Summary: A Colonial Family's Reaction To The Stamp Act

It was the year 1765, and our 13 colonies were not too thrilled. My family are the Keaheys--Meghan, Liam, Mama, and Dada. My family lived in New York, NY, and we heard quite a bit about the Stamp Act. It started on March 22, 1765. The British Parliament imposed a tax on all American colonists.

Colonist fight for independence while the British passed many laws against them. The colonist took action because of their belief of the laws. The colonist resisted the British treatment towards them. The British treated colonist very poorly by passing the stamp act,also the coercive/intolerable act.

A Colonial family’s Reaction to the Stamp Act. “Ma? What is happening in the town with all those men? I heard something about the French and Indian war. Are we okay ma?”

After the French and Indian war in 1754 England had Great War debts, to be exact 130 million pounds. In order to pay these debts England decided to tax the colonies on the goods that would presumably not anger the colonists. This tax was known as the stamp act. The goods being taxed consist of anything made of paper, playing cards and envelopes including various other items. Because the British parliament did not consult the colonies about this tax placed on paper products, the colonial families decided that they did not want to pay the tax.

After America’s Declaration of Independence asserted in 1776, were radical notions for those who had grown up in a society that was ruled but a king and that enthusiastically embraced the idea of aristocracy. “The first step in Grenville’s new program was the Revenue Act (1764), popularly known as the Sugar Act” (Keene, Page 98). But, this Act violated two longheld beliefs. Also, required colonists to purchase special stamps for everything from newspapers to playing cards.

"Salus populi suprema lex esto” means let the good of the people be the supreme law. This idea ties in with the declaration of independence, which becomes a justification for the American colonies to break free from Englands rule. Under Englands rule, the laws placed on the people of the colonies were not for the good of the people, but rather for the good of the English who were in debt 137 million pounds after the 7 years war that lasted from 1754-1763. The English was trying to get the colonies to pay for the debt from the war by placing taxes on them. The Stamp Act of 1765 was a direct revenue orientated act put forth by the English that made it so that every piece of paper in the colonies that was used had to have a stamp on it.

Our family cares more about Taxation without Representation then the Stamp Act itself. It’s one thing that the colonial assembly in New York had already used a stamp system to raise tax revenues for the colonies since it was voted for in New York, but I feel that it is quite different when the Crown puts this tax in place without even considering what the colonies might feel about

We have been unfairly taxed by your Stamp Act when America was not even represented in Parliament. Our colonists were forced to pay for tax stamps placed on various documents and papers such as newspapers, playing cards and diplomas.

The way the colonists reacted to the Stamp Acts is that they boycotted British goods. King George III reacted by repealing the Stamp Act and put the Declaratory Act in to that same day. The Declaratory Act is a law that stated that Parliament had the right to tax the colonies

Passed to pay to for the cost of British troops in the colonies defending the western frontier, the Stamp Act essentially required the colonists to pay taxes on the printed paper they used. While the actual cost the colonists had to pay was small, the principle of the tax and the standard it set enraged the colonists. In the past, taxes on colonial trade had been viewed by colonist as a way to regulate trade but the Stamp Act was seen as the British government trying to raise money without consent from colonial legislatures. The aggravated colonists felt that without being represented in Parliament, the government could not justly tax them, hence the slogan “No taxation without representation.” Moreover, offenders of the Stamp Acts would be tried in admiralty courts, or courts without juries, and the defendants were determined guilty until proven innocent, taking away a privilege that both American colonist and British people enjoyed.

Today is December 1, 1765, which marks exactly a month since the Stamp Act has taken effect. However, it has been months since the British Parliament passed it on March 22, 1765. Today marks an unexpected and truly heart-rending day in my life. My husband, Mr. Andrew Rothman Lewis II, passed onto a better place after a short and severe case of smallpox. A day before the parliament dropped the tax, my husband was diagnosed with smallpox.

Even though salutary neglect stopped some procedural laws from being followed, there were some, such as trade tax, that were impossible to avoid. Aristocratic white men, who were often owners of large pieces of land and a great number of slaves, were also affected by these taxes. The greatest frustration of the colonists was the Stamp Act, which put a tax on anything printed, from playing cards to legal documents. This tax was different because, unlike past taxes that had only affected traders, this tax was felt from poor coastal pirates to wealthy plantation owners. Aristocrats were frustrated by this because they did not get to discuss this tax before it was passed.

1) Pick one of the taxes placed on the colonists that led to the American Revolution and describe what it did and why it angered the colonists. The Stamp Act, was the first direct tax on the American colonies. Every legal document had to be written on specially stamped paper. If it was not written on this paper than it would not be recognized as legal in a court of law.

Different groups of colonial families reacted reacted differently to the Stamp Act was the wealthiest of colonial families. The wealthy colonial families also reacted the same as the commoners, but were a lot less violent than the commoners. Wealthy people acted angrily they wrote letters to the British. They were protesting against this law. The wealthy colonial families were angry, but didn 't burn houses down.

Benjamin’s letter to John Hughes in Document G confirmed clearly that they wanted to get the Stamp Act “repeal’d”. Because of the failure to get it repealed, the Colonies began to Boycott