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Pukaʻōmaʻomaʻo

Traditions on the island of Oʻahu note Mā’ilikūkahi was a ruling chief around 1500 (about the time Columbus crossed the Atlantic.) Māʻilikūkahi is said to have enacted a code of laws in which theft from the people by chiefs was forbidden.

A son of Mā’ilikūkahi was Kalona-nui, who in turn had a son called Kalamakua. Kalamakua is said to have been responsible for developing a large system of taro planting across the Waikīkī-Kapahulu-Mōʻiliʻili-Mānoa area. The extensive loʻi kalo were irrigated by water drawn from the Mānoa and Pālolo Valley streams and large springs in the area.

In 1792, Captain George Vancouver described Mānoa Valley on a hike from Waikīkī in search of drinking water: “We found the land in a high state of cultivation, mostly under immediate crops of taro; and abounding with a variety of wild fowl chiefly of the duck kind …”

“The sides of the hills, which were in some distance, seemed rocky and barren; the intermediate vallies, which were all inhabited, produced some large trees and made a pleasing appearance. The plains, however, if we may judge from the labour bestowed on their cultivation, seem to afford the principal proportion of the different vegetable productions …” (Edinburgh Gazetteer)

One century later, before it was urbanized, Mānoa Valley was described by Thrum (1892:)  “Manoa is both broad and low …”

“… with towering hills on both sides that join the forest clad mountain range at the head, whose summits are often hid in cloud land, gathering moisture there from to feed the springs in the various recesses that in turn supply the streams winding through the valley, or watering the vast fields of growing taro, to which industry the valley is devoted.”

“The higher portions and foot hills also give pasturage to the stock of more than one dairy enterprise.”

Handy (in his book Hawaiian Planter) writes that in ancient days, all of the level land in upper Mānoa was developed into taro flats and was well-watered, level land that was better adapted to terracing than neighboring Nuʻuanu.  The entire floor of Mānoa Valley was a “checkerboard of taro patches.”  “The terraces extended along Manoa Stream as far as there is a suitable land for irrigating.”

The well-watered, fertile and relatively level lands of Mānoa Valley supported extensive wet taro cultivation well into the twentieth century. Handy and Handy estimated that in 1931 “there were still about 100 terraces in which wet taro was planted, although these represented less than a tenth of the area that was once planted by Hawaiians.” (Cultural Surveys)

Mānoa Valley was a favored spot of the Ali‘i, including Kamehameha I, Chief Boki (Governor of O‘ahu), Haʻalilio (an advisor to King Kamehameha III,) Princess Victoria, Kanaʻina (father of King Lunalilo), Lunalilo, Keʻelikōlani (half-sister of Kamehameha IV) and Queen Lili‘uokalani.  The chiefs lived on the west side, the commoners on the east.

Queen Kaʻahumanu lived there; her home was called Pukaʻōmaʻomaʻo (Green Gateway.)  It was situated deep in the valley (lit., green opening; referring to its green painted doors and blinds – It is alternatively referred to as Pukaʻōmaʻo.)

“Her residence is beautifully situated and the selection of the spot quite in taste. The house … stands on the height of a gently swelling knoll, commanding, in front, an open and extensive view of all the rich plantations of the valley; of the mountain streams meandering through them … of the district of Waititi; and of Diamond Hill, and a considerable part of the plain, with the ocean far beyond.” (Stewart; Sterling & Summers)

It was doubtless the same sort of grass house which was in general use, although probably more spacious and elaborate as befitted a queen. The dimension in one direction was 60 feet. The place name of the area was known as Kahoiwai, or “Returning Waters.”

“Immediately behind the house, and partially flanking it on either side, is a delightful grove of the dark leaved and crimson blossomed ʻŌhia, so thick and so shady … filled with cool and retired walks and natural retreats, and echoing to the cheerful notes of the little songsters, who find security in its shades to build their nests and lay their young.”

“The view of the head of the valley inland, from the clumps and single trees edging this copse, is very rich and beautiful; presenting a circuit of two or three miles delightfully variegated by hill and dale, wood and lawn, and enclosed in a sweep of splendid mountains, one of which in the centre rises to a height of three thousand feet.”

