The Stamp Act Protests in Savannah - Part II

by Denise Weimer

In last month’s post, we looked at the seething political cauldron in the colonies in the mid-1760s—and specifically, how the repressive tax acts affected Savannah, Georgia. The city waited to see if Governor Wright would appoint a stamp master and enforce the Stamp Act. He had prevented delegates from being sent to the Stamp Act Congress held in New York in October, 1765. However, the Commons House had sent a recorder who brought documents to present on October 24. The very next day, a small explosion became the first in a chain of events that fall and winter that led to a major confrontation.

October 25 – A group of Savannah citizens disapprove of the flag and gun ceremony at Fort Halifax on the fifth anniversary of the king’s ascension to the throne, also a militia muster day. That evening, the effigy of a stamp officer is carried through the streets, hanged, and burned.

October 31 – Documents from the Stamp Act Congress are published in the Georgia Gazette, along with a sensational article revealing that four local citizens received letters signed by “the Townsman,” accusing them of being the stamp master or having stamped papers in their possession. The men are instructed to publicly advertise their innocence or risk grievous results. Three comply, one returns to England, and James Habersham offers a reward of fifty pounds to anyone who turns in the sender of the letters.

Joel Chandler Harris, "The Liberty Boys"

November 4 – Sons of Liberty meet at Machenry’s Tavern to plot opposition to the Stamp Act. Having learned George Angus, not from Georgia, would be the stamp master, they agree to confront him upon his arrival and demand his resignation.

November 5 – A group of sailors enact the stamp master being placed on a scaffold and carried about town, amusing crowds.

November 12 – Governor Wright orders rangers from frontier forts to Savannah.

December 5 – Speedwell arrives with stamps in the Savannah River. Stamps are transferred secretly to Fort Halifax, east of town, and locked in the King’s Store.

January 2 – About two hundred citizens threaten to assault Fort Halifax. Meanwhile, a smaller group with drums and flags parades to Wright’s residence. There he chides them for their ill manners with musket in hand. He gathers a crowd of rangers, sailors, and merchants to confront the crowd at Fort Halifax. The rangers move the stamps to the guardhouse. Forty men remain on duty overnight and for the next two weeks.

January 3 – Rangers meet the boat of Stamp Agent George Angus on the river and escort him to Wright’s house to take his oath of office. He is then spirited away to hide in the countryside for two weeks. Wright clears sixty ships waiting to enter Savannah’s port but chooses not to issue any further stamped papers until the king answers the petition sent by the Stamp Act Congress.

January 30 – Wright learns “incendiaries” from Charleston have inflamed Savannah citizens to destroy the papers, so he moves them to Fort George on Cockspur Island.

February 2 – Stamped papers are returned to the Speedwell. Seven hundred backwoodsmen arrive in town, threatening to raze the city and shoot the governor if the stamps are not destroyed. Wright musters supporters to face the mob.

February 4 – Almost 250 Stamp Act opponents march to Savannah commons with plans to demand the governor hand over the stamps. Wrights calls seventy rangers and twenty crew of the Speedwell plus his loyal friends to face down the mob for three hours. After trading insults, the crowd disperses.

March 4 – Pressured by English merchants who feel the pinch of colonial non-importation agreements, English Parliament repeals the Stamp Act but quickly follows with the Declaratory Act, which states parliament has the right to legislate for the colonies in all matters. A hint that the reprieve will not last…

A Conflicted Betrothal, Book Four of the Scouts of the Georgia Frontier, https://www.amazon.com/Conflicted-Betrothal-Scouts-Georgia-Frontier-ebook/dp/B0CRF911PD/: When Savannah erupts into protests following the passage of the Stamp Act, Georgia Royal Ranger Ansel Anderson is summoned from his frontier post to provide intelligence to his father’s friend, a Loyalist judge. To obtain the land grant he needs, he’s also to court the man’s daughter, an ardent Patriot. Patience Scott has no intention of letting herself fall for a sworn King’s Man…until anonymous letters threatening those loyal to the governor corner her into agreeing to a betrothal. But will their attraction survive their conflicting loyalties?

Denise Weimer writes historical and contemporary romance from her home in North Georgia and also serves as a freelance editor and the Acquisitions & Editorial Liaison for Wild Heart Books. A wife and mother of two daughters, she always pauses for coffee, chocolate, and old houses.

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The Stamp Act Protests in Savannah - Part I

1760s Christian Camphor House

by Denise Weimer

My post last month set the scene of Savannah in the 1760s, poised for revolution. The fuse for rebellion was lit in the decade before a shot was ever fired with a series of increasingly repressive acts levying taxes for Britain.

Designed to offset the cost of the French and Indian War, the April 1764 Sugar Act taxed molasses imported from any country outside the British Empire. Molasses was used in the distilling of rum, a huge industry in the colonies.

The September 1764 Currency Act aimed to pay for stationing ten thousand troops in America. Many of these helped protect the frontiers at the request of the governors. The act forbade the printing of paper money in the colonies and issued a “call in” date for old bills, many of which were not equalized throughout the colonies. With items from England costing more and little hard currency in circulation, inflation ensued.

