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The Quartering Acts were several acts of the Parliament of Great Britain which required local authorities in the Thirteen Colonies of British North America to provide British Army personnel in the colonies with housing and food. Each of the Quartering Acts was an amendment to the Mutiny Act and required annual renewal by Parliament. [1] They were originally intended as a response to issues which arose during the French and Indian War and soon became a source of tensions between the inhabitants of the colonies and the government in London. These tensions would later lead toward the American War of Independence.
Mutiny, America Act 1765 | |
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Act of Parliament | |
Long title | An act to amend and render more effectual, in his Majesty's dominions in America, an act passed in this present session of parliament, intituled, An act for punishing mutiny and desertion, and for the better payment of the army and their quarters. |
Citation | 5 Geo. 3. c. 33 |
Territorial extent | British North American Colonies |
Dates | |
Royal assent | 15 May 1765 |
Commencement | 25 March 1765 |
Expired | 24 March 1767 |
Repealed | 15 July 1867 |
Other legislation | |
Repealed by | Statute Law Revision Act 1867 |
Status: Repealed | |
Text of statute as originally enacted |
General Thomas Gage, the Commander-in-Chief, North America, and other British officers who had fought in the French and Indian War (including Major James Robertson), had found it hard to persuade colonial assemblies to pay for quartering and provisioning of regular troops on the march. Therefore, he asked Parliament to do something. Most colonies had supplied provisions during the war, but the issue was disputed in peacetime. The Province of New York was their headquarters, because the assembly had passed an Act to provide for the quartering of British regulars, but it expired on January 2, 1764, [2] The result was the Quartering Act 1765, which went far beyond what Gage had requested. No standing army had been kept in the colonies before the French and Indian War, so the colonies asked why a standing army was needed after the French had been defeated in battle.
This first Quartering Act [3] was given royal assent on May 15, 1765, [4] and provided that colonial authorities would arrange for British troops to be housed in local barracks and public houses, as by the Mutiny Act 1765, but if the soldiers outnumbered the housing available, would quarter them in "inns, livery stables, ale houses, victualing houses, and the houses of sellers of wine and houses of persons selling of rum, brandy, strong water, cider or metheglin", and if numbers required in "uninhabited houses, outhouses, barns, or other buildings." Colonial authorities were required to pay the cost of housing and feeding these soldiers.
When 1,500 British troops arrived at New York City in 1766 the New York Provincial Assembly refused to comply with the Quartering Act and did not supply billeting for the troops. The troops had to remain on their ships. With its great impact on the city, a skirmish occurred in which one colonist was wounded following the Assembly's refusal to provide quartering. For failure to comply with the Quartering Act, Parliament suspended the Province of New York's governor and legislature in 1767 and 1769, but never carried it out, since the Assembly soon agreed to contribute money toward the quartering of troops; [5] the New York Assembly allocated funds for the quartering of British troops in 1771.
The Quartering Act was circumvented in all colonies other than Pennsylvania.
This act expired on March 24, 1767.
Mutiny in America Act 1774 | |
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Act of Parliament | |
Long title | An Act for further continuing Two Acts, made in the Sixth and Ninth Years of His Majesty's Reign, for punishing Mutiny and Desertion; and for the better Payment of the Army and their Quarters, in His Majesty's Dominions in America. |
Citation | 14 Geo. 3. c. 6 |
Dates | |
Royal assent | 9 March 1774 |
Expired | 24 March 1776 |
Other legislation | |
Repealed by | Statute Law Revision Act 1871 |
Status: Repealed | |
Text of statute as originally enacted |
The Quartering Act 1774 was known as one of the Coercive Acts in Great Britain, and as part of the Intolerable Acts in the colonies. The Quartering Act applied to all of the colonies, and sought to create a more effective method of housing British troops in America. 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 buildings. [6]
...it shall and may be lawful for the governor of the province to order and direct such and so many uninhabited houses, out-houses, barns, or other buildings, as he shall think necessary to be taken...
