The period between 1754 and 1775 was rich in events pertaining to the colonists’ intensifying disapproval of the British rule, and the Stamp Act of 1765 can be called the point of no return in terms of colonies’ readiness to fight. Five years before the Boston Massacre, at the time of the Stamp Act, colonies’ adverse reactions to the unwanted legislation varied between the refusal to pay and sporadic violence (Skalenko, 2020). Despite the active use of extralegal methods of protest, there were limited opportunities for direct confrontation with the representatives of power (Skalenko, 2020). Nevertheless, the colonists’ unwillingness to accept paying the new direct tax as their unavoidable duty was extremely strong. It promoted the first attempts to challenge the structure of power by intimidating and assaulting tax collectors (Corbett et al., 2022). The Boston Massacre further solidified the revolutionary moods that emerged five years earlier by reinforcing the colonists’ readiness to use missiles to withstand pressure from British soldiers (Zabin, 2020). Experiences with forcing the cancellation of the Stamp Act have promoted the determination to unite and fight.
The Stamp Act became a turning point in the relationships between the empire and the colonies relationships by giving rise to organized opposition to challenging the British government’s right to control trade and economic life. When the new Stamp Act became a popular topic in the news, mobs started to scheme even in rural areas, creating a real threat for loyalist police officers (Wagner, 2018). The fight for freedom from the empire’s unjust laws became extremely intense, with pro-revolutionary moods spreading to sailors, farmers, merchants, and other professional categories (Wagner, 2018). The Stamp Act became the legislative decision to clarify the actual power distribution patterns to the colonists and the British Parliament’s failure to respect constitutional principles (Corbett et al., 2022). The act’s role in promoting unity in suppressing Britain’s economic and legislative power made the colonial society’s reactions the point of no return.
References
Corbett, P. S., Janseen, V., Lund, J., Pfannestiel, T., Vickery, P., & Waskiewicz, S. (2022). U.S. history. OpenStax.
Skalenko, N. (2020). William Livingston and the Stamp Act crisis of 1765. The Macksey Journal, 1(1), 1-17.
Wagner, R. L. (2018). The Stamp Act: Revolutionary resistance in New York [Unpublished master’s thesis]. State University of New York College at Buffalo.
Zabin, S. (2020). The Boston Massacre: A family history. Houghton Mifflin.