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Example research essay topic: Townshend Acts Samuel Adams - 1,198 words

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... upper British troops in America but also to provide salaries for British officials who would the collect taxes. Such monies would make these tax collectors financially independent of other colonial assemblies. This attempt was to raise revenue through trade tariffs and to circumvent American control of imperial officials which greatly angered many colonial officials.

John Dickinson argued in his influential Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania (1767) that the Townshend duties were not for the regulation of trade... but for the single purpose of levying money upon us. Bolstered by such arguments, the colonists opposed the taxes, not with the violence of 1765, which ended with the repeal of the Stamp Act, but with a new boycott of British goods, the Second No importation Movement. (Encarta, 2 k 1) The Americans unwavering resistance to the Townshend Acts resulted in economic and moral upheaval. The colonial economy before 1754 allowed the colonists to earn enough from their exports to pay for their imports from Great Britain. By the British military spending in America for the duration of the French and Indian War strengthen the incomes of many colonists and unleashed a wave of free spending.

British creditors aided this free spending by allowing the American traders a full years credit, instead of the traditional six months. The colonists soon became overextended and had gone deeply into debt. By wars end in 1763, the good times came to an abrupt end. A recession after the war brought bankruptcy and disgrace to those Americans who had overextended them selves and brought hard times to nearly everyone else. This economic hardship generated even greater opposition to the Stamp Act in 1765, especially among tradesmen and craftsmen. This opposition to the stamp act was brought upon from the competition of low-priced British goods and now feared higher taxes.

Comparable economic stresses fueled quarrel to the Townshend Acts of 1767. Such incidents as the Boston Massacre helped to fuel the American Revolution. Encounter on March 5, 1770 the Boston Massacre, five years before the beginning of the American Revolution, between British troops and a group of citizens of Boston (then in the Massachusetts Bay Colony). British troops were quartered in the city to discourage demonstrations against the Townshend Acts, which imposed duties on imports to the colonies.

Citizens constantly harassed the troops, and during a demonstration, rocks thrown by the colonists struck a squad of British soldiers. The soldiers fired into the crowd and killed five men, including Crispus Attucks, who was leading the group. The eight soldiers and their commanding officer were tried for murder and were defended by John Adams, later president of the United States, and Josiah Quincy. Two soldiers were declared guilty of manslaughter and, after claiming benefit of clergy, were branded on the thumb; the others, including the officer, were acquitted. The American patriot Samuel Adams to create anti-British sentiment in the colonies skillfully exploited the incident. (Encarta, 2 k 1) Next in line leading to the revolution was the Boston Tea Party, a popular name the action taken on December 16, 1773, by a group of Boston citizens to protest the British tax on tea imported to the colonies. Although most provisions of the Townshend Acts, taxing imports to the colonies, were repealed by Parliament, the duty on tea was retained to demonstrate the power of Parliament to tax the colonies.

The citizens of Boston would not permit the unloading of three British ships that arrived in Boston in November 1773 with 342 chests of tea. The royal governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson, however, would not let the tea ships return to England until the duty had been paid. On the evening of December 16, a group of Bostonian's, instigated by the American patriot Samuel Adams and many of them disguised as Native Americans, boarded the vessels and emptied the tea into Boston Harbor. When the colonists of Boston refused to pay for the tea, the British closed the port. (Grolier, 98) Another way the colonists found very effective for scaring tax collectors, who were hated so much, was using a method called tar and feathering.

This was done by removing clothes of the person and then applying hot tar, which in most instances was very painful. Then well the tar was still hot right after applying it, they would proceed to sticking and dumping feathers all over the persons body. Over all it would make them look like a big bird, and was painful. A real life account tells the story. [In the spring of 1766, John Gilchrist, a Norfolk merchant and ship-owner, came to believe that Captain William Smith had reported his smuggling activities to British authorities.

In retribution, Gilchrist and several accomplices captured Smith and, as he reported, "dawned my body and face all over with tar and afterwards threw feathers on me. " Smith's assailants, which included the mayor of Norfolk, then carted him "through every street in town, " and threw him into the sea. Fortunately, Smith was rescued by a passing boat just as he was "sinking, being able to swim no longer. "] (1) (1) Captain William Smith to J. Morgan, Apr. 3, 1766, in William and Mary Quarterly, 1 st Ser. , XXI (1913), p. 167. from sight: web Tar and feathers was a very old form of punishment, but it does not appear to have ever been widely applied in England or in Europe.

Why Gilchrist and his allies chose to resurrect tar and feathers on this particular occasion historians can only surmise. Whatever their reasons, these Virginians inaugurated a new trend in colonial resistance, a trend that their New England neighbors would eagerly follow. Throughout New England, tar and feathers soon became the "popular Punishment for modern delinquents. " By March, 1770, at least thirteen individuals had been feathered in the American colonies: eight in Massachusetts, two in New York, one in Virginia, one in Pennsylvania, and one in Connecticut. In all of these instances, the tar brush was reserved exclusively for customs inspectors and informers, those persons responsible for enforcing the Townshend duties on certain imported goods. Indeed, American patriots used tar and feathers to wage a war of intimidation against British tax collectors.

These were the actions that made our country leap towards a revolution and eventually make it free. As the first line of the constitution says We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. , and this selection along with the rest of the constitution still stands today and has not been changed or altered since it was made. Work cited Carroll, Andrew, Letters for a Nation, Broadway New York, 1997 Gottschalk, Louis. "Cause of Revolution. " Schenck man Publishing Company, Inc. : Cambridge, 1971. Grolier Encyclopedia, Grolier 98, 1995 - 1998 Microsoft Encarta, Encarta 2 k 1, 1993 - 2000 Microsoft. Olsen, Keith W. , et al. An Outline of American History.

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Research essay sample on Townshend Acts Samuel Adams

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