martial law.

Colonists responds

Many colonists saw the Acts as a violation to their constitutional rights and organized the First Continental Congress. They also created the Continental Association after Congress. This had an agreement to boycott British goods and to stop exporting goods to Great Britain. They also pledged to support Massachusetts in case of attack.

Colonists vs. British

The Coercive Act contributed to tensions between the colonists and the British by forcing the British Parliment to write an Act that would punish the american people for what they have done wrong to the British. This made the colonist angry in which they created the Continental congress which was a party that went against the British. These Intolerable Acts were one of the main reasons America had a Revolutionary War. This is when the colonies knew something had to be done about the Bristish and that they needed to put a stop to being governed by the British because it was hurting the colonies.

Videos

Citations

History.com Staff,"March 28, 1774: British Parliament adopts the Coersive Acts." A+E Networks.2009. October 29,2015
Countryman, Edward, "The American Revolution." Hill and Wang. New York. 1985. October 29,2015
Coming of the American Revolution: Bibliography

Ammerman, David. In The Common Cause: American Response to the Coercive Acts of 1774 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1974). October 29,2015
Coming of the American Revolution: Bibliography

Burnett, Edmund Cody. The Continental Congress. New York: Macmillan Company, 1941. October 29,2015
Brinkley, Alan. The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993. October 29, 2015

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Zach Shifflett