Why did the Sugar Act and the Stamp Act draw fierce opposition from colonists?

> CHRONOLOGY

1760

  • George III becomes British king.
1764

  • Parliament enacts Sugar Act.
1765

  • Parliament enacts Stamp Act.

  • Virginia Resolves challenge Stamp Act.

  • Sons of Liberty stage crowd actions.

  • Stamp Act Congress meets.
1766

  • Parliament repeals Stamp Act, passes Declaratory Act.

In 1760, George III, twenty-two years old, became king of England. Timid and insecure, George struggled to gain his footing in his new job. He rotated through a succession of leaders, searching for a prime minister he could trust. A half dozen ministers in seven years took turns dealing with one basic underlying British reality: A huge war debt needed to be serviced, and the colonists, as British subjects, should help pay it off. To many American colonists, however, that proposition seemed in deep violation of what they perceived to be their rights and liberties as British subjects, and it created resentment that eventually erupted in large-scale street protests. The first provocative revenue acts were the work of Sir George Grenville, prime minister from 1763 to 1765.[[LP Photo: P0.6.05 Tea and Sugar in the 1760s/ROA_704115_06_P05.JPEG]]

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Tea and Sugar in the 1760s In the mid-eighteenth century, rising sugarcane production in the West Indies transformed sugar into a commonplace commodity in the English-speaking world. It became a desired taste indulged in by the elite classes (as pictured here) and by non-elites. At the center of this 1764 painting, titled The Honeymoon, an alluring young bride delicately drops a sugar cube into her husband’s cup of tea.
The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Museum Purchase.

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