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NARRATOR: By the time the French and Indian War ended in 1763 England had spent 70 billion pounds defending the American colonies and felt it was time for Americans to pay their fair share.

MAN: The British were starting to feel sorry for themselves. They were paying these heavy taxes, and the Americans were paying no taxes. The Americans had the highest per capita income in the civilized world, and they paid virtually no taxes.

NARRATOR: In order to start collecting money from the colonists, King George III persuaded parliament to pass the Stamp Act, which was a direct tax on all kinds of printing material, including newspapers, [BELL DINGS] diplomas, marriage licenses, and even playing cards.

The Stamp Act antagonized the colonists and united them against British rule. For colonists, it was another example of taxation without representation. They believed they were already contributing enough to the British coffers by submitting to the Navigation Acts, which mandated that colonial imports arrive on English ships and limited colonists' right to export to other nations. If more taxes were required, the colonists believed their representatives should decide how much tax should be paid.

MAN: But the British had an answer to that. They said, well, most of the people in England are not represented either. There were 7 million people living in England, and only 250,000 had a vote.

NARRATOR: Colonists began protesting by sending petitions to parliament from the local assemblies. But demonstrations quickly sprang up. Defiant groups of women led boycotts of British cloth and other goods. Vigilantes tarred and feathered people who would not boycott the Stamp Act.

WOMAN: They proposed boycotts of English manufactured goods, and that really matters because America has become one of the biggest markets for English products of all kinds. And when the Americans institute these boycotts, British sales plummet.

MAN: And this Stamp Act was just like putting a match in a barrel of gunpowder. And wow, there were riots in all the cities.

NARRATOR: Patriotic mobs ransacked the houses of tax collectors and hanged effigies of stamp agents. By the time the Stamp Act was supposed to go into effect, every stamp agent in the colonies had resigned from fear of further mob violence.

WOMAN: And British merchants go to parliament and say, you repeal that act, you repeal that act right now because you're hurting our business.

MAN: The British were absolutely stunned by this. They just had no anticipation that this was going to happen. Fortunately, Benjamin Franklin was still living in England.

NARRATOR: As the American ambassador to England, Franklin appeared before the House of Commons in London to convince it to repeal the Stamp Act.

MAN: He explained why the Americans hated this tax and why they weren't going to pay it. And he advised the British to repeal it, and they did.

NARRATOR: King George III was outraged. He felt that the American opposition to the Stamp Act was a personal defeat and an insult.

MAN: And he insisted that, while parliament repealed it, they would also put into the bill what they call the Declarative Act or Declarative Statement, in which they said parliament had the right to tax the Americans in all circumstances whatsoever. So the British didn't back down on the right to tax. But they did back down on the specific stamp tax.

NARRATOR: With the Stamp Act repealed, order was temporarily restored. But the colonists remained defiant. The stage was set for continuing confrontation.