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American Revolution

COVERCIVE ACTS

Brief Description: 

Coercive Acts, also called Intolerable acts, are formed by Boston Port Act (June 1, 1774), Quartering Act (June 2, 1774), Administration of Justice Act (May 20, 1774), Massachusetts Government Act (May 20, 1774), Quebec Acts(1774) (United Sates History)

-Date: March, 1774 (Purvis. 457)

Background/purpose :

Coercive Acts are partly Retaliation for such incidents as the Gaspee affair and the Boston port Act, designed as a direct reply to the Tea Party, but also partly as the enunciation of a more vigorous colonial policy. (closed the harbor to all shipping until to the town had indemnified the East India Company for the destruction of its tea and assured the king of its future loyalty, pending which Marblehead was made the port of entry.)

Provisions/synopsis of Coercive Acts:

  1. Boston Port Act: closed the port of Boston until the East India was compensated for their tea.

  2. Massachusetts Government Act : suspended the popular election of councilors, replaced the councilors with directly appointed officials, as well as directly appointed judges.

  3. Quebec Act: extended the Quebec province along the western borders of the colonies, thus sealing them off from Western expansion, further ensured those colonies would be open to Catholic settlers.(History Central)

  4. Administration of Justice Act: protecting British officials charged with capital offenses during law enforcement by allowing them to go to England or another colony for trial.(Encyclopedia Britannica)

  5. Quartering Act: required the colonies to house British soldiers in barracks provided by the colonies. If the barracks were too small to house all the soldiers, then localities were to accommodate the soldiers in local inns, livery stables, ale houses, victualling houses, and the houses of sellers of wine. Should there still be soldiers without accommodation after all such publick houses were filled, the colonies were then required to take, hire and make fit for the reception of his Majesty’s forces, such and so many uninhabited houses, outhouses, barns, or other buildings as shall be necessary. (Johnson P305)

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

Effects of colonist: 

1.Quebec Act:

a) The French elite (seigneurs and clergy) were pleased as the seigneurs were allowed to keep their seigneurial system and allowed to sit on the appointed council.

b) The Catholic Church was pleased because they could again collect tithes and their freedom to worship was guaranteed.

c) The habitant farmers (censitaires) disliked the fact that they would again have to pay seigneurial dues and church tithes.

d) The British merchants disliked French civil laws and the British refusal to establish an elected legislative assembly. (history central)

 

2. Administration of Justice Act:

The colonists called it the "Murder Act" because it seemed to them as if British officials could get away with murdering members of rebellious groups without fear of jail or hanging. No such thing ever occurred, but the capacity for it angered the rebels, nonetheless.(Ketz)

 

3. Boston Port Act:

The Boston Port Act intentionally passed to punish all the residents of Massachusetts rather than those responsible for the destruction and economic loss during the Tea Party Protest. (Ketz) 

The Boston Port Act of 1774 did much more than just anger the colonists of Boston, Massachusetts; it continued the movement of colonial unity in respect to their view of England, and colonial unification.  The immediate consequences of the essential closing of the port of Boston were the economic implications that served as latent functions of the Act. Without any imports or exports of goods in the port, the commercial enterprises of merchants were deeply affected. This economic blow to the colonists caused a great uproar. This uproar was not just felt within the patriot, or anti-parliament camps, but within the pockets of the loyalists as well. Everyone living in the Massachusetts Bay area was severely economically affected by this act. Furthermore, the use of the port by the British military gave a sense of dominance and imposition that the colonists were not fond of. (United States History)

 

4.Quartering Act: Not supported by every group because of the large cost of armies and traditional fear of standing armies (United States History)

 

5. The Massachusetts Government Act: The Massachusetts Government Act of 1774 is one of the five Coercive, or Intolerable Acts, that lead to dissent in the American colonies and to the creation of the Declaration of Rights and Grievances in 1774. (United States History)

Respond of Colonists: 

  1. Boston Port Act: The Boston Committee of Correspondence immediately called for a meeting in Faneuil Hall. There, letters were sent out to other colonies asking for support. The letter stated: “the single question then, is whether you consider Boston as now suffering a common cause, and sensibly feel and resent the injury and affront.” (Foner and John)

  2. Massachusetts Government Act And Administration of Justice Act: The other colonies sympathized with the people of Massachusetts and many deplored all of the Intolerable Acts including the Massachusetts Government Act. The British had revoked the colony's 1691 charter, had appointed a Military Governor (General Thomas Gage) and had effectively imposed martial law, in which a military government suspended civil law. (United States History)

  3. Quebec Act: The Americans were angry because the Quebec Act stopped their westward expansion and allowed French Roman Catholic institutions in Quebec.(History Central)

  4. Quartering Acts: In Massachusetts, where barracks already existed on an island from which soldiers had no hope of keeping the peace in a city riled by the Townshend Revenue Acts, British officers followed the Quartering Act’s injunction to quarter their soldiers in public places, not in private homes. Within these constraints, their only option was to pitch tents on Boston Common. The soldiers, living cheek by jowl with riled Patriots, were soon involved in street brawls and then the Boston Massacre of 1770, during which not only five rock-throwing colonial rioters were killed but any residual trust between Bostonians and the resident Redcoats. That breach would never be healed in the New England port city, and the British soldiers stayed in Boston until George Washington drove them out with the Continental Army in 1776.(Bourgoin P704)

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

Consequences: 

The Coercive Acts backfired. Far from isolating Massachusetts, they made it a martyr in the eyes of residents of other colonies and sparked new resistance up and down the coast. Colonial legislatures passed a series of resolve  supporting Massachusetts. Women’s groups mobilized to extend the boycotts of British goods and to create substitutes for the tea, textiles, and other commodities they are shunning. In Edenton, North Carolina, fifty-one women signed an agreement in Oct. 1774 declaring their “sincere adherence” to the anti-British resolutions of their provincial assembly and proclaiming their duty to do “every things as far as lies in our power”  to support the “publick good” (Brinkley P108-109)

The Intolerable Acts represented an attempt to reimpose strict British control over the American colonies, but, after 10 years of vacillation, the decision to be firm had come too late. Rather than cowing Massachusetts and separating it from the other colonies, the oppressive measures became the justification for convening the First Continental Congress later in 1774.(Encyclopedia Britannica)

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