Purpose for Reading:
What was the Quartering Act?
What was the Stamp Act?
How could these acts contribute to tension between the colonists and the British?
QUARTERING ACT
Document 1: The Quartering Act, background information
Americans noticed another law passed by Parliament in 1765. Called the Quartering Act, this law ordered colonial assemblies to provide British troops with quarters, or housing. The colonists were also told to furnish the soldiers with “candles, firing, bedding, cooking utensils, salt, vinegar, and beer or cider”
Of course, providing for the soldiers cost money. New Jersey professed that the new law was “as much an Act for laying taxes” on the colonists as the Stamp Act. New Yorkers asked why they should pay to keep troops in their colony. After all, they said, the soldiers just took up space and did nothing.
In 1767, the New York assembly decided not to vote any funds for “salt, vinegar and liquor.” The British government reacted by refusing to let the assembly meet until it agreed to obey the Quartering Act. Once again, tempers began to rise on both sides of the Atlantic.
Document 2: The Quartering Act, 1765
Whereas doubts have been entertained whether troops can be quartered otherwise then in barracks (buildings used to house soldiers), and whereas it may frequently happen from the situation of such barracks that, if troops should be quartered therein they would not be station where their presence may be necessary and required.
Be it therefore enacted by the King’s Most Excellent Majesty…that, in such cases, it shall be lawful for the persons who now are, authorized by law, in any of the provinces within His Majesty’s dominions in North America, to cause any officers or soldiers in His Masjesty’s service to be quartered in such a manner as is now directed by law where no barracks are provided by the colonies.
STAMP ACT
Document 3: The Stamp Act, background information
Nobody likes to pay taxes. In England, people had just protested over a tax on cider. But the British government was having problems with its budget; it needed money. Foreign wars had left England with big bills to pay. The British thought the colonies should help pay some of those bills, especially the ones from the French and Indian War.
People in America started to get nervous and angry. The colonists kept talking about Magna Carta and English rights. They said Englishmen had the right to vote on their own taxes. They expected that same right. But since no colonists served in Parliament, no colonists got to vote on taxes. The colonists complained that they were being taxed without being represented. They said, “no taxation without representation.” That meant they wanted to vote on their own taxes, in their own assemblies, as they had been doing for the last one hundred and twenty years.
But King George and his ministers were stubborn. They wanted to show the colonies who was boss. So they created more taxes.
It was the Stamp Tax (passed in 1765) that enraged most Americans. The colonists were supposed to buy a British stamp for every piece of paper they used. That meant every sheet of newspaper, every document, every playing card—everything.
Document 4: The Stamp Act, 1765
AN ACT for granting and applying certain stamp duties, and other duties, in the British colonies and in America, towards further defraying (lowering) the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the colonies;
And whereas it is just and necessary that provision be made for raising a further revenue within your majesty's dominions in America toward defraying the said expenses; we, your majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of Great Britain, in Parliament assembled, have therefore resolved to give and grant unto your majesty the several rates and duties hereinafter mentioned;