The crowning grievance lay in the March 1765 Stamp Act, which was considered unfair because it was an internal tax not having to do with business outside the colonies. It required an imprint on official papers or a small blue paper affixed with tin foil to a document, including bills, calendars, warrants, deeds, court documents, commercial papers, degrees, newspapers, pamphlets, ads, almanacs, indentures, appointments, and even cards and dice. Anyone breaking the Stamp Act would be tried in admiralty court in Nova Scotia. Colonists objected to not having a local trial by their peers and because English parliament, not the local upper and lower houses, had set the tax.

Parliament swiftly followed in May 1765 with the Quartering Act requiring provincial assemblies to victual and billet British soldiers in barracks, inns, or uninhabited buildings. Most colonists felt capable of defending their own frontiers and resented the large standing army that remained after the French and Indian War, partly to satisfy the sons of noble families with commissions.

As early as February of 1765, Prime Minister Grenville met with Benjamin Franklin and other representatives of the colonies to discuss objections to the Stamp Act. Little headway was made. Isac Barré, an Irish politician who had served in the colonies during the French and Indian War, took up the cause of the patriots and coined the term “sons of liberty.”

Sons of Liberty flag

Soon, colonists were forming Sons and Daughters of Liberty groups. They developed their own flag to represent the nine colonies which attended a Stamp Act Congress held in New York during the month of October. The Georgia governor refused to call the assembly into session prior, preventing the state from sending delegates. However, the Commons House sent a supportive letter and a recorder to take notes.

Next month, we’ll look at the chaos that ensued in Savannah following the Stamp Act Congress.

A Conflicted Betrothal, Book Four of the Scouts of the Georgia Frontier, https://www.amazon.com/Conflicted-Betrothal-Scouts-Georgia-Frontier-ebook/dp/B0CRF911PD/: When Savannah erupts into protests following the passage of the Stamp Act, Georgia Royal Ranger Ansel Anderson is summoned from his frontier post to provide intelligence to his father’s friend, a Loyalist judge. To obtain the land grant he needs, he’s also to court the man’s daughter, an ardent Patriot. Patience Scott has no intention of letting herself fall for a sworn King’s Man…until anonymous letters threatening those loyal to the governor corner her into agreeing to a betrothal. Will their attraction survive their conflicting loyalties?

Denise Weimer writes historical and contemporary romance from her home in North Georgia and also serves as a freelance editor and the Acquisitions & Editorial Liaison for Wild Heart Books. A wife and mother of two daughters, she always pauses for coffee, chocolate, and old houses.

Connect with Denise here:

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From Stamp Act to Revolution

by Elaine Marie Cooper

The Stamp Act of 1765 took the American colonists by complete surprise. Without any representation in English Parliament, a tax was placed on every legal document and printed piece of material, including wills, newspapers, pamphlets, even playing cards. But this now-mandatory stamp was an affront to the economically-strapped Americans who simmered with growing rage. That anger grew to a boil that, ten years later, resulted in the American Revolution.

Stamp Act Seal

The Colonists were not unused to levies of various sorts set by their local legislatures. But they had a voice in those decisions. This was the first time that Parliament, with no colonial representation, levied such a bill. It was feared this Stamp Act would be a precedent to other such oppressive decisions by the Crown in England. In fact, they were correct. 

On the one hand, Colonists viewed themselves as Englishmen, yet believed they were being treated as foreigners with lesser rights. 

On the other hand, Parliament reasoned that the American colonies had benefitted from the protection of the British troops throughout the French and Indian War, and would continue to receive military protection from the natives on the frontier. Practically speaking, the Brits believed the colonists owed them for such service, which had greatly increased England’s debt since the beginning of that war. 

The passage of this Stamp Act on March 22, 1765 prompted mob violence in the colonies, where the stamp collectors were harassed into resigning their positions. The negative response actually caused Britain to repeal the act in 1766. 

But the precedent was now set that England viewed the colonists in a dimmer light. Americans’ view of their alliance with England had taken a turn. Since they were not able to vote for members of Parliament, they rejected the government’s argument that they were represented in that legislative body.

It is believed by historians that the incredible shift in devotion to the Mother country from 1765 to 1775 was almost unimaginable. The American colonies had gone from fighting in a war with their British comrades, to taking up arms against them. 

It was a metamorphosis in allegiance that had lasting consequences—both terrible and great—for the entire world.  

March 22, 1765 to April 19, 1775. Ten years and one month that transformed the future of America. 

Elaine Marie Cooper has two historical fiction books that released in 2019: War’s Respite(Prequel novella) and Love’s Kindling. Love’s Kindling is available in both e-book and paperback. They are the first two books in the Dawn of America Series set in Revolutionary War Connecticut. Cooper is the award-winning author of Fields of the Fatherless and Bethany’s Calendar. Her 2016 release (Saratoga Letters) was finalist in Historical Romance in both the Selah Awards and Next Generation Indie Book Awards. She has been published in Chicken Soup for the Soul and HomeLife magazine. She also penned the three-book historical series, Deer Run Saga. Her upcoming release, Scarred Vessels,” is about the black soldiers in the American Revolution. Look for it in October 2020. You can visit her website/ blog at www.elainemariecooper.com