— Quartering Act 1774 [7]
The act expired on 24 March 1776. [7]
During the French and Indian War, British officers frequently requisitioned private dwellings throughout the Thirteen Colonies in order to quarter their troops. [8] Opinion in the colonies mostly opposed this due to the fact that the Mutiny Acts passed in 1723, 1754 and 1756 by the British Parliament prohibited the stationing of regular troops in private residences, something which was largely ignored by officers stationed in North America. The decision by British officers to ignore this aspect of the Mutiny Acts was viewed by some in the colonies (many of whom published their arguments in writing) to contravene the principle that the armed forces should always be subordinate to civil authority. [9]
As a result of mounting concerns over the stationing of troops in private dwellings, the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly met and debated over proposed quartering bills that guaranteed any citizen the right to choose whether or not to allow soldiers to be quartered in their residences. The Assembly rejected several proposed bills related to the issue before passing one which ignored it altogether and only focused on how soldiers were to be quartered in public establishments. That winter's harsh conditions led Colonel Henry Bouquet to order the colonists to quarter his troops in other places than just private homes. Bouquet felt his troops couldn't survive the winter without better living conditions. Bouquet wrote a letter to the governor of Pennsylvania telling him to issue a warrant to allow the quartering of his troops in private homes. [10]
The governor issued the warrant but left it blank instead of directly listing what Bouquet could or could not do. The Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly was outraged when they learned what their governor had done. Instead of asking for a veto on the warrant, they asked for a review on how many troops could be quartered in a single home at a time. However, the only response they received was that the king's troops must and will be quartered. In response to this the Assembly met on a Sunday for the first time. There they wrote a letter to the governor asking why he was violating the Mutiny Acts when the acts had been passed by the British Parliament. [10]
In response to what was happening to the colonists, Benjamin Franklin opened up an Assembly meeting suggesting that soldiers could be quartered in public houses in the suburbs. This meant instead of the troops be directly in the city they would be in houses on the outskirts of the city on farms where they could potentially have more space. Governor Denny attended this Pennsylvania meeting and bluntly answered that the commander in chief, Lord Loudoun, had requested quartering for the troops in Philadelphia and if anybody had a problem with this then they should talk to him. The committeemen responding by stating publicly that they felt Denny was siding with Lord Loudoun when in their view since he was the governor, he should have worked to protect their rights instead. [10] In Albany, New York, the mayor had allocated 1,000 pounds for the building of barracks for Loudoun's troops, but it had not been built by the time the soldiers arrived. The mayor told Loudoun that he knew his rights and refused to let the troops be quartered in Albany. When the mayor stayed adamant on his beliefs of not allowing the soldiers to be quartered, Loudoun had them quarter themselves in private homes. [10]
In an early August committee meeting in Boston, Massachusetts, the governor was able to get the committee to pass a bill to grant money for the building of barracks. These barracks would accommodate up to one thousand troops. The barracks were built and all that had to be done was convince Loudoun to obey the procedures set by Parliament. Everything went smoothly until two recruiting officers complained to governor Pownall of Massachusetts that they were denied quarters in Boston. The response was that it was illegal to quarter in private homes in Boston and the committeemen suggested that they stay at the newly built barracks at Castle William. The timing of this new meeting with Lord Loudoun was extremely unfortunate. He was currently suffering losses in northern New York while trying to hold off the French and Indians. When he heard of what happened with the committeemen he argued that the current military crisis made it acceptable to quarter troops in private homes. [11]
A bill was then brought to the governor to sign that said troops could be quartered in homes but innkeepers had the right to complain to a judge if they felt too many soldiers were there. Loudoun was enraged with this and threatened to order his troops quarter themselves in private residences again. By the end of December, the Massachusetts legislature was able to get Loudoun to agree to quarter his troops at Castle William. [12] On May 3, 1765 the British Parliament met and finally passed a Quartering Act for the American colonies. The act stated that troops could only be quartered in barracks and if there wasn't enough space in barracks then they were to be quartered in public houses and inns. If still not enough space then the governor and council were to find vacant space, but at no time was it legal to quarter troops in private homes. [13] During the American Revolutionary War, the New York Provincial Congress forcibly barracked Continental Army troops in private homes. [14]
Grievance 13 of the 27 Grievances section of the United States Declaration of Independence listing the colonies' grievances against the King explicitly notes:
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us.
The Third Amendment to the United States Constitution expressly prohibited the military from peacetime quartering of troops without consent of the owner of the house. A product of their times, the relevance of the Acts and the Third Amendment has greatly declined since the era of the American Revolution, having been the subject of only one case in over 200 years,[ citation needed ] Engblom v. Carey in 1982.[ citation needed ]
The Quartering Act has been cited as one of the reasons for the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, [15] which prohibits infringing on the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Standing armies were mistrusted, and the First Congress considered quartering of troops to have been one of the tools of oppression before and during the American revolution.[ citation needed ]
The Third Amendment to the United States Constitution places restrictions on the quartering of soldiers in private homes without the owner's consent, forbidding the practice in peacetime. The amendment was a response to the Quartering Acts passed by the Parliament of Great Britain during the buildup to the American Revolutionary War, which had allowed the British Army to lodge soldiers in public buildings.
Thomas Hutchinson was an American merchant, politician, historian, and colonial administrator who repeatedly served as governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay in the years leading up to the American Revolution. He has been described as "the most important figure on the loyalist side in pre-Revolutionary Massachusetts". Hutchinson was a successful merchant and politician who was active at high levels of the Massachusetts colonial government for many years, serving as lieutenant governor and then governor from 1758 to 1774. He was a politically polarizing figure who came to be identified by John Adams and Samuel Adams as a supporter of unpopular British taxes, despite his initial opposition to Parliamentary tax laws directed at the colonies. Hutchinson was blamed by British Prime Minister Lord North for being a significant contributor to the tensions that led to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War.
