What were the Intolerable Acts?

The Intolerable Acts, called the Coercive Acts in Britain, were a set of laws Parliament passed in the spring of 1774 to punish Massachusetts after the Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773. Lord North's ministry believed strong measures against one colony would isolate Massachusetts and frighten the rest into submission. Five statutes are usually grouped together.

The Boston Port Act, signed March 31, 1774 and effective June 1, closed Boston Harbor to all commerce except food and firewood for British troops until Massachusetts paid the East India Company for the destroyed tea (about £9,659). The Massachusetts Government Act of May 20, 1774 effectively revoked the colony's 1691 royal charter, replaced the elected council with one appointed by the king, gave the royal governor sole authority to appoint and remove judges and sheriffs, and limited town meetings to one per year unless the governor approved more. The Administration of Justice Act, also signed May 20, 1774, allowed royal officials accused of capital crimes in carrying out their duties to be tried in Britain or in another colony, a provision colonists called the Murder Act because they assumed it guaranteed acquittal. The Quartering Act of June 2, 1774 expanded the requirement that colonies house British troops, allowing commanders to use uninhabited buildings, although contrary to popular belief it did not force homeowners to lodge soldiers in their private homes. The Quebec Act of June 22, 1774, often grouped with these laws by colonists, extended Quebec's borders south to the Ohio River, recognized French civil law and the Catholic Church, and gave Quebec a centralized government without an elected assembly.

To Protestant colonists this looked like an attack on land claims and a model for what could happen elsewhere. Parliament also sent General Thomas Gage to replace Thomas Hutchinson as governor of Massachusetts in May 1774 with about 4,000 troops to enforce the laws.

Far from isolating Massachusetts, the Acts unified the colonies. Virginia's House of Burgesses called for a day of fasting on June 1, 1774 in solidarity with Boston, and other colonies sent food, money, and livestock to relieve the city. The Acts directly triggered the First Continental Congress, which met September 5 to October 26, 1774 at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia with delegates from 12 colonies. Within a year of the Acts, fighting broke out at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, and the Revolutionary War was underway.