the stamp act

“No taxation without representation.” This very famous quote was the rallying cry for many angry colonists when the stamp act was imposed on them. The Stamp Act would affect their everyday lives. Life in the colonies was very difficult, the colonist were forced to pay stiff taxes of which the British parliament imposed on them among these taxes was the stamp tax, the colonist did not like this and this would eventually help lead to the Great American Revolution.

In the early days of exploration to the west, people came to the “New World” in search of a new beginning, to escape poverty, persecution and to get certain freedoms which other countries did not allow. But soon the British saw that the “New World” held an abundance of possibilities and found that holding land in North America could work to their advantage. Not long after the British took a foot hold in on the east coast of North America, and thus began the British Colonies. Life in the colonies was hard at times. People who came to the colonies were mostly from Europe and had little experience with this new and untamed environment. They also found social statuses did not matter in the colonies. Most people were not that rich yet not that poor. Most had to work long hours doing jobs including farming in the back country or unloading shipments from around the world in port cities such as Boston.

The stamp tax or the Stamp Act was a kind of sales tax and was put in place by the British parliament in 1765. This tax was the idea of Prime Minister Grenville and it required the business owners in the colonies to buy a stamp to put on all printed material including books, newspapers, marriage licenses, legal documents, playing cards and even dice before such items were sold. Thi...

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...et the war raged on for 7 years more. There were over 25,000 casualties on the U.S. side alone and over 52,000 causalities total. "This brought on the war which finally separated the two countries and gave independence to ours. Whether this will prove a blessing or a curse will depend upon the use our people make of the blessings, which a gracious God hath bestowed on us” a famous quote by Patrick Henry written on the back of the Stamp Act resolves in 1765. Finally in 1783 the war officially ended by the signing of the Treaty of Paris.

The Stamp Act although only lasting a year was a major reason why the people of the Colonies revolted against there once rulers. They banded together in a time of need to develop a shining beacon of freedom and liberty to the rest of the world, a proud and eager new nation in an unforgiving world, called the United States of America.