all right this is openstax us history chapter 5 section 3 the townsend acts and colonial protests so the overall issue of war debt from the seven years war still remains right the british still have to pay down this debt they attempted to do it by passing the stamp act a tax on printed materials on this protested rich and poor north and south the stamp act was repealed parliament still declared the right to tax the colonists and replace the stamp act with the townsend axe right shen townsend i call it town synax townsend acts which were designed to raise money revenue to pay or debt they were passed by charles townsend right who you see here who they are named after and townsend was somebody who wanted to avoid this you know the same type of reaction that the stamp act got but really wasn't willing to loosen parliamentary control one example is his disbandment or his disbanding of the new york assembly so they were pretty much disbanded because they refused the quartering act all the quartering act was an act that required colonists to house british soldiers new york didn't do that and so um charles townsend responded by disbanding the assembly the assembly is the representative government there in new york so what did this revenue act do well it placed a tax on things like paper paint lead t and glass so these were the items taxed and like previous taxes before the stamp act it was external meeting these items or imported slash exported so as a result of that uh really colonial resistance colonial resistance was divided uh people like benjamin franklin said you know that's fine parliament has the right to tax goods that go out into the ocean that leave the colonies but other people like samuel adams of massachusetts and other merchants you know especially in the north said no right you know it's whatever taxation is not right without the adequate representation so you don't quite get as visceral of a reaction out of the townsend duties as you did with the stamp act right the stamp act really was the one that caused all the colonists to go crazy uh this one is a you know there's a little bit more of uh you know an acceptance by the colonists of this however townsend also you know enacted a couple other measures that tighten control and maybe raise suspicions so one example was that the salaries for various royal appointments would in part be paid by these new taxes so appointment salaries we might just say here appointed british officials uh to be paid uh that's ugly uh to be aid by britain and not colonial assemblies so before assemblies or this ies uh before royal officials were paid by colonial assemblies that the world officials did something that the colonists didn't like they could pretty much just cut their paychecks now the british are paying these officials directly meaning they don't really have to respond or they don't have an incentive to respond to the colonists so the colonies become very very uneasy about this additionally a board of customs is set up in the colonies before the board of customs what it does is that it regulates smuggling we will say it is set up in boston before this was in england meaning it was much farther away uh now it's being relocated into the colonies so much kind of um stricter approach to smuggling or illegal trading and more vice admiralty courts again a vice admiralty court is a court with no jury more ports created so again a you know sort of an easing up when it comes to taxation but in some other ways great britain is kind of tightening their grip um you know in in you know regulating smuggling or or paying for various appointment salaries so you know reactions are varied uh for example one such reaction written by john dickinson letters from a pennsylvania farmer this is pretty much just a letter or a document we'll just call it a letter that protests british um we'll just say control time um the massachusetts circular written by samuel adams of massachusetts member of the sons of liberty so we might say of samuel adams member important member of sons of liberty and again the sons of liberty are an organization that just resists really any british encroachment on colonial liberty liberty and what the massachusetts circular did was encouraged other colonies to protest see down send x now here's the difference when it came to the stamp act colonies agreed to work together right nine colonies came together in the stamp at congress and the um result was repeal and so a very important lesson was learned by the colonists from this experience and that was if the colonists wanted to get anything done if they wanted to get great britain's attention they essentially had to work together and that's kind of the lesson that the colonies learned from the stamp act here samuel adams is trying to do the same thing but this time with the townsend duties but again when it came to the townsend duties colonial resistance against it was somewhat divided and you know the other colonies especially those in the south that don't really do or participate in a lot of smuggling you know didn't really receive this very enthusiastically some people started to engage in non-importation again right more boycotting that occurred so the letter was not well received or at least enthusiastically received by the other colonies and in fact great britain found out about this and demanded that samuel adams and massachusetts retract the letter so we might say britain demanded retraction of the massachusetts circular again circular letter being encouraging other colonies to protest circular and essentially what massachusetts did was to refuse do that and great britain responded by dissolving the massachusetts assembly and punishing massachusetts for that and so this created somewhat of a somewhat of an increased conflict between britain and the colonies but this time not necessarily directed at all the colonies but particularly in boston again boston's gonna be where a lot of the conflict occurs boston was where the board of customs was set up boston was a hotbed of smuggling boston was where the sons of liberty were located massachusetts was the state that you know was really kind of the the problem child so to speak encouraging the other children to revolt and so in an effort to try to you know keep law in order great britain sent troops into boston which only caused more conflict between we'll just say troops and colonists and this sort of very tense atmosphere ultimately gave rise to the boston massacre which in some ways is kind of like the first instance of blood being shed between bonus and great britain british troops were stationed in boston often time worked part-time jobs we might say of the troops uh you know took jobs from colonists you know they worked for a very low price because they were already getting paid a salary from the from their military service so they just worked on the side took some of the jobs and it wasn't you know uncommon for example in the streets of boston for colonists and british soldiers to get into shouting matches fist fights bar room brawls and in fact the boston massacre initially you might say initially started when a group of angry colonists began throwing uh rocks and snowballs at british soldiers british soldiers responded by firing into the crowd so we might say of the boston massacre british soldiers fired into proud of colonists uh killing five i believe five people were killed uh among them was crispus addicts christmas addicts we'll use one of the first that's better first person killed in boston massacre christmas addict just sort of fun fact he was of african black man african and indian descent in massachusetts five people total died and this massacre was utilized by people in the colonies to really garner a anti-british sentiment paul revere of massachusetts we'll just go ahead and say published anti-british british propaganda one such example is this right here where paul revere showed the british being lined up in a military formation let me move my screen down here firing into an innocent crowd and paul revere's point was well if the british are willing and able to literally shoot people in the streets of boston they're willing to shoot people on the streets of philadelphia in new york in charleston in savannah in whatever other cities in the other colonies trying to encourage the other colonies to side with great britain on this one john adams who will later later become you know one of the founding fathers one of the authors of the declaration of independence a lawyer in massachusetts at the time in favor of peaceful protest against great britain actually defended the british troops in this instance so the violence caused by the boston massacre was really not desired by either side and it prompted great britain to take action not in exactly the same way that they did with the stamp act but pretty similar and that was to issue a partial repeal of the townsend duties meaning that every single other tax was repealed except for t right so t you might say remained text