today we're looking at the intolerable axe
hello welcome to the daily bellringer please don't forget to subscribe and take a look
at the questions down in the description so british parliament had had enough for years
they had tried to get the american colonies to pay taxes and follow british regulations the
american colonists had done everything to resist from writing petitions boycotting british goods
and even tarring and feathering tax collectors but now after the boston tea party in december of 1773
in which the colonists destroyed a shipment of t valued at close to one million dollars
in today's money the british said enough british parliament began to pass a series of laws that
they called the coercive acts in other words laws that would try to coerce or force the colonies
to obey the colonists of course called them the intolerable acts because they said these new laws
were couldn't be tolerated or were intolerable so many of these acts focused on the city of
boston and the colony of massachusetts as that was seen by the british to be the hotbed of resistance
now before i get into what was included in the intolerable acts i want you to pay close
attention to these acts and then look at my video about the bill of rights and see how many of these
coercive acts are addressed in the bill of rights so first boston harbor was completely shut down
with the exception of food and firewood being allowed to go in and out of the port the port
would remain closed until the colonists paid for the tea that was destroyed in the boston tea party
of course closing the harbor resulted in hundreds of harbor workers losing their jobs second the
massachusetts colonists were forbidden from holding town meetings more than once a year the
british began to realize that colonists meeting together usually resulted in a protest or a riot
of some sort so they figured we'll just make it illegal for them to even be able to assemble
third customs officers and other british officials charged with crimes would be tried in britain and
not in massachusetts now you might think this is not a big deal but when you consider what
this really meant it meant that british officials in the colonies who committed a crime would then
have to travel all the way back to britain before facing trial and that would take several weeks
if not months and by that point the details of whatever crime they had committed would probably
be lost but also they would be put before a jury of british jurors who would more than likely side
with the british official to the colonists this basically meant that british officials could
now get away with whatever they wanted without worrying about the possibility of being punished
lastly a new quartering act was instated and more british troops were sent to boston
before the boston massacre 2000 british troops have been stationed there and many colonists
were forced to house soldiers in their homes and provide candles and beverages for these
soldiers well now again colonists were going to be required to have troops in their homes and to add
insult to injury general thomas gage who was the commander of the british troops in north america
was appointed to also be the colonial governor of massachusetts now although most of these laws
focused on massachusetts and boston the rest of the colonies were very concerned many were saying
to themselves if if the british can do this in boston then what stops them from doing it here
and so the colonies began to unite in support of massachusetts and in september of 1774
they call for a meeting of delegates or representatives from each colony to come
to philadelphia to discuss the events and come up with a unified response
12 of the 13 colonies sent delegates with only georgia not attending because they were currently
involved in a conflict with native americans and they were very dependent on british support
this meeting of the colonies came to be known as the first continental congress and is going to
be an important step towards the colonies coming together in resistance to britain and eventually
declaring full independence so with that hopefully you learned something and thanks for watching
you