“In one edge of this grove, a few rods from the house, stands a little cottage built by Kaahumanu, for the accommodation of the missionaries who visit her when at this residence. … (It) is very frequently occupied a day or two at a time, by one and another of the families most enervated by the heat and dust, the toil, and various exhausting cares of the establishment at the sea-shore.“  (Stewart; Sterling & Summers)

“Not far makai … High Chief Kalanimōku, had very early allotted to the Mission the use of farm plots thus noted in its journal of June, 1823: “On Monday the 2d, Krimakoo and the king’s mother granted to the brethren three small pieces of land cultivated with taro, potatoes, bananas, melons, &c. and containing nineteen bread-fruit trees, from which they may derive no small portion of the fruit and vegetables needed by the family.”  (Damon)

Then, in mid-1832, Kaʻahumanu became ill and was taken to her house in Mānoa, where a bed of maile and leaves of ginger was prepared.   “Her strength failed daily.  She was gentle as a lamb, and treated her attendants with great tenderness.  She would say to her waiting women, ‘Do sit down; you are very tired; I make you weary.’”  (Bingham)

“The king, his sister, other members of the aliʻi and many retainers had already arrived at Pukaomaomao and had dressed the large grass house for the dying queen’s last homecoming. The walls of the main room had been hung with ropes of sweet maile and decorated with lehua blossoms and great stalks of fragrant mountain ginger.”

“The couch upon which Kaahumanu was to rest had been prepared with loving care. Spread first with sweet-scented made and ginger leaves, it was then covered with a golden velvet coverlet. At the head and foot stood towering leather kahilis. Over a chair nearby was draped the Kamehameha feather cloak which had been worn by Kaahumanu since the monarch’s death.”  (Mellon; Sterling & Summers)

“The slow and solemn tolling of the bell struck on the pained ear as it had never done before in the Sandwich Islands. In other bereavements, after the Gospel took effect, we had not only had the care and promise of our heavenly Father, but a queen-mother remaining, whose force, integrity, and kindness, could be relied on still.”

“But words can but feebly express the emotions that struggled in the bosoms of some who counted themselves mourners in those solemn hours; while memory glanced back through her most singular history, and faith followed her course onward, far into the future.”  (Hiram Bingham)

Her death took place at ten minutes past 3 o’clock on the morning of June 5, 1832, “after an illness of about 3 weeks in which she exhibited her unabated attachment to the Christian teachers and reliance on Christ, her Saviour.”  (Hiram Bingham)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kona Coffee Living History Farm

The Kona Coffee Living History Farm (on the former Uchida Coffee Farm) is a 5.5-acre historic coffee farm, first homesteaded in 1900, and is the only living history coffee farm in the nation.
 
The Uchida Coffee Farm is an intact example of the lifestyle of early Kona Coffee farmers, many of whom were Japanese and brought Japanese customs and culture to Hawai‘i.
 
Don Francisco de Paula y Marin recorded in his journal, dated January 21, 1813, that he had planted coffee seedlings on the island of Oʻahu.  The British warship H.M.S. Blonde brought coffee trees, to Hawaii, from Brazil in 1825.
 
Coffee was planted in Mānoa Valley on O‘ahu, and from a small field, trees were introduced to other areas of O‘ahu and neighbor islands.
 
Reverend Samuel Ruggles moved trees to Captain Cook, Kona in 1828.  Hanalei Valley on the North Shore of Kaua‘i was home to the first coffee plantation.
 
Between 1868 and 1924, more than 140,000 Japanese came to Hawai‘i with 3-year labor contracts to work for the sugar plantations and, when their contract expired, many decided that a different lifestyle suited them better.
 
The 1890s boom in coffee-growing in North Kona was encouraged by rising prices.  Although sugarcane plantations expanded with US annexation in 1898, coffee-growing grew in Kona because of its adaptability to land that was too rocky for sugarcane.
 
During the early coffee boom, Portuguese and then Japanese laborers had filtered into Kona.  As one coffee plantation after another gave up when coffee prices fell and sugar plantations became more attractive, these plantations were broken up into small parcels (3 to 5-acres) and leased to these laborers.
 
Many worked on the newly formed sugar plantations and worked their coffee orchards as side lines.  As the coffee prices remained low, the Portuguese abandoned the coffee orchards, and by 1910, the Japanese were about the only growers left to tend the coffee trees.
 
By the 1930s there were more than 1,000 farms and, as late as the 1950s, there were 6,000-acres of coffee in Kona.
 
At the turn of the last century there was coffee on all the major Hawaii islands, and now 100 years later, there is once again coffee on all the major islands.
 
