Highlands Ranch High School - Mr. Sedivy
Highlands Ranch, Colorado

- World History -
Colonial America and
The American Revolution

Problems in Colonial America

The Stamp Act and Sugar Act

The Stamp Act and Sugar Act lowered the tax, but now it was enforced. This also put an end to the profitable smuggling of the colonists. Colonists rioted and boycotted.

Left: Tarring and feathering of a British exciseman by a Liberty Tree.
Right: A tax collector being tarred and feathered in 1774.

Tarring and feathering, a cruel but rarely fatal chastisement, was used on officials who collected London-imposed duties. It was also widely practiced by the more radical colonists against their fellow colonists who were reluctant to take up arms against the British. Liberty trees and Liberty Poles were named or erected as symbols of resistance by the Sons of Liberty, radical colonists who instigated and led violent agitation against the Stamp Acts. Such public events served both to encourage the radicals' sympathizers, and to cow their opponents.

Left: By 1765 British propaganda had even reached the breakfast table.
Right: A parade in New York City protesting the Stamp Act.

Revenue stamps had to be purchased with almost any printed materials, whether it was a deck of cards, or a college diploma. Many colonists protested the Stamp Act in raucous parades. Such demonstratoins often degenerated into mobs running stamp agents out of town or even destroying their homes.

Boston Massacre in 1770

Engraving of the Boston Massacre made by Paul Revere as a memorial to the
five victims of the shooting. Click the art to view the entire engraving.

Threatened with clubs and taunted by jeers, the British redcoats fired into a heckling mob at Boston's "Bloody Massacre." When the smoke and confusion cleared, five Bostonians were dead or dying. John Adams, a lawyer (and future President), helped win acquittal for six of the soldiers, but his cousin, Sam Adams, a patriot leader, called the incident a "plot to massacre the inhabitants of Boston" and used it to rouse fellow colonists to rebel.

Boston's Bloody Massacre, March 5, 1770

An eyewitness account of what happened:
"A number of persons, to the amount of thirty or forty, mostly boys and youngsters, who assembled ... near the sentry at the Custom-house door, damned him, and bid him fire and be damned; and some snow ball were throwed ... I saw a party of soldiers come from the main guard, and draw themselves up ... the people still continued in the street, crying, 'Fire, fire, and be damned,' and hove some more snow balls, whereupon I heard a musket go off, and in the space of two or three seconds, I heard the word 'fire' given ... and instantly the soldiers fired one after another."

Boston Tea Party in 1773

NATHANIEL CURRIER: The Boston Tea Party

During the Boston Tea Pary, patriots disguised as Mohawk Indians, heaved 342 chests of tea overboard from three British ships. Although the lithograph shows the tea party taking place during the day, it actually occurred at night. The tide was out and the water was so shallow that tea piled up in mounds higher than the boat decks.

"A Society of Patriotic Ladies at Edenton in North Carolina."
Cartoon appearing in a London magazine in March 1775

The proclamation that the women are signing reads: "We, the Ladies of Edenton do hereby Solemnly Engage not to Conform to that Pernicious Custon of drinking tea, or that we the aforesaid Ladies will not promote the Wear of any Manufacture from England until such time that all Acts which tend to Enslave this our Native country shall be repealed."

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