Intolerable Acts

BRITAIN'S ACTIONS

When news of the Boston Tea Party reached England, angry British leaders acted. Early in 1774, Parliament passed a series of new laws meant to punish and isolate troublemaking Boston from the other colonies. Called the Coercive Acts, they consisted of four legislative measures:

The Boston Port Act fined Boston for the tea destroyed in the Boston Tea Party and closed the harbor until the fines were paid. (Most of Boston’s food arrived by ship. By closing the harbor, Britain hoped to starve the city into accepting British rule.)
The Administration of Justice Act authorized the governor to send British soldiers arrested for murder in the colonies to Britain for trial.
The Quartering Act required colonists to feed and house British troops in their homes.
The Massachusetts Government Act put the colony under control of a British Governor. Local elected government closed down. Town meetings were banned. Colonists lost the right to govern themselves.

This 1777 print, entitled "The able doctor, or America swallowing the bitter draught," shows a British minister forcing tea and imperial rule down America's throat. Why do you think "America" is represented as a Native American man?

COLONISTS' REACTIONS

Americans re-named these the “Intolerable Acts,” thereby claiming that they would never tolerate, or accept, such laws.

Instead of isolating Boston from the other North American colonies, the Intolerable Acts had the opposite result. Delegates from all of the colonies except Georgia gathered in Philadelphia for the First Continental Congress in the autumn of 1774. The purpose of the Congress was to show support for Boston and to work out a unified approach to the British.

Nevertheless, divisions plagued the colonies. Though the congress agreed to implement a boycott of British imported goods, the northern and southern colonies argued fiercely over a measure to ban all exports to Britain. The southern colonies were economically dependent on revenues from their exports of raw materials such as cotton and rice to the motherland. The delegates ultimately reached a compromise, agreeing that all exports to Britain, Ireland, and the British West Indies would be banned after a year, starting in September 1775. This would give the southern colonies some time to prepare for the economic impact of the export ban.

On October 14, 1774, the First Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Colonial Rights and Grievances, which:

denied Parliament’s right to tax the colonies and
lambasted the British for stationing troops in Boston
characterized the Intolerable Acts as an assault on colonial liberties,
rejected British attempts to control representative government, and
requested that the colonies prepare their militias.

Despite its harsh tone, the declaration did affirm Parliament’s right to regulate trade, and did not challenge colonial loyalty to the British monarch, King George III.

Although some of the more radical delegates, particularly Samuel Adams, already believed that war was inevitable, the First Continental Congress did not seek or declare independence from Britain at this time. The delegates agreed to meet again the following May if relations with Britain did not improve.

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