17651776 Club
The Stamp Act takes effect; colonial paper now needs a stamp from London
A week after the Stamp Act Congress adjourned in New York, the first direct tax Parliament has laid on the colonies comes due.
Britain won the Seven Years' War and kept the bill: national debt nearly doubled between 1755 and 1764, and 10,000 British troops still sat in the American colonies. On November 1, 1765, the Stamp Act took effect, requiring printed materials from newspapers to playing cards and dice to carry an embossed revenue stamp bought from London. It was the first direct tax Parliament had imposed on the colonists. The act would stay in force less than five months…
