We previously wrote about how the colonists were angered by the Townshend Acts, but what were the Townshend Acts? As we know, colonists didn't like the idea of having to pay taxes. Charles Townshend came up with the idea of taxing colonists indirectly, such as taxes on imports. Parliament needed to raise money fast to get out of England's debt and so they agreed. They levied taxes on them for everyday products, such as paint, glass, tea, lead and paper. These products were not produced in America and the colonists weren't allowed to buy goods from any country that wasn't Great Britain. This is how colonists started smuggling all this products that had taxes on them. The British had to find a way of making the tea exported from England cheaper than the smuggled Dutch tea, and they achieved that by passing the Indemnity Act. This act dissolved the taxes imposed on the tea imported to England, and that way it could be exported more cheaply to the colonies. At first, the money raised this way would be used to mantain the troops in the colonies, but Parliament had a better idea. They would use this raised money to pay the salaries of judges and colonial governors. We have to remember that these salaries were once paid off by the colonial assemblies, so the fact that Parliament was now responsible for paying them meant that the colonists had no power over the judges and colonial governors anymore.
No comments:
Post a Comment