1774 - The Intolerable ActsThe Intolerable Acts included five literally intolerable laws. One section of the act closed Boston harbor to further tea shipments until Bostians paid for all the tea they had destroyed in 1773. Another law restricted the activities of the Massachusettes legislature and gave added powers to the post of the governor of Massachusettes. Now, colonists thought of King George as more of a dictator. The colonists organized resistance to the acts, and the First Continental Congress was created.
The Patriots were not a tolerant group, and Loyalists suffered regular harassment, had their property seized, or were subject to personal attacks.The process of "TAR AND FEATHERING," for example, was brutally violent. Stripped of clothes, covered with hot tar, and splattered with feathers, the victim was then forced to parade about in public. Unless the British Army was close at hand to protect Loyalists, they often suffered bad treatment from Patriots and often had to flee their own homes. About one-in-six Americans was an active Loyalist during the Revolution, and that number undoubtedly would have been higher if the Patriots hadn't been so successful in threatening and punishing people who made their Loyalist sympathies known in public.
The Patriots were not a tolerant group, and Loyalists suffered regular harassment, had their property seized, or were subject to personal attacks.The process of "TAR AND FEATHERING," for example, was brutally violent. Stripped of clothes, covered with hot tar, and splattered with feathers, the victim was then forced to parade about in public. Unless the British Army was close at hand to protect Loyalists, they often suffered bad treatment from Patriots and often had to flee their own homes. About one-in-six Americans was an active Loyalist during the Revolution, and that number undoubtedly would have been higher if the Patriots hadn't been so successful in threatening and punishing people who made their Loyalist sympathies known in public.