In: History
In 1764 the Sugar Act is passed, what was the colonists' and Samuel Adams's response?
Explanation:
The Sugar Act was passed by Parliament on 5 April 1764, and it arrived in the colonies at a time of economic depression. This was an indirect tax, but the colonists felt it very much. And as a result, the colonists began to protest the impact on their wallets. The anger that the colonists held regarding this tax was all about the money, not about representation at this time.
The two primary leaders of the protests were Samuel Adams and James Otis. Adams wrote a report on the Sugar Act in which he denounced the act as an infringement on the rights of colonists as British subjects. As a result, in August of 1764 fifty Boston merchants agreed to stop purchasing luxury goods from England. And in New York there was a movement to begin manufacturing more colonial based goods.
The Sugar Act was repealed in 1766 and replaced with The Revenue Act after the severe protests that resulted from the Stamp Act of 1765.
The Sugar Act came at a time of economic depression, and was not received well by colonists. Samuel Adams forged ahead as the mouthpiece for the colonist displeasure.