On March 22, 1765 a law called The Stamp Act was imposed by the British Parliament. The Stamp Act was an act of the British Parliament that exacted revenue from the American colonies by imposing a tax on newspapers and legal or commercial documents. The Stamp Act was made because money needed to be raised for military defenses, for the British troops that were staying in the colonies, and the British wanted governmental authority over the colonies. This made the colonists very infuriated because they went to the new world to hopefully have a selfgovernment and most olonists violently reacted towards it.
Also, the Stamp Act was not approved by colonial legislatures which made the colonists even more mad. The Stamp Act made the colonists so mad that they started riots in the towns, the Stamp Act Riots, and went to war with the British Government, Revolutionary War. All of the New England, Middle, and Southern colonies were all effected equally by the Stamp Act. Together the colonists rebelled against the unnecessary tax made by the British. Overall, the Stamp Act was very unnecessary and that made the colonists very, very angry with the British
Parliament. During the Stamp Act there were many people that were against the idea of it. Some of these people were colonial leaders and the members of the Sons and Daughters of Liberty. The Stamp Act impacted everyone in the colonies equally because the colonists had to pay in silver and gold coins for stamps, which were scarce items in the colonies. Most colonists staged protests,tarred and feathered, mobbed stamp officers, verbally and physically abused, and destroyed property. Meetings, demonstrations, boycotts, circulars, and petitions were made and held by colonists.
The Stamp Act started to offend younger students and colonists started to burn Stamp Act documents. Colonists viewed the Stamp Act as a “knowledge tax” on the right to write and read freely. Even though the Stamp Act was pretty brutal you definitely didn’t want to counterfeit or sell unstamped documents or you would either die or get fined. After everything that happened, the Stamp Act was one of the worst laws and wreaked havoc throughout the colonies. Although, there were many people that were against the Stamp Act, there were till some people supporting it. These people were tax collectors and stamp agents, but they were treated horribly. The tax collectors tried to enforce the act but didn’t succeed in doing so.
Many of the colonists hurt the tax collectors, verbally and physically. Colonists tarred and feathered tax collectors and poured hot tea down their throats, scalding them. Tarring and feathering is when you would take a person and cover them in hot black tar, then poor feathers all over the person and publicly humiliate them. Most ax collectors quit their jobs afraid of what might come next from the colonists. As a result, families didn’t have the financial support they needed, making it hard to live. Colonists threatened tax collectors and stamp agents by taking dummies, representing the tax collectors and stamp agents, and either hanging or burning them. If this were to go any further, it would be impossible, and if not really hard, to maintain order in the colonies. The British Parliament had to take action, so in 1776 the repeal of the Stamp Act took place.
The repeal of the Stamp Act was a relief to all colonists, for it was the day that the Stamp Act was abolished in the American colonies. The person that made this possible was Benjamin Franklin, the colonial agent for Pennsylvania. Franklin brought the quasi rebellion to the attention of the House of Commons. He stated that any attempts to enforce the Stamp Act by using troops might set off a full scale rebellion, which called for the repeal. After that, the quasi rebellion was brought to the attention of the House of Lords, then they called for a repeal against the Act.
Due to major boycotts, that were damaging British trade, the British Parliament repealed the Stamp Act. This then led to the passing of the Declaratory Act that same year. This declaration stated that the Parliament had complete authority over the American colonies like they did in Britain. The Repealing of the Stamp Act was a relief, but a doorway into another part of America’s history. In conclusion, the Stamp Act was the Act that set off a chain of events in the American Colonies.
The Stamp Act was an unnecessary tax made by the British Parliament, that made certain colonists very infuriated. There were many people that were against the Stamp Act and did things to prove it. There were still people that were supporting the Act at the beginning, but were being verbally and physically abused by other colonists. All of this was brought to the attention of important colonial groups and then repealed by the British Parliament shortly after. Even after the Stamp Act was repealed on the eighteenth of May, 1776 many things were still pretty bad, but those conflicts were resolved, not always quick and easy, but eventually.
