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The "Intolerable Acts" were the name given to five laws that were designed as punishment of the American colonies by King George III and Parliament. They were enacted in 1774.

(See below and the related links for information about each of the acts.)

  • Boston Port Act
  • Administration of Justice Act
  • Massachusetts Government Act
  • Quartering Act- Forced the colonists to house "quarter" British troops.
  • Quebec Act

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The Intolerable Acts (or Coercive Acts), were passed after the Boston Tea Party, the 1773 act by radical colonists who broke into three East India Company tea ships and destroyed 342 chests of tea. (This was done to protest the Tea Act of 1773.) Enraged, the British Parliament instituted the five Coercive Acts to punish the mutinous colonists. The colonists, however, were even more angered by the new acts, which stripped the colonist of many freedoms and replaced them with limitations.

  • The Boston Port Bill - June 1, 1774. Closed Boston Harbor to all but British ships until the cost of the Tea Party tea was repaid.
  • The Quartering Act - March 24, 1765. Forced colonists to house and feed the British troops.
  • The Administration of Justice Act - May 20, 1774. British Officials could not be tried in colonial courts for crimes. They would be taken back to Britain and have their trials there.
  • Massachusetts Government Act - May 20, 1774. The British Governor was in charge of Boston, and the colony had no more self-government.
  • The Quebec Act - May 20, 1774, the Canadian borders became off limits to the colonies of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Virginia. The province of Quebec was enlarged southward into the western frontiers.

A series of punitive laws were passed by the British Parliament following the Boston Tea party in 1774. American Patriots referred to these as the Intolerable Acts. Three of these were the Stamp Act of 1765, the Townshend Acts of 1767, and the Declaratory Act of 1766.
The Intolerable Acts were a series of laws sponsored by British Prime Minister Lord North and enacted in 1774 in response to the Boston Tea Party. The laws were these:
  • Impartial Administration of Justice Act, which allowed the royal governor of a colony to move trials to other colonies or even to England if he feared that juries in those colonies wouldn't judge a case fairly
  • Massachusetts Bay Regulating Act made all law officers subject to appointment by the royal governor and banned all town meetings that didn't have approval of the royal governor
  • Boston Port Act, which closed the port of Boston until the price of the dumped tea was recovered, moved the capital of Massachusetts to Salem, and made Marblehead the official port of entry for the Massachusetts colony.
  • Quartering Act, which allowed royal troops to stay in houses or empty buildings if barracks were not available
  • Quebec Act, which granted civil government and religious freedom to Catholics living in Quebec.

These Acts were the harshest so far of all the Acts passed by Parliament. The closing of Boston's port alone would cost the colony (and the American colonies as a whole) a ton of money. The Regulating Act was aimed at curtailing revolutionary activities. The Quartering Act angered colonists who didn't want soldiers (especially Redcoats) in their houses. And the Quebec Act was a direct insult to Americans, who had been denied the same sorts of rights that the Quebec residents now got.

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Norris Bernhard

Lvl 10
3y ago

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