Coercive (Intolerable) Acts

March 1774

Parliament closed Boston Harbor, rewrote Massachusetts's charter, and quartered troops in civilian houses. Intended as surgical punishment, the Coercive Acts instead broadcast the colonial dispute to every port. Virginia declared a day of fasting; the Continental Congress was called. London had united twelve colonies by accident. The Quebec Act, passed the same session, further alarmed Protestants by extending Catholic rights into the Ohio country.