America’s Summer of Discontent, 250 years ago
In the summer of 1774, large numbers of American colonists, from Massachusetts Bay down to the Virginia Tidewater, were disaffected and angry. For a decade, they had felt increasingly oppressed by Great Britain, ever since London had imposed duties on various exports to America to help pay for the costs of the victorious Seven Years’ War. The Stamp Act of 1765 and the 1767 the Townshend Acts, which added duties on lead, glass, tea and other items, became hated symbols of imperial power. The colonists considered the duties to be taxes levied by Parliament, and while they acknowledged Britain’s right to regulate trade, they balked at the presumption by British lawmakers to directly tax them.
