Editing American Revolution (section)

===1767–1773: Townshend Acts and the Tea Act===
{{Main|Townshend Acts|Tea Act}}
{{Further|Crisis of 1772|Massachusetts Circular Letter|Boston Massacre|Boston Tea Party}}
[[File:Dickinson's_Letter_III_in_The_Pennsylvania_Chronicle.jpg|thumb|Letter III of [[John Dickinson]]'s ''[[Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania]]'', published in the ''[[Pennsylvania Chronicle]]'', December 1767]]
[[File:Destruction_of_the_schooner_Gaspé_in_the_waters_of_Rhode_Island_1772_(NYPL_b12349146-422875)_(cropped).jpg|thumb|On June 9, 1772, the [[Sons of Liberty]] [[Gaspee Affair|burned HMS ''Gaspee'']], a British customs schooner in [[Narragansett Bay]].]]
[[File:Boston_Tea_Party_w.jpg|thumb|The December 16, 1773 [[Boston Tea Party]], led by [[Samuel Adams]] and [[Sons of Liberty]], has become a mainstay of American patriotic lore.]]
In 1767, the [[Parliament of Great Britain|British Parliament]] passed the [[Townshend Acts]], which placed duties on several staple goods, including paper, glass, and tea, and established a Board of Customs in [[Boston]] to more rigorously execute trade regulations. Parliament's goal was not so much to collect revenue but to assert its authority over the colonies. The new taxes were enacted on the belief that Americans only objected to internal taxes and not to external taxes such as custom duties. However, in his widely read pamphlet, ''[[Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania]]'', [[John Dickinson]] argued against the constitutionality of the acts because their purpose was to raise revenue and not to regulate trade.<ref>Melvin I. Urofsky and Paul Finkelman, ''A March of Liberty: A Constitutional History of the United States'' (Oxford UP, 2002) v. 1 p. 52.</ref> Colonists responded to the taxes by organizing new boycotts of British goods. These boycotts were less effective, however, as the goods taxed by the Townshend Acts were widely used.

In February 1768, the Assembly of [[Massachusetts Bay Colony]] [[Massachusetts Circular Letter|issued a circular letter]] to the other colonies urging them to coordinate resistance. The governor dissolved the assembly when it refused to rescind the letter. Meanwhile, a riot broke out in Boston in June 1768 over the seizure of the sloop ''Liberty'', owned by [[John Hancock]], for alleged smuggling. Customs officials were forced to flee, prompting the British to deploy troops to Boston. A Boston town meeting declared that no obedience was due to parliamentary laws and called for the convening of a convention. A convention assembled but only issued a mild protest before dissolving itself. In January 1769, Parliament responded to the unrest by reactivating the [[Treason Act 1543]] which called for subjects outside the realm to face trials for treason in England. The governor of Massachusetts was instructed to collect evidence of said treason, and the threat caused widespread outrage, though it was not carried out.

On March 5, 1770, a large crowd gathered around a group of British soldiers on a Boston street. The crowd grew threatening, throwing snowballs, rocks, and debris at them. One soldier was clubbed and fell.<ref name="Hiller B. Zobel 1996">Hiller B. Zobel, ''The Boston Massacre'' (1996)</ref> There was no order to fire, but the soldiers panicked and fired into the crowd. They hit 11 people; three civilians died of wounds at the scene of the shooting, and two died shortly after. The event quickly came to be called the [[Boston Massacre]]. The soldiers were tried and acquitted (defended by [[John Adams]]), but the widespread descriptions soon began to turn colonial sentiment against the British. This accelerated the downward spiral in the relationship between Britain and the province of Massachusetts.<ref name="Hiller B. Zobel 1996"/>

A new ministry under [[Lord North]] came to power in 1770, and Parliament repealed most of the Townshend duties, except the tax on tea. This temporarily resolved the crisis, and the boycott of British goods largely ceased, with only the more radical patriots such as [[Samuel Adams]] continuing to agitate.{{citation needed|date=October 2019}}

In June 1772, American patriots, including [[John Brown (Rhode Island politician)|John Brown]], burned a British warship that had been vigorously enforcing unpopular trade regulations, in what became known as the [[Gaspee Affair|''Gaspee'' Affair]]. The affair was investigated for possible treason, but no action was taken.

In 1773, [[Hutchinson letters affair|private letters were published]] in which Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson claimed that the colonists could not enjoy all English liberties, and in which Lieutenant Governor [[Andrew Oliver]] called for the direct payment of colonial officials, which had been paid by local authorities. This would have reduced the influence of colonial representatives over their government. The letters' contents were used as evidence of a systematic plot against American rights, and discredited Hutchinson in the eyes of the people; the colonial Assembly petitioned for his recall. Benjamin Franklin, [[postmaster general]] for the colonies, acknowledged that he leaked the letters, which led to him being removed from his position.

In Boston, Samuel Adams set about creating new [[Committees of Correspondence]], which linked Patriots in all 13 colonies and eventually provided the framework for a rebel government. Virginia, the largest colony, set up its Committee of Correspondence in early 1773, on which Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson served.<ref>Greene and Pole (1994) chapters 22–24</ref> A total of about 7,000 to 8,000 Patriots served on these Committees; Loyalists were excluded. The committees became the leaders of the American resistance to British actions, and later largely determined the war effort at the state and local level. When the First Continental Congress decided to boycott British products, the colonial and local Committees took charge, examining merchant records and publishing the names of merchants who attempted to defy the boycott by importing British goods.<ref name="Mary Beth Norton 2001 pp 144">Mary Beth Norton et al., ''A People and a Nation'' (6th ed. 2001) vol 1 pp. 144–145
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Meanwhile, Parliament passed the [[Tea Act]] lowering the price of taxed tea exported to the colonies, to help the British [[East India Company]] undersell smuggled untaxed Dutch tea. Special consignees were appointed to sell the tea to bypass colonial merchants. The act was opposed by those who resisted the taxes and also by smugglers who stood to lose business.{{citation needed|date=August 2016}} In every colony demonstrators warned merchants not to bring in tea that included the hated new tax. In most instances, the consignees were forced by the Americans to resign and the tea was turned back, but Massachusetts governor Hutchinson refused to allow Boston merchants to give in to pressure.

A town meeting in Boston determined that the tea would not be landed, and ignored a demand from the governor to disperse. On December 16, 1773, a group of men, led by Samuel Adams and dressed to evoke the appearance of Indigenous people, boarded the ships of the East India Company and dumped £10,000 worth of tea from their holds (approximately £636,000 in 2008) into [[Boston Harbor]]. Decades later, this event became known as the [[Boston Tea Party]] and remains a significant part of American patriotic lore.<ref name="Carp 2010 p.">{{cite book|last=Carp|first=B.L.|title=Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party and the Making of America|publisher=Yale University Press|year=2010|isbn=978-0300168457|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=upd6d3UDfTgC|access-date=May 29, 2023}}</ref>{{page needed|date=May 2023}}