The Sugar Act, also known as the Revenue Act of 1764, was a law put in place by British parliaments. This act an d the first Revenue acts were passed by prime minister Sir George Grenville. He first tried to enforce an act in 1733 but it did not yield the results he expected. The Molasses Act of 1733 increased the tax on imported molasses, which made rum, and since Americans loved rum so much they found ways around the costly tariff. In actuality the act was simply an extension of the already existing yet weak Molasses Act. The Sugar Act imposed a tax on imported goods, like clay sugar, indigo, coffee, in the American colonies. Imported goods, goods that were not from the British territories, compromised British revenue. …show more content…
The British felt that the revenue expelled from America taxes annually was not doing enough to lessen the debt that the British inquired after the war. The purpose of these new acts was not to burden the American colonies but to raise more money for the British. Despite their intent the American colonies and the new England merchants felt as though they were unjustly being taxed but the Southern colonies showed little outrage. Then the Stamp Act followed and tension between the colonies and British parliament magnified, this was one of the few events that lead to the American Revolutionary War.
• Intolerable Acts
In 1773 British parliament passed the Tea Act. Each ship, carrying tea, that landed at Boston Harbor was meet by crowds of angry people who prevented them from unloading. They threatened them and protested that they return to England with their tea still in hand. When Boston protesters mounted tea transporting ships and dumped them into Boston’s harbor British parliament was furious. This declarative and historic moment is known as the …show more content…
He arrived in America in 1774 and rose to fame within a few years after his arrival. While living and working in Philadelphia during the 1775 Paine met with well know Dr. Ben Rush and convinced him he could write a pamphlet stating why the American colonies should separate and seek independence form the British. The following year in 1776 Paine published the 47 paged pamphlet titled Common Sense. As soon as it was published it sold like hot cakes, with more than 150,000 copies sold within three months. In the pamphlet he made several valid points mocking the British monarchy but in the simplest of ways. He wrote it to get Americans thinking about the ideas of Independence and detaching themselves from British rule. He mainly argued that the colonists need to put an end to British rule and praised the idea of a Republic government based on democracy. With quotes from the bible as the basis for his writing many American were convinced that his theories were right. He asked many “common sense” questions including; “Why should small England rule a growing America?” and “Why should America stand for such mistreatment by the British?”. The Northerners made it no secret that they sided with him. Following the pamphlets publication avid patriots like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams shot what they believed were extreme ideas