Protests like the Liberty affair made British colonial officials nervous. In the summer of 1768, worried customs officers sent word back to Britain that the colonies were on the brink of rebellion. Parliament responded by sending two regiments of troops to Boston. As angry Bostonians mocked them, the newly arrived “redcoats” set up camp right in the center of the city Many colonists, especially those living in Boston, felt that the British had pushed them too far. First, the British had passed a series of laws that violated colonial rights. Now they had sent an army to occupy colonial cities.

To make matters worse, the soldiers stationed in Boston acted rudely and sometimes even violently toward the colonists. Mostly poor men, the redcoats earned little pay. Additionally, many were quite young, had very poor training, and were not the best of the British forces, who were reserved for fighting in other parts of the world. Some of them stole goods from local shops or scuffled with boys who taunted them in the streets. The soldiers competed off-hours for jobs that Bostonians wanted. The townspeople’s hatred for the soldiers grew stronger every day.

Relations between the redcoats and the Boston colonists grew more tense. Then on March 5, 1770, the tension finally reached a peak. That day, a fight broke out between townspeople and soldiers. While some British officers led by Captain Preston tried to calm the crowd, one man shouted, “We did not send for you. We will not have you here. We’ll get rid of you, we’ll drive you away!” The angry townspeople moved through the streets, picking up any weapon they could find—sticks, stones, shovels, and clubs. They pushed forward toward the customshouse on King Street.

As the crowd approached, the sentry on duty panicked and called for help. The crowd responded by throwing stones, snowballs, oyster shells, and pieces of wood at the soldiers. “Fire, you bloodybacks, you lobsters,” the crowd screamed. “You dare not fire.” After one of the soldiers was knocked down, the nervous and confused redcoats did fire. Several shots rang out, killing five colonists. One Bostonian cried out: “Are the inhabitants to be knocked down in the streets? Are they to be murdered in this manner?” Among the dead was Crispus Attucks, a dockworker who was part African, part Native American. The colonists called the tragic encounter the Boston Massacre.

The British, fearing the nightmare that would follow if the incident went without a response, immediately placed Preston and his men under arrest and charged them with murder in the Crown court in Massachusetts. However, some colonials saw that as an actual overreaction, including a lawyer named John Adams, a notable figure in the Revolutionary Era and the brother of activist Samuel Adams. Adams chose to defend the soldiers as their legal counsel as he believed that the incident had been provoked. Always a careful thinker, Adams believed the British to be oppressive, but that egging on poorly trained and young soldiers was too much and hurt the American cause.

In the end, Preston and four of his men were cleared of all charges in the trial that followed. Two others were convicted of manslaughter, but they were sentenced to a mere branding of the thumb. However, despite the actions of the British, colonial leaders used news of the killings as propaganda—information designed to influence opinion—against the British. Samuel Adams put up posters describing the “Boston Massacre” as a slaughter of innocent Americans by bloodthirsty redcoats. An engraving by Paul Revere showed a British officer giving the order to open fire on an orderly crowd. Revere’s powerful image strengthened anti-British feeling. Ironically, at the same time the incident occurred in Boston, Parliament was deciding to repeal most of the Townshend Acts because of the tension in Boston and the colonies as a whole. All the Townshend duties were repealed save one – the tax on tea. It proved to another error in judgment on the part of the British.

In the early 1770s, some Americans considered British colonial policy a “conspiracy against liberty.” The British government’s actions in 1773 seemed to confirm that view. The British East India Company faced ruin. To save the East India Company, Parliament passed the Tea Act of 1773. This measure gave the company the right to ship tea to the colonies without paying most of the taxes usually placed on tea. It also allowed the company to bypass colonial merchants and sell its tea directly to shopkeepers at a low price. This meant that East India Company tea was cheaper than any other tea in the colonies. The Tea Act gave the company a very favorable advantage over colonial merchants.

Colonial merchants immediately called for a new boycott of British goods. Samuel Adams and others denounced the British monopoly. The Tea Act, they argued, was just another attempt to crush the colonists’ liberty. At large public meetings in Boston and Philadelphia, colonists vowed to stop the East India Company’s ships from unloading. Parliament ignored warnings that another crisis was brewing. The East India Company shipped tea to Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and Charles Town. The colonists forced the ships sent to New York and Philadelphia to turn back. The tea sent to Charles Town was seized and stored in a warehouse. In Boston, a showdown began.

Three tea ships arrived in Boston Harbor in late 1773. The royal governor, whose house had been destroyed by Stamp Act protesters, refused to let the ships turn back. When he ordered the tea unloaded, Adams and the Boston Sons of Liberty acted swiftly. On December 16, a group of men disguised as members of the Mohawk tribe and armed with hatchets marched to the docks. At midnight, they boarded the ships and threw 342 chests of tea overboard, an event that became known as the Boston Tea Party. Word of this act of defiance spread throughout the colonies. Men and women gathered in the streets to celebrate the bravery of the Boston Sons of Liberty. However, no one spoke of challenging British rule, and colonial leaders continued to think of themselves as members of the British empire.

When news of the Boston Tea Party reached London, the reaction was quite different. King George III realized that Britain was losing control of the colonies. Lord North, who became prime minister in 1770 and was fiercely loyal to King George, asked Parliament to act against the colonies. In the spring of 1774, Parliament passed the Coercive Acts, very harsh laws intended to punish the people of Massachusetts for their resistance.

The Coercive Acts closed Boston Harbor until the Massachusetts colonists paid for the ruined tea. This action prevented the arrival of food and other supplies that normally came by ship. Worse, the laws took away certain rights of the Massachusetts colonists. For example, the laws banned most town meetings, an important form of self-government in New England. Another provision permitted royal officers to be tried in other colonies or in Britain when accused of crimes. The Acts also forced Bostonians to shelter soldiers in their own homes. Parliament planned to isolate Boston with these acts. Instead the other colonies sent food and clothing to demonstrate their support for Boston. The colonists maintained that the Coercive Acts violated their rights as English citizens. These included the rights to no quartering of troops in private homes and no standing army in peacetime without their consent.

The Quebec Act, passed shortly after the Coercive Acts, further angered the colonists. This act set up a permanent government for Quebec and granted religious freedom to French Catholics. Colonists strongly objected to the provision that gave Quebec the area west of the Appalachians and north of the Ohio River. This provision ignored colonial claims to the area. The feelings of the colonists were made clear by their name for the new laws—the Intolerable Acts.