The Intolerable/Coercive Acts
After the Boston Tea Party, Parliament responded quickly. In 1774, Parliament passed the Coercive Acts, also known as the Intolerable Acts. These consisted of four acts:
- The Boston Port Act, March 25, 1774 – This banned the loading and unloading of any ships in Boston Harbor.
- The Massachusetts Government Act, May 20, 1774 – This act restructured the Massachusetts government by abolishing its charter that was in place since 1691. By doing so, Massachusetts became a Crown Colony, giving all power to an appointed official, the Royal Military Governor, Thomas Gage, who was now under the Crown’s control.
- Administration of Justice Act, May 20, 1774 – This act gave the Governor the right to move a trial to another Colony or Great Britain. This took away the right to a fair trial by your peers, a right guaranteed by the Magna Carta.
- The Quartering Act, June 2, 1774 - This was the only Act to apply to all of the Colonies. Soldiers needed to be billeted close to the areas in which they operated. Soldiers were to be housed in “uninhabited houses, out-houses, barns, or other buildings,” yet they were to be quartered at the colonists’ expense.
Distress of the ColoniesAlthough the Coercive Acts were meant to punish Massachusetts and send a warning to the other colonies, they had the opposite effect. The other colonies came to Massachusetts's defense. This was the first time that all of the colonies were unified. Unlike the previous acts, the Stamp and Townshend Acts, the Coercive Acts weren’t repealed. These policies were the spark that ignited public opinion against Great Britain and set the colonists on the road to revolution.
In September of 1774, the first Continental Congress, as it has come to be known, was formed to discuss common grievances. The delegates met in Carpenter’s Hall in Philadelphia. The delegates didn’t want to renounce Parliament, and
The First Continental Congress Independence wasn’t even talked about. They discussed the Coercive Acts and found them tyrannical. The Congress adopted the Articles of Association on October 20th and set a deadline for the Coercive Acts to be repealed by December 1, 1774. If they weren’t repealed, there would be an embargo of exports to Great Britain. On October 26, grievances were drafted in the form of a formal petition to King George III.
Next Month: Part 3- Lexington and Concord, and the Overthrow of New York's Colonial Government
