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About


The American Revolution

Stamp Act of 1765

Bostonians Read Stamp Act

In March of 1765 the British made a new law. The law said that the colonists must pay for special stamps on paper goods. It was called the Stamp Act. The King signed the new law. He then told the colonies that they had to pay the tax. The Stamp Act was passed into law to help pay for the cost of the French and Indian War. The British had paid for the war that benefitted the colonists.

1765 One-penny Stamp

Colonists said the tax was unfair. Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry were two men that spoke out against the Stamp Act. These two men and others said that England did not have the right to pass or make this law. The colonists argued that England did not have the right because the colonists could not vote on it. They said there should be 'no taxation without representation.' The colonists even called a special meeting*, the Stamp Act Congress (1765), to fight against the Stamp Act. Representatives from many colonies attended.

The people of Boston could remember how it was before. When John Winthrop was the governor they had more liberty and freedom. They had voted him into office. They elected him as the governor. They had a voice in the way government worked. They did not want to lose that power. Colonists felt that England was not being fair. The colonies did not have any one who represented them in Parliament. They did not feel like they should be taxed if they could not be represented.


Interpreting Political Cartoons and Pictures

Tarring and Feathering

How did the colonists fight the Stamp Act? One thing they did was scare the tax collectors. They actually scared them away. Colonists showed how angry they were. They made threats. They said that they would do mean things to the collectors. One of threats was to tar and feather the collectors. To tar and feather means to take hot tar and put it on someone’s skin and then cover the tar with feathers. No collector was actually tarred nor feathered for the Stamp Act; however, the threats and treatment they got made them scared. By the time the Stamp Act taxes were supposed to start being collected, all of the collectors had left (November 1765).

The Fatal Stamp

What do you see in the political cartoon? Use your understanding of what you have read about the Stamp Act. What story does this picture tell? Describe the meaning of the tree and the sign on the tree. What are the drink and the rope about? Why is there a boat in the background? What is the action in the background? Do you see a tarring and feathering happening? (Read the Tax on Tea lesson for more about what happened with the tea. Read the Sons and Daughters of Liberty lesson to learn more about the Liberty Tree.)

What do you see in the picture of the skull and bones? (Taken from a newspaper article about the Stamp Act)? Use your understanding of what you have read about the Stamp Act. What is the printed image trying to say? Describe the meaning of the messages, and the skull and crossbones. Why did they use a skull and bones? (Emblem means a sign or symbol of something. Fatal means that it could cause death.)

R-SSS

Reading resources

© Reading-SocialStudiesSolutions



Text Credits:

Colonial Massachusetts, S. E. Dawes, Silver Burdett & Company, 1899, Library of Congress;
http://archive.org/stream/colonialmassachu00dawe#page/n0/mode/2up;
The French War and the Revolution; Sloan, William Milligan; Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1893, 1754-1763;
Young Folks’ History of America, Hezekiah Butterworth, 1895, The Werner Company;
http://archive.org/details/youngfolkshistor00but;
French and Indian War-
http://www.ushistory.org/us/8b.asp;
Stamp Act Resolutions-
http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/revolution/stamp-res.htm;
Stamp Act Riots (Notes about Andrew Oliver)-
http://www.pbs.org/ktca/liberty/popup_stampact.html (No one was ever tarred or feathered because of the Stamp Act, but the threats and pressure had a very strong effect.)
James Otis suggestion to hold a Stamp Act Congress in notes-
https://www.ushistory.org/us/10a.asp


Image Credits:

Bostonians Reading Stamp Act by New York Public Library- Wikimedia Commons;
1765 One-penny Stamp- Wikimedia Commons;
Tarring and feathering threats on John Malcolm by Bostonians - Mezzotint attributed to Philip Dawe through Library of Congress- Wikimedia Commons;
Skull and bones stamp - The effects by Pennsylvania Journal and the New York Public Library- Wikimedia Commons


Text Readability:

ATOS- 5.8
Flesch-Kinkade- 5.39
SMOG- 8.58


Notes:

In Massachusetts, rioters ransacked the home of the newly appointed stamp commissioner, Andrew Oliver. He resigned the position the next day.

Threatening or attacking the crown-appointed office holders became a popular tactic against the act throughout the colonies. Though no stamp commissioner was actually tarred and feathered, this Medieval brutality was a popular form of 18th century mob violence in Great Britain, particularly against tax collectors.

Tarring and feathering dated back to the days of the Crusades and King Richard the Lionhearted. It began to appear in New England seaports in the 1760s and was most often used by patriot mobs against loyalists. Tar was readily available in shipyards and feathers came from any handy pillow. Though the cruelty invariably stopped short of murder, the tar needed to be burning hot for application.

*James Otis, from Massachusetts, suggested a conference to talk about what to do. It came about as the Stamp Act Congress. The Stamp Act Congress met in New York in October 1765. Representatives from nine of the colonies attended. They wrote the Stamp Act Resolves.

By November 1, 1765, the day the Stamp Act was to officially go into effect, there was not a single stamp commissioner left in the colonies to collect the tax.