The Uchida Coffee Farm illustrates the development of small-scale coffee farming facilities along the Kona coffee belt of the Big Island, now considered a world class coffee.
 
It serves as an intact example of the structures that typify the coffee farm lifestyle and technology used in the 1900-1950s by Japanese coffee farmers in Kona.
 
The house is an excellent example of architecture adapted to the climate and needs of a particular family; it demonstrates some of the influences Japanese culture and tradition has had on Hawai‘i’s architecture.
 
The “Living History Farm” brings the coffee pioneer’s story to life by depicting the daily lives of early Japanese immigrants during the period of 1920-1945.
 
Electricity was installed just before the war in the early-1940s and hot running water wasn’t established until the late-1960s, when the modern bathroom was added.  There was never a shower or bath tub, the furo was used.
 
Although the family did use a gas stove in the last years at the farm, the stone fireplaces, used up until recently for rice and wok cooking, are still in place.
 
The Farm museum, operated by the Kona Historical Society, is open for tours and 100% Kona coffee sales Tuesdays and Fridays, 10:00 am – 2:00 pm.  There is a small fee for the self-guided tour – no reservations required.  (All proceeds from admission and sales go directly to the Society’s educational programs and preservation projects. )
 
Living history gives visitors an opportunity to experience history “brought to life” by costumed interpreters who demonstrate traditional crafts, agricultural activities and the everyday tasks of people from the past.
 
Visitors may walk through the coffee and macadamia nut orchards, tour the historic farmhouse, talk story with the interpreters and visit with the donkey and chickens.
 

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

George Herman Huddy

William Henry Harrison Huddy immigrated from Rhode Island and became a citizen of the Kingdom of Hawai‘i in 1850; he married Kahea, a Hawaiian from the island of Kauai.  Their son, George Herman Huddy – the youngest of a large family, was born in Honolulu in 1869; as a young man he lived on Kauai and was educated in Honolulu.

After distinguishing himself as a student in high school, he sought more education and professional training and moved to San Francisco and apprenticed himself to a dentist in that city.

After little more than a year, he qualified for entrance to the College of Dentistry at the University of California Medical School. After three years of study and internship, he became the first Hawaiian to earn a full Degree in Dental Surgery from a Dental School in the US.

After graduation he returned to Hawai‘i and went into practice for himself as a dental surgeon.  In February 1903, Dr George Huddy was appointed by the Governor as a Representative to the Hawai‘i Territorial Legislature from Kauai. (Dr Huddy, continued to be elected as a Territorial Representative, first from Kauai and later from Hilo, until his retirement from that office in 1917.)

On April 25, 1903, the legislature of the territory of Hawaii, at the instigation of the dental society, enacted a law to regulate the practice of dental surgery.  This statute gives the dental society a recognized standing, as the members of the state dental board are appointed by the governor upon recommendation of this society.  Huddy was an initial member.  (History of Dental Surgery, Koch)

On May 13, 1903, Huddy and his good friend, Prince Kūhio, helped reestablish the Order of Kamehameha I (originally organized in 1867 by Kamehameha V).

Kūhiō chose Huddy to preside at this initial session as a charter member where a constitution was written and adopted, and officers elected; Kūhiō was elected as the President.

“Credit for the founding of this order, which dates from May, 1903, or a little more than ten years after the close of the monarchy and a little less than five years after annexation to the United States, belongs to Dr George H Huddy, who has served the territory faithfully and well as a representative in the legislature, first from Kauai and then from Hawaiʻi”

“Prince Jonah Kūhiō Kalanianaʻole, delegate to congress, was the first aliʻi ʻaimoku, or sovereign head of the revived order.” (Star-Bulletin; June 10, 1913)

In 1905, the Order of Kamehameha brought solemnity to the holiday (Kamehameha Day) by draping a lei on the statue of Kamehameha in front of Aliʻiolani Hale and standing watch throughout the day.  (Stillman)

On July 16, 1907, they petitioned for a Charter for the Hawaiʻi Chapter No. 1, Order of Kamehameha.  “… the object for which the same is organized is as follows, 1. To inculcate the cardinal principles of Friendship, Charity and Benevolence; to provide for Sick and Funeral Benefits …”

“… to aid the widows and orphans; and to improve the social and moral conditions of its members.”  (Hawaii Chapter No. 1, Order of Kamehameha; Petition for Charter, July 16, 1907) (An announcement in the Hawaiian Star, shortly after, noted similar language for the Māmalahoa Chapter. No. 2)

In March 1915, “Mrs. Henrietta E Sullivan of Honolulu nei [the daughter of John Hassinger, the long time and well-known Chief Clerk for the Interior Ministry, during the Monarchy and into the Territorial times] and Representative George H Huddy of Hilo became one in the bond of marriage”.

