The Intolerable Acts | The Shot Heard ’Round the World

The blockade of Boston Harbor was the first of a series of laws passed by the British Parliament to punish Massachusetts — laws that became known in the colonies as the Intolerable Acts. The laws were also known as the Coercive Acts. The acts increased the royal governor’s powers and took away representative government and trial by a jury of one’s peers. The Quartering Act applied to all the American colonies, requiring them to pay for housing British soldiers in uninhabited buildings.

In September 1774, delegates from 12 colonies met in Philadelphia — a meeting that became known as the first Continental Congress — to consider a unified response to Britain. They passed the Suffolk County Resolves, written by Joseph Warren of Massachusetts, which called for a boycott of British goods until rights were restored. 

As students watch the video, they analyze how power was shifting from the British Parliament to the colonies.