The Intolerable Acts, called by the British the Coercive Acts or Punitive Acts, were a series of laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 in response to the growing unrest in thirteen American colonies, particularly in Boston, Massachusetts after incidents such as the Boston Tea Party. Enforcement of the Acts played a major role in the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War and the establishment of the First Continental Congress.
The Coercive Acts included, but were not limited to:
The Quebec Act was also passed in 1774, but it was a piece of legislation unrelated to the Coercive Acts. American Whigs, however, were alarmed by the Quebec Act as much as the Coercive Acts, and they labeled it one of the "Intolerable Acts". Their main complaints over the Quebec Act were the protections granted to the Indian territories and to the Catholic settlers in Ohio. These were viewed as attempts to halt expansion into the west and to strengthen a church that many opposed and resented.
The acts had several different effects. They unintentionally promoted sympathy for the revolutionaries in Massachusetts, and encouraged revolutionaries from the otherwise diverse colonies to band together. However, the Quebec Act had the opposite effect among French Catholics in the Province of Quebec, encouraging many of them to either pragmatic inaction or support for the Crown.
The Intolerable Acts were also a supporting factor behind the calling of the First Continental Congress and the Declaration of Rights and Grievances. It dealt with the Intolerable Acts by creating the Continental Association, which was an agreement to boycott British goods, if that did not get the acts reversed after one year, to stop exporting goods to Great Britain as well.
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