“For the first time in the history of the legislature of Hawaii nei, wed were the Honorable Dr George H. Huddy in the covenant of marriage with Mrs. Henrietta E Sullivan, in the throne room [of Iolani Palace].”

“The one who bound the couple tightly together in the three-stranded cord of matrimony was Father Steven of the Catholic faith, and while the newlyweds were surrounded by their many friends, the priest spoke the words which made the two one, and it is only death that will part them.”

“After the marriage took place, hands were shook with aloha with congratulations from their friends, with prayers that they live their lives in happiness.” (Kuokoa, 03-12-1915)  Theirs is the only wedding ever to take place in the Throne Room of the Palace.

Dr Huddy continued in his dental surgery practice in Honolulu until in 1922 (at the untimely death of his wife, June 20, 1922).  On September 1, 1922, Huddy signed on with the Territorial Board of Health as the Resident Dentist at Kalaupapa, serving alongside Dr Goodhue.

“In December, 1922, Dr George Huddy, a dentist employed by the board of health, began work at the [Kalihi] hospital and spent five months attending to the dental needs of the patients.”

“The employment of this officer meets a very pressing need of the patients, as the teeth of many of the inmates were in bad condition and required the services of a competent dentist. Already a beneficial effect from this work can be noted.”

“I wish to record my unqualified approval of the inauguration of dental service for the patients and to acknowledge the full and free cooperation of the dental officer with the medical officers at Kalihi Hospital.”

“The dentist [Huddy] employed by the board of health for Kalihi Hospital and Kalaupapa settlement has given a great amount of relief to the patients.”  (Report of the Governor to Dept of Interior, 1923)

For the next 8 years, Huddy worked full time for the Board of Health. During these years he rotated between living at Kalaupapa for 2 – 3 months at a time and then back to Honolulu where he served as Dentist at the Old Prison and at the Leper Intake Hospital in Kalihi.

Huddy remarried in 1926 to a resident of Hawai‘i with German origins.  On June 30, 1929, Dr Huddy retired from the Board of Health, having worked himself into ill health and left for Europe for a two year ‘cure’ in Germany.

Returning in early 1932 in somewhat restored health, he reopened his dental surgeon offices in the Boston Building on Fort Street and practiced there until leaving for Germany again in late-1935.

This latter trip turned fatal, and Huddy died in Bremen, Germany. (His ashes were brought back to Hawai‘i and interred in Hilo at Homelani Cemetery.)  (Lots of information here is from Tatibouet.)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Tahitian Village – A Texas Subdivision With Hawaiian Street Names

At the end of April 1970, WW McAllister, once the Mayor of San Antonio and founder of San Antonio Building and Loan Association, sold his 3,700-acre cattle ranch to Time Wealth Corp.

Time Wealth was a business partnership that included Jack and Welcome Wilson, Jack Valenti, Bob Smith, John Goyen and Bob Marlowe. They set out to subdivide the property.

“Marlowe (an engineer) … had spent some quality time in Hawaii and was enamored of that experience that it inspired him to model this snazzy new urban development … with a Polynesian motif”. (Bastrop Advertiser, Sept 3, 2008)

Marlowe “‘had fond memories of his time in Hawaii.  He used to carry a tourist’s map around with him’ in his reshaping of a central Texas cattle ranch of Loblolly pine trees and brambles into his determined vision of a South Pacific Shangri-la.” (son Robert Marlow; Bastrop Advertiser, Sep 3, 2008)

A large section of the McAllister ranch became officially called “Tahitian Village” and was platted into 7,000 or so quarter-acre lots.

One of Marlowe’s tasks was planning and naming the roads on a swath of former ranchland thirty miles southeast of Austin. “Dad came home with Hawaiian maps and guidebooks and dictionaries. He was really into it, and loved the Islands.”

Marlowe wanted to create a golf resort community along the Colorado River with a relaxed atmosphere similar to what he’d experienced in Hawai’i.

