Re conciliating with great Britain not an option for the colonies The
King and Parliament believed they had the right to tax the
colonies. They decided to require several kinds of taxes from the
colonists to help pay for the French and Indian War. These taxes
included the Stamp Act, passed in 1765, which required the use
of special paper bearing an embossed tax stamp for all legal
documents. Other laws, such as the Townsend Acts,a.
Many colonists felt that they should not pay these taxes,
because they were passed in England by Parliament, not by their
own colonial governments. The colonists started to resist by boycotting, or not buying,
British goods. In 1773 some colonists in Boston, Massachusetts
demonstrated their frustration by dressing up like Indians,
sneaking onto ships in the harbor, and dumping imported tea into
the water. This was called the Boston Tea Party.