• New Hampshire
  Protest Locations
  Portsmouth.
  On the day when the Stamp Act was to go into effect, November 1, protesters held a mock funeral of Liberty, as did colonists in Newport, Baltimore, and Wilmington, NC. See Edmund S. Morgan and Helen M. Morgan, The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953), 201.
• Massachusetts
  
  Protest Locations
  Marblehead,Salem,
  Boston, Plymouth.
  The Stamp Act provoked particularly heated responses in Boston, where the homes of prominent officials were targeted by mobs in two separate incidents in August 1765. Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson and the man designated to distribute the stamps, Andrew Oliver, both saw their possessions and homes ransacked. On August 14, an effigy meant to represent Oliver was hung from a tree. That night, with Andrew Oliver and his family safely at the home of friends, the mob beheaded and burned the effigy and attacked his home, tearing town the garden fence and destroying furniture. When Hutchinson attempted to disband the mob around 11 p.m., he quickly found himself on the run. On August 26, the mob turned out again, with Hutchinson's home and those of two other prominent men their targets. Hutchinson's house was thoroughly vandalized, with windows, doors, trees, furniture, and other belongings all destroyed.
  
  Word of the crowd's destructive behavior alarmed officials in England, who saw such behavior as a reason to send troops to quell colonists' disorderly conduct. Throughout the troubles in Boston, the men who became known as the Sons of Liberty played an important role, orchestrating protests, preserving order when it suited their needs, and pressuring the colonial stamp distributor to resign his post. On December 17, they insisted that Oliver appear at the Liberty Tree to resign his commission. Left with no choice, Oliver complied, delivering his resignation and comments to a crowd of 2000 colonists gathered in the rain.
  
  See Edmund S. Morgan and Helen M. Morgan, The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953), 123-127, 132-138..
• Connecticut
  Protest Locations
  Pomfret, Windham,
  Wethersfield, Lebanon,
  Norwich, Wallingford,
  New London, Lyme,
  New Haven, West Haven,
  Stratford, Milford,
  Hartford,Fairfield.
  Connecticut Stamp Distributor Jared Ingersoll was burned in effigy throughout the colony, threatened, and accosted by a mob ready to lynch him. When that attack took place, on September 15, Ingersoll resigned the position after weeks of resisting daunting pressure. See Edmund S. Morgan and Helen M. Morgan, The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953), 154-155.
• North Carolina
  Protest Locations
  New Bern, Duplin,
  Cross Creek, Wilmington,
  Brunswick, Fort Johnson.

  Wilmington residents intercepted official correspondence regarding the stamp act and forced the distributor to resign his post. They also, along with protesters in Newport, RI, Baltimore, MD, and Portsmouth, NH, held a mock funeral of Liberty, on November 1, the day when the Stamp Act was to go into effect. 1000 men from three counties assembled in Wilmington, marched on Brunswick, and seized control of the port. See Edmund S. Morgan and Helen M. Morgan, The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953), 156, 165, 201.

• South Carolina
  Protest Locations
  Charleston
  

  Along with assemblies of Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, South Carolina protested the act and denied Parliament's authority to pass it. Mob action erupted in Charleston, when the stamps arrived in late October, prompting the stamp distributor, Caleb Lloyd, to seek refuge at a fort. See Edmund S. Morgan and Helen M. Morgan, The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953), 38, 155-156.

• Virginia
  Protest Locations
  Dumfries, Leeds,
  Tappahannock, Williamsburg,
  Norfolk.
  

  When stamp distributor George Mercer, who had been in England, arrived in Williamsburg on October 30, he encountered crowds in the street, comprised of individuals from all over the colony. The mob prepared to seize him, insisting on his resignation. After thinking about the matter overnight, he resigned. In Norfolk, the Sons of Liberty organized a protest gathering of townspeople to discuss their rights. See Edmund S. Morgan and Helen M. Morgan, The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953), 155, 200.

• Maryland
  Protest Locations
  Frederick Town, Baltimore,
  Elk Ridge Landing, Annapolis,
  Talbot.
  

  On the day when the Stamp Act was to go into effect, November 1, protesters held a mock funeral of Liberty, as did colonists in Newport, RI, Portsmouth, NH, and Wilmington, NC. See Edmund S. Morgan and Helen M. Morgan, The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953), 201.

• Delaware
  Protest Locations
  Lewes
  

  Delaware Although the colonial governor refused to convene the assembly which would have elected delegates to the Stamp Act Congress, Delaware's assemblymen held their own informal election and so sent representatives to the meeting in New York. See Edmund S. Morgan and Helen M. Morgan, The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953), 103.

