Proclamation of 1763-Stamp Act Crisit

1. 1763-1765
Path to Revolution

2. Britain’s Growing
National Debt
1754
£75 million
1763
£137 million

4. “Great Britain protects
America; America is bound to
yield obedience.”
-George Grenville, 1763
Orders in Council of 1763
• Intended to crack down on smuggling; created vice-admiralty
courts
Proclamation of 1763
• Prevented white settlement west of the Appalachians;
“forever reserved to the Indians”
• Increased the number of British troops in the American
colonies

6. Taxing the Colonies
Revenue Act of 1764 (Sugar Act)
• Aimed to prevent smuggling of sugar/molasses out of the Spanish
& Dutch islands in the West Indies
• Merchant ship’s cargo is now subject to seizure and confiscation
by British customs commissioner
Currency Act of 1764
• Colonial paper money could no longer be used; only hard coin
could be used to pay taxes and settle private debts
• The colonies were experiencing a post-war depression and hard
coin was scarce—bad timing

7. “British subjects are governed only agreeable to laws to
which [they] themselves have in some way consented.”
The Rights of Colonies Examined, Stephen Hopkins, 1764
“Those who are governed at the
will…of others, and whose property
may be taken from them by taxes,
or otherwise, without their own
consent, and against their will, are
in the miserable condition of
slaves.”

8. “No taxation without
representation”
vs.
“Virtual Representation”

9. STAMP ACT OF 1765
*1st direct tax of colonists
• Taxation of all legal papers,
newspapers, pamphlets,
cards, etc.
• Citizens in England had
already been paying stamp
taxes
• Colonist respond by
protesting, refusal to use the
stamps, riots, stamp-burning,
and harassing colonial stamp
distributors and tax
collectors

10. “They grew by your neglect of
them… the blood of those sons of
liberty to recoil within them…
And remember I this day told
you so, the same spirit of
freedom which actuated that
people at first, will accompany
them still.”
Isaac Barre, 1765

11. Thomas Hutchinson
Francis Bernard
Andrew Oliver
Peter Oliver
“ROYALIST FACTION”

12. “POPULAR
FACTION”
James Otis, Jr.
• Argued against writs of assistance
• Turned the public against “Royalist
Faction”
Samuel Adams
• Assumed leadership of the Stamp Act
resistance
• Member of multiple Boston Caucus
clubs
• Met with the Loyal Nine, who
together with Adams form the Sons of
Liberty

14. W H AT D O
Y O U S E E
G O I N G O N
H E R E ?

15. • Resistance to the Stamp
Act spread to other
colonies
– Patrick Henry, Virginia
Resolves, May 1765
– Stamp Act Congress –
October 1765 (first
show of unified
resistance)
– Economic boycott
– On November 1, only
Georgia implemented
the tax; all other tax
collectors had resigned

17. REPEAL OF THE STAMP ACT
Declaratory Act of 1766
“his Majesty [has] the sole and exclusive right of
imposing duties and taxes…in the colonies”
“…full power and authority to make laws and
statutes… in all cases whatsoever.”