Apparently not having a good sense of pattern recognition, in 1767 the British government passed a series of acts, which later became known as the Townshend Acts, meant to raise money from and assert better control over the Thirteen Colonies. These included putting an import duty on a number of common goods; such as glass, paint, paper, and tea; creating more stringent laws to enforce said duties, and establishing courts directly controlled by the British government to prosecute smugglers, with the judges paid by the fines they collected. They as well passed a law barring the New York assembly from making any new laws until they agreed to pay for housing and food for the British soldiers in the colony, to which the New York assembly immediately caved and did as they were told.
As one can probably imagine, a good chunk of the colonists were every bit not as happy with this turn of events as they had been in the previous go around. However, this time the Sons of Liberty were limited in what they could do about it. The goods being taxed were in such high demand that it was impossible to get people to stop using them without turning a good chunk of the population against the Sons of Liberty. As a result, the boycotts were not as effective as those against the Sugar Act and Stamp Act. Not able to create economic pressure, they instead pursued a political strategy. Of all the colonies, Massachusetts was perhaps the most up in arms over the Townshend Acts. Though small, the colony was wealthy thanks to its merchants, most of whom smuggled goods to one degree or another. Facing judges who had to find people guilty to pay their salaries and corrupt duty collectors who were more than happy to do a bit of racketeering, these merchants convinced the Massachusetts assembly to send a letter to the king demanding the Townshend Acts be revoked, and to call for all of the other colonies to do the same. Outraged by this turn of events, and to prove they weren’t fucking around, the British government had the royal governors of Massachusetts and Virginia promptly dissolve their colonial assemblies.
This proved to be a rather stupid thing to do, for son after a riot broke out in Boston, to which the British responded by occupying the city with soldiers and threatening to haul people back to Britain to stand trial for treason. Rather than calming the situation, the presence of soldiers and threats further escalated it, eventually culminating in what became known as the Boston Massacre in 1770, wherein a mob attacked a group of British soldiers who responded by firing into the crowd, killing five. Though the soldiers were later acquitted by a jury, the incident caused outrage across the Thirteen Colonies, which the British tried to calm by removing the duties on all goods but tea. However, it was too little too late, and some of the more radical amongst the Sons of Liberty, who began to be called Patriots, began to talk of independence rather than a return to the status quo. In 1772, a group of these radical Patriots in Rhode Island burned a British warship.
To understand what happened next, you have to understand that throughout this period a number of colonial representatives in England were making the situation out to be a Massachusetts problem, both because they didn’t want Britain bothering them and also because many of them were secretly Patriots. The colonists were becoming increasingly divided between Patriots and Loyalists and the Patriots figured the more the British fucked up the more it would push people onto their side. As a result, the British decided to take a heavy-handed approach to Massachusetts, threatening to seize direct control over its judiciary. In terms of fuck ups, this was a pretty big one, in that it sparked outrage across all of the colonies, which gave the Sons of Liberty the support they needed restart the boycott of British goods and the attacking of British and Loyalist officials. To make matters worse, at the same time Britain entered into a severe economic recession which threatened to bankrupt its largest corporation, the East India Company. In order to save a large portion of the British aristocracy from significant financial loss, the British government granted the East India Company the right to ship tea to the colonies duty free, to which the colonists responded by refusing to unload the East India Company ships when they arrived. When the British tried to force the issue in Boston in 1773, Patriots threw the tea into the harbor in what became known as the Boston Tea Party.
With things quickly spiraling out of control, the British government decided to put an end to things once and for all. Still see Massachusetts as the primary issue, they passed a series of laws in 1774 which closed Boston harbor, made the governor of the colony a virtual dictator, barred the colonial courts from trying British soldiers, and gave the governors the power to force colonists to host soldiers in their homes. Branded the Intolerable Acts by the Patriots, representatives from all Thirteen Colonies soon after met in Philadelphia in what became known as the First Continental Congress, where it was agreed to boycott the import of all British goods until the Intolerable Acts were repealed. The boycotts were carried out by local committees who threatened, beat, and tarred and feathered anyone who wouldn’t comply. At the same time, Patriots in Massachusetts formed an alternative shadow government and began openly stockpiling weapons and training militia. In response, the British declared Massachusetts to be in a state or rebellion and preparations began to be made to end the insurgency as quickly as possible.
