The Stamp Act

Samuel Adams

If Taxes are laid upon us in any shape without our having a legal Representation where they are laid, are we not reduced from the Character of free Subjects to the miserable State of tributary Slaves?

The Stamp Act, enacted in march 1765, was a tax imposed by the British Parliament on American colonists, requiring that almost everything from newspapers to playing cards to degrees be produced on stamped paper produced in London and carry an embossed revenue stamp. Almost every conceivable product made of paper was taxed and had to be paid in valid British currency, not in colonial paper money.

This act was imposed for “defraying the expenses of defending, protecting and securing” the colonies during the Seven Years’ War, sometimes described as the “first World War” due to its global nature. The American colonists did not accept this justification, for more importantly, it amounted to taxation without representation.

The Boston Tea Party

Samuel Adams:

We will not submit to any tax, nor become slaves. We will take up arms, and spend our last drop of blood before the King and Parliament shall impose on us, and settle crown offers in this country to dragoon us. The times were never better in Rome than when they had no king and were a free state; and as this is a great empire, we shall have it in our power to give laws to England.

Tea was a much more valuable commodity during the eighteenth century than it is today. It only grew in warm climates in far off lands, and had to be shipped thousands of miles to get to the American colonies. England retained a small tax on tea and granted a monopoly for selling tea to America to the East India Company. The Tea Act of 1773 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain to expand the British East India Company’s monopoly on the tea trade to all British Colonies, selling excess tea at a reduced price. Even though their tax was lower than what British citizens paid for their tea, the colonists wouldn’t stand for it.