Parliament triples Quebec's size and restores Catholic authority; colonists call it tyranny

Eleven years after France surrendered New France at the Treaty of Paris, Britain still hadn't resolved how to govern its predominantly Catholic, French-speaking population in Quebec. The Quebec Act of 1774 cut through the problem with a single law: it removed the Protestant oath of allegiance blocking Canadiens from public office, restored the Catholic Church's authority to collect tithes, revived French civil law and the seigneurial land system, and tripled the size of the province by absorbing the Ohio Country. American Patriots, already furious at the Intolerable Acts passed in the same parliamentary session, listed the Quebec Act among their 27 grievances in the Declaration of Independence — a law meant to pacify one population had helped inflame another…