Intolerable Acts Research Paper

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The Intolerable Acts What are the Intolerable Acts? The British government passed laws that were even harsher. The colonists called them intolerable acts. The strongest of these acts closed the port of Boston until the colonists paid for the tea they had ruined. Massachusetts was put under military rule. The Intolerable Acts were five laws that were passed by the British Parliament against the American Colonies in 1774. The Administration of Justice Act became law on May 20, 1774. It authorized the governor of Massachusetts to move trials of royal officials accused of committing capital offenses, while performing their official duties, to another colony or to Great Britain, if he believed the accused would not receive a fair trial in Massachusetts. …show more content…
Although the act stipulated for witnesses to be reimbursed after having traveled at their own expense across the Atlantic, it was not stipulated that this would include reimbursement for lost earnings during the period for which they would be unable to work, leaving few with the ability to testify. George Washington called this the "Murder Act" because he believed that it allowed officials to harass colonists and then escape justice. Many colonists believed the act was unnecessary because British soldiers had been given a fair trial following the intolerable acts in 1770. The quartering acts, which applied to all British colonies in North America, sought to create a more effective method of housing British troops. In a previous act, the colonies had been required to provide housing for soldiers, but colonial legislatures had been uncooperative in doing so. The new Quartering Act allowed a governor to house soldiers in other buildings if suitable quarters were not provided. While many sources claim that the Quartering Act allowed troops to be billeted in occupied private homes, historian David Ammerman's 1974 study claimed that this is a myth, and that the act only permitted troops to be quartered in unoccupied