General Thomas Gage was a British Army officer and colonial administrator best known for his many years of service in North America, including serving as Commander-in-Chief, North America during the early days of the American Revolution.
Timeline of the American Revolution—timeline of the political upheaval culminating in the 18th century in which Thirteen Colonies in North America joined together for independence from the British Empire, and after victory in the Revolutionary War combined to form the United States of America. The American Revolution includes political, social, and military aspects. The revolutionary era is generally considered to have begun with the passage of the Stamp Act in 1765 and ended with the ratification of the United States Bill of Rights in 1791. The military phase of the revolution, the American Revolutionary War, lasted from 1775 to 1783.
The House of Burgesses was the elected representative element of the Virginia General Assembly, the legislative body of the Colony of Virginia.
The Intolerable Acts, sometimes referred to as the Insufferable Acts or Coercive Acts, were a series of five punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea Party. The laws aimed to punish Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in the Tea Party protest of the Tea Act, a tax measure enacted by Parliament in May 1773. In Great Britain, these laws were referred to as the Coercive Acts. They were a key development leading to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War in April 1775.
Thomas Pownall was a British colonial official and politician. He was governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay from 1757 to 1760, and afterwards sat in the House of Commons from 1767 to 1780. He travelled widely in the North American colonies prior to the American Revolutionary War, opposed Parliamentary attempts to tax the colonies, and was a minority advocate of colonial positions until the Revolution.
The Province of New York was a British proprietary colony and later a royal colony on the northeast coast of North America from 1664 to 1783.
Events from the year 1757 in Canada.
The Province of Massachusetts Bay was a colony in New England which became one of the thirteen original states of the United States. It was chartered on October 7, 1691, by William III and Mary II, the joint monarchs of the kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and was based in the merging of several earlier British colonies in New England. The charter took effect on May 14, 1692, and included the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Plymouth Colony, the Province of Maine, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick; the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the direct successor. Maine has been a separate state since 1820, and Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are now Canadian provinces, having been part of the colony only until 1697.
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The Stamp Act Congress, also known as the Continental Congress of 1765, was a meeting held in New York City in the colonial Province of New York. It included representatives from most of the British colonies in North America, which sought a unified strategy against newly imposed taxes by the British Parliament, particularly the Stamp Act. It was the second such gathering of elected colonial representatives after the Albany Convention of 1754 at the outbreak of the French and Indian War. Massive debts from that war, which ended in 1763, prompted the British Parliament to implement measures to raise revenues from the colonies. The Stamp Act required the use of specialty stamped British paper for all legal documents, newspapers, almanacks, and calendars, and even playing cards and dice. When in force, it would have an impact on practically all business in the colonies, starting on November 1, 1765. Resistance to it came especially from lawyers and businessmen, but was broadly protested by ordinary colonial residents.
The Continental Association, also known as the Articles of Association or simply the Association, was an agreement among the American colonies adopted by the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia on October 20, 1774. It was a result of the escalating American Revolution and called for a trade boycott against British merchants by the colonies. Congress hoped that placing economic sanctions on British imports and exports would pressure Parliament into addressing the colonies' grievances, especially repealing the Intolerable Acts, which were strongly opposed by the colonies.
The Currency Act or Paper Bills of Credit Act is one of several Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain that regulated paper money issued by the colonies of British America. The Acts sought to protect British merchants and creditors from being paid in depreciated colonial currency. The policy created tension between the colonies and Great Britain and was cited as a grievance by colonists early in the American Revolution. However, the consensus view among modern economic historians and economists is that the debts by colonists to British merchants were not a major cause of the Revolution. In 1995, a random survey of 178 members of the Economic History Association found that 92% of economists and 74% of historians disagreed with the statement, "The debts owed by colonists to British merchants and other private citizens constituted one of the most powerful causes leading to the Revolution."
Fort Loudoun was a fort in colonial Pennsylvania, one of several forts in colonial America named after John Campbell, 4th Earl of Loudoun. The fort was built in 1756 during the French and Indian War by the Second Battalion of the Pennsylvania Regiment under Colonel John Armstrong, and served as a post on the Forbes Road during the Forbes expedition that successfully drove the French away from Fort Duquesne. The fort remained occupied through Pontiac's War and served as a base for Colonel Henry Bouquet's 1764 campaign. In the 1765 Black Boys Rebellion, Fort Loudoun was assaulted by angry settlers, when their guns were confiscated after they destroyed supplies intended for Native Americans. The garrison retreated to Fort Bedford and the fort was abandoned.
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The Petition to the King was a petition sent to King George III by the First Continental Congress in 1774, calling for the repeal of the Intolerable Acts. The King's rejection of the Petition, was one of the causes of the later United States Declaration of Independence and American Revolutionary War. The Continental Congress had hoped to resolve conflict without a war.
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