The slogan above should be familiar to every American since it featured hugely in the run up to the War for Independence. As we approach our 250th anniversary, I thought a review would be interesting.

After the War between France and Britain, Great Britain was deeply in debt. Parliament thought they could raise money by taxing the colonists. The first was the Stamp Act. To make a legal document, the paper had to be imported with a stamp on it, and every document, newspaper, even decks of cards had to use this paper. The tax met with resistance, the colonists believing that since they had no representation on Parliament, that body had no right to tax them.

Although the Stamp tax was mostly repealed, the Townshend Acts soon followed. Although there were several parts, the five most commonly accepted are:

• raise revenue in the colonies to pay the salaries of governors and judges so that they would remain loyal to Great Britain,
• Create more effective means of enforcing compliance with trade regulations,
• punish the Province of New York for failing to comply with the 1765 Quartering Act and
• establish the precedent that the British Parliament had the right to tax the colonies.

The Quartering Act was an effort to make the colonies provide British troops with housing and food – in essence inflicting a military force on a civilian population. Needless to say, it was met with stiff resistance.

Although most of this act was also repealed, not all of it was. Parliament felt they had the right to tax the colonists so they kept the tax on tea. We know the result of that. A group of colonists dressed as Native Americans dumped the tea into Boston Harbor.

In response, Parliament passed the Intolerable Acts, also known as the Coercive Acts. These were a series of punitive acts designed to punish especially Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party. Many in Massachusetts considered these acts a ‘virtual declaration of war.’ By choosing to punish Massachusetts, it seemed that Parliament hoped to convince the other colonies to stop resisting British authority.

Instead, these acts further enraged the colonists. They felt that their rights as Englishmen had been violated. The Acts were also viewed as so harsh and cruel that any moderate voices had a hard time defending Parliament.

To paraphrase a line from Star Wars, the more Great Britain tightened their grip, the more colonists slipped through their fingers.

This is a quick summary and the real history is more complicated. But I think the lesson is clear. Increasing repression, rather than quelling resistance, usually serves to encourage it.