The Intolerable Act By David Ammerman

The Intolerable Acts, also known as Coercive Acts, were for the major part of the 1770s, the main causes of the economic tensions between the British Parliament and the American colonists. In the book, The Common Cause, David Ammerman, deeply explains how and why the American colonists reacted the way they did when these acts were passed by the British Parliament. The intention of these acts such as the Boston Port Act, Massachusetts Government Act, Justice Act, Quartering Act, and the Quebec Act, was to punish the colonists for their involvement in the Boston Tea Party of 1773. The colonists waited for the British Parliament’s response until it came in May of 1774 by passing those laws one by one. This book even comes to question why the colonists …show more content…
He also intended to focus on how it changed the colonists and how it affected them in every way possible, not only socially, but economically. His thesis is clearly stated since the beginning of the book when he immediately takes you to the time period of 1773, the initiation of the Boston Tea Party, “Thursday, December 16, 1773…stood chest after chest of dutied tea sent to Massachusetts Bay…” Ammerman also argues that the colonists were separated by factionalism, arguments between groups within a larger group, and that major unity existed between the colonists, in response to the …show more content…
He provides a variety of examples and citations, as evidence, on the historical content having to do with the acts and what he talks about in the book, but at the same time, he lets the reader think and try to interpret what they’re reading. Ammerman, for instance, has his opinions on the British Parliament and on what the real causes were to passing these laws, but then at the same time he leaves the reader either agreeing with him or having entitled their own opinion. “… the dispute between England and America involved but one question , “Whether we shall or shall not be governed by a British Parliament.” He leaves the reader thinking and making their own assumptions while later on interpreting his opinion and understanding which is clear, logical, and consistent. “The ministry’s determination that America should be governed by Parliament naturally colored its response to the Tea Party” making the reader well aware of his opinion and theirs as