• Pennsylvania
  Protest Locations
  Philadelphia
  

  Repeated street protests and mob action took place in Philadelphia. There, protesters forced Stamp Distributor John Hughes to comply with their demands in early October. Resisting their pressure that he resign, and holding the stamp post for Delaware as well, Hughes promised that he would only enforce the act if other colonies did. This compromise satisfied the protesters. See Edmund S. Morgan and Helen M. Morgan, The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953), 155, 245-255.

• New Jersey
  Protest Locations
  Elizabethtown, Piscataway,
  Woodbridge, Brunswick,
  Amwell Township, Salem.
  

  In New Jersey, lawyers protested the act, demonstrating their opposition by no longer doing business in court. Protest meetings held in New Brunswick were sponsored by the Sons of Liberty. See Edmund S. Morgan and Helen M. Morgan, The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953), 174, 200.

  .
• New York
  Protest Locations
  Albany, New York,
  

  After reports of the mob violence in Boston and Newport spread, Stamp Distributors elsewhere, like James McEvers in New York, resigned their commissions before being asked to do so. In petitions to the king and Parliament, the colonial assembly declared flat out that New York was exempt from taxes not passed by their representatives. Opposition to the act was widespread. When word spread that two merchants used stamped paper for a customs transaction, a crowd estimated at 2000-5000 people gathered at the coffee house where the men were to be interviewed by the Sons of Liberty. The most important Stamp Act development in the colony was the Stamp Act Congress, convened in October at the suggestion of the Massachusetts House of Representation; nine colonies responded. Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia, where the governors refused to convene assemblies that would have elected representatives for the Congress, failed to send delegates. After debate, the participants passed a series of resolutions protesting the Act. See Edmund S. Morgan and Helen M. Morgan, The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953), 36-37, 152-153, 103-113.

• Rhode Island
  Protest Locations
  Newport
  Rhode Island counted its highest officials among those protesting the Stamp Act. The governor, Stephen Hopkins, wrote a pamphlet opposing Parliament's taxation policies. Physical acts of protest followed those in Boston. On August 27, the day after the second mob attack in Boston, but before word of it had reached Newport, residents paraded three effigies of prominent men, including August Johnston, the appointed Distributor of Stamps for Rhode Island, through the streets. That night,the riotous crowd ransacked the houses of all three men. Johnston resigned his post, but the crisis over clearing ships through the port remained unresolved for much of the fall. Finally, by the end of November, customs collector John Robinson felt forced to allow trade to continue without the required stamps. See Edmund S. Morgan and Helen M. Morgan, The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953), 36, 144-151.
• Georgia
  Protest Locations
  Savannah.
  

  In Georgia, stamps were distributed to customs officers, who cleared 60 ships on stamped paper in January 1766. The participation of Savannah merchants in this process earned them the animosity of colonists there and elsewhere. Outraged Georgia colonists marched on Savannah. Reports of 600 armed men coming to protest prompted the governor to send the stamps to an island fort, which led to the port's business being conducted without stamps, an act of defiance in line with the response in other colonies. See Edmund S. Morgan and Helen M. Morgan, The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953), 165-166.

Scroll over the map of the colonies for more information about the protests in different colonial cities.

Introduction
In 1765, Parliament passed a piece of legislation that provoked debate throughout the colonies. The Stamp Act was a revenue-raising measure designed to lower the debt Britain had accrued as a result of the French and Indian War. Under the terms of the legislation, any piece of printed matter, such as newspapers, playing cards, and legal documents, was required to bear a special stamp.

News of this measure sparked widespread protest in the colonies, ranging from verbal complaints to acts of intimidation and violence. Reaction to the act also included the first boycott of British goods. Boycotts merged private concerns, such as the purchase and consumption of goods for a household, with political ones, and many colonists found themselves engaging in political activities for the first time.

While the verbal protests and violent attacks troubled officials in England, boycotts of British imports proved even more problematic and led manufacturers and merchants in England to pressure Parliament for the act's repeal. When it was repealed in 1766, colonists rejoiced, confident that their protests had been effective.

They chose to ignore the legislation Parliament passed on the same day of the act's repeal: the Declaratory Act, which stated that Parliament had the right to legislate over the colonies in all cases.

Although the demonstrations in Boston proved the most famous, colonial protests to the Stamp Act were widespread. The act prompted colonists to join together in a Stamp Act Congress, which met in New York, the first intercolonial gathering in over ten years, to discuss their shared grievances.