“I remember all of us sitting at the dining room table as he walked through the developer’s map, figuring where the streets would go and what he could call them.”  (Robert Marlowe; Lieberman, Hana Hou)

The subdivision has more than two hundred streets with Hawaiian names. With some as long as seven syllables, the developers definitely went big, even for Texas. (Lieberman, Hana Hou)

Not long after clearing some land and grading some roads, Time Wealth sold out to the next visionary developer, Property Investments, Inc (a company out of Houston).

“In the 1970s if you had a pulse and a Texas address, you had a good chance of being chosen by land developers like Property Investments as one of the lucky winners of a swell prize.”

“They’d get these letters in the mail saying that they’d won a prize, and most of them came down here to collect their $10,000 or a new car or whatever it was.” You could claim your prize by coming out to visit a development site. People came in the hundreds.

“But almost everybody won themselves a free stay somewhere. All they had to do was get there.” (George Reinemund; Bastrop Advertiser, Sep 5, 2009)

Those who arrived to consider the opportunity and claim their prize were driven around in Broncos, Tahoes, and Suburbans; whatever could navigate the landscape over no road at all.

Despite that the actual prize awarded to prospects was unlikely to be worth the trip, each visitor got the pitch. Each was asked to imagine how Tahitian Village would look after the installation of all the amenities of a plush resort.

“On the original maps,” says Reinemund, “there were lakes. There were meant to be some 23-acre lakes and some 5-acre lakes.” Visitors with the best imaginations visualized an enviable hot spot with massive profit potential.

Sometimes prospects were enticed with a special taste of the local culture to convince them to make the investment opportunity of a lifetime.

“The Castle” was a popular eatery that was housed in the building that is now Cedar’s Mediterranean Grill.” For about $2.50, Reinemund and TC Hoffman (another Property Investments staffer) confirm, patrons could get a memorable chicken fried steak that seemed about twice the size of its platter and provided a perfect platform for a thick smothering of very tasty cream gravy.

This left prospects with a feeling of abundance and helped encouraged similar feelings toward the potential for the Tahitian Village project. (Bastrop Advertiser, Sep 5, 2009)

About 300 people a week visited the property, mostly to claim their free prizes.  Then, a number of lawsuits were filed against Property Investments and Tahitian Village Corporation through the 1970s and 1980s.  A Grand Jury was assembled, but there were no indictments. (Bastrop Advertiser, Sep 10, 2009)

“The fullest ·expression of Tahitian’s bright future is still down the road a ways – literally. You can’t talk about Tahitian, today or for the future, without a thorough discussion about roads.”

“They are on everyone’s mind, mainly because the water faucets work fine and road conditions are much more apparent than wastewater and fire hazards.”

“Tahitian has 70 miles of roads. Some 30-plus years after Tahitian Drive was completed, only about half are paved. That’s about a mile a year so far. At that rate, the roads should be completed around the year 2044.”

“The city and county appropriately declined to assume responsibility for maintaining poorly built roads. To residents it must have seemed like developers just whistled at the sky as they wandered off.”

“Today Tahitian homeowners want better roads, but roads require money.  Money for roads comes from homeowner’s property taxes, but with 7,000 lots and only about 1,400 homes so far, there aren’t enough homes to generate the necessary taxes. New homes will continue to be built only very slowly until they can be built on nicely paved streets.” (Bastrop Advertiser, Sep 17, 2009)

“Despite myriad challenges and issues, many Tahitian Village residents say they would not change a thing. They’ve adapted to the Hawaiian street names that are so foreign to many Central Texans’ ears.”

“‘Keanahalululu,’ for example, is a warrior of legend whose name can be translated as “the-cave of roaring; as wind travelling through a cave,” according to Honolulu archaeologists T. S. Dye & Colleagues.”

“It is probably more pertinent that Keanahalululu’s name was given to a gulch on the northwest slopes of the Big Island where a tropical garden, “Pua Mau Place,” is an active tourist attraction.”  (Bastrop Advertiser, Sep 17, 2009)

“Challenging names and confusion among similar-sounding streets like Upola and Upolu or Kukui and Kuikui have caused headaches for emergency responders and GPS systems for years.

A handful of street names have had to be changed to mitigate navigation problems, but most of the people in Tahitian Village appreciate the uniqueness of their community and like the street names just the way they are. (Lieberman, Hana Hou)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Coercive (Intolerable) Acts

By 1774, there had been almost a decade of revolutionary fervor in Boston. British taxation policies, such as the Stamp Act of 1765, had sparked a debate in the North American colonies over the constitutional meaning of representation.

Leading radicals like Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, and John Hancock argued that because the colonists weren’t represented in Parliament, that legislative body had no right to tax them.

The stationing of British troops in Boston had infuriated townspeople, setting the stage for the Boston Massacre in 1770.  On December 17, 1773 Boston radicals led by the Sons of Liberty boarded British ships filled with thousands of pounds of East India Company tea. They dumped nearly 350 crates into the harbor.

After the Boston Tea Party, the British adopted a divide-and-conquer strategy that sought to isolate troublemaking Boston from the other colonies, which leaders in Parliament believed were merely tagging along with Boston’s radicals.  (Khan Academy)

After news of the Boston Tea Party in December 1773 reached England, the members of Parliament passed several acts designed to punish the misbehaving colonists and force them to submit to the government’s authority.  (Cal State Long Beach)

In London, response to the destruction of the tea was swift and strong. The violent destruction of property infuriated King George III and the prime minister, Lord North, who insisted the loss be repaid. Though some American merchants put forward a proposal for restitution, the Massachusetts Assembly refused to make payments.

Massachusetts’s resistance to British authority united different factions in Great Britain against the colonies. North had lost patience with the unruly British subjects in Boston.

Lord North declared: “The Americans have tarred and feathered your subjects, plundered your merchants, burnt your ships, denied all obedience to your laws and authority;”

“yet so clement and so long forbearing has our conduct been that it is incumbent on us now to take a different course. Whatever may be the consequences, we must risk something; if we do not, all is over.”

The cumulative effect of the reports of colonial resistance to British rule during the winter of 1773–74 was to make Parliament more determined than ever to assert its authority in America. The main force of its actions fell on Boston, which seemed to be the center of colonial hostility. (Britannica)

Both Parliament and the king agreed that Massachusetts should be forced to both pay for the tea and yield to British authority.

In early 1774, leaders in Parliament responded with a set of four measures designed to punish Massachusetts, commonly known at the Coercive Acts.

  • The Boston Port Bill (March 31, 1774) shut down Boston Harbor until the East India Company was repaid. The act authorized the Royal Navy to blockade Boston Harbor because “the commerce of his Majesty’s subjects cannot be safely carried on there.” The blockade commenced on June 1, 1774, effectively closing Boston’s port to commercial traffic. Additionally, it forbade any exports to foreign ports or provinces. The only imports allowed were provisions for the British Army and necessary goods, such as fuel and wheat.
  • The Massachusetts Government Act (May 20, 1774) abolished the colony’s charter of 1691, reducing it to the level of a crown colony, replacing the elective local council with an appointive one, enhancing the powers of the military governor, Gen. Thomas Gage, and forbidding town meetings without approval.
  • The Administration of Justice Act (May 20, 1774) was aimed at protecting British officials charged with capital offenses during law enforcement.  It allowed the royal governor to unilaterally move any trial of a crown officer out of Massachusetts, a change designed to prevent hostile Massachusetts juries from deciding these cases.
  • The Quartering Act (June 2, 1774) revived the indignation that surrounded the earlier Quartering Act, which had been allowed to expire in 1770.  The new Quartering Act applied to all of British America and gave colonial governors the right to requisition unoccupied buildings to house British troops. However, in Massachusetts the British troops were forced to remain camped on the Boston Common until the following November because the Boston patriots refused to allow workmen to repair the vacant buildings General Gage had obtained for quarters.

The most important of them was the first passed, the Boston Port Act, because it was news of its passage that led to the call for the First Continental Congress. Within a year, the British government’s attempt to enforce the bundle of legislation tipped a constitutional crisis into the Revolutionary War. (Colonial Williamsburg Foundation)

Rather than isolating rebellious colonists in Boston from the rest of the American populace, acts which closed the port to commerce and undercut representative government inspired colonists outside of Massachusetts to support the beleaguered Bostonians. (Cal State Long Beach)

The Coercive Acts closed the port of Boston, unilaterally changed the government of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to centralize British authority, permitted colonial leaders accused of crimes to be tried in another colony or in England, and sanctioned the billeting of British troops in unused buildings.

First Continental Congress

Word of the Intolerable Acts led