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American History by Katelyn Woolfolk

The Quartering Act of 1765

• Passed on March 24, 1765 (J-YF), this Quartering Act lasted for only two years (Miller), and was one of the four "Intolerable Acts" that Parliament passed as punishment for the Boston "Tea Party". (Brinkley)
• The act was part of the Intolerable Act, which were directed specifically at Massacusetts, but the Quartering Act affected all the colonies, which spurred the rebellion on more than if it had just applied to Massachusetts. (Mount)
• The purpose of the act was economic; it was a way to get Americans to pay part of the cost for providing for British soldiers fighting (or not) in America. (J-YF)
• The act put the responsibility of feeding and housing any troops residing in a colony on the shoulders of that colony's government. If there were not enough barracks to hold all the troops, they could be housed in inns, stables, empty houses, ect. (J-YF)
• This "quartering" was enacted without compensation, and the owners of the places where the soldiers were staying were required to provide the soldiers with necessary things like food and liquor, but were not given compensation for that either. (Mount)
• During 1774, the Quartering Act was added onto when the Quartering Act of 1774 was passed, which required that overflow troops be housed in private homes also. (Mount) This meant that the act could and did affect a wide range of people, from farmers, to merchants, to anyone else with a roof over their head, and this roused great displeasure across the colonies.
• Americans interpreted this act as an attempt of Parliament to tax them without their consent and/or a way to allow for a standing army in America that was there to enforce British policies. (J-YF)
• 1,500 British soldiers stepped onto New York soil in 1766, but the New York government refused to comply with the law, so Parliament suspended the government until it agreed to comply, but the government was never actually suspended because they later agreed to pay for some of the costs. (J-YF)
• Most colonies found ways around the act in the years leading up to the Revolution, since the colonists resented being taxed to pay for an army that they neither supported nor wanted in their lands. (J-YF)
• This act excited the ever-strengthening rebellious spirits of the colonists, and thier blantant disrespect and disregard of the law affirmed the British realization that something had to be done with the Americans, because the British were rapidly losing their grip on them, and they were valuable.

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• "The Quartering Act of 1765 - History Is Fun." History Is Fun The Quartering Act of 1765 Comments. Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, 26 Mar. 2015. Web. 19 Oct. 2015.
• Mount, Steve. "The Quartering Act - The U.S. Constitution Online - USConstitution.net." The Quartering Act - The U.S. Constitution Online - USConstitution.net. Craig Walenta, 8 Jan. 2010. Web. 20 Oct. 2015.
• Miller, J. (1940). Dictionary of American History (Vol. 5, p. 471). New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
• Brinkley, Alan. "The Empire in Transition." The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People. 4th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2004. Print.