The Stamp Act

  

 On February 6th, 1765 George Grenville came up in Parliament to offer the fifty-five resolutions of his Stamp Bill. The bill was passed on February 17, approved by the Lords on March 8th and two weeks later ordered in effect by the King. The Stamp Act was Parliament's first serious tried to defend governmental authority over the colonies.

  The Stamp Act required the colonist to pay tax on anything that was printed. For example: newspaper, books, court documents, contracts and land deeds. The colonists protested about Stamp Act because they claimed that it threaten their liberty and property. They also thought if they accept that Act they would have to accept more. Colonist arguments puzzled the British because colonies wanted representation and the British saw it as selfish because most British pay taxes and couldn't vote. That’s why the colonies were known as "Selfish and Narrow-Minded".

    Colonist protested in three ways: 

-the intellectual protest: wrote pamphlets, gave speeches, sermons and resolutions.

-economic boycotts: the women started to make their own cloth and no importation agreements.

-in violent intimidation: they started to destroy houses and the tarring and feathering to tax collectors.

 All these ways combined to back down the British, which later on they accomplished. The Parliament repel the Stamp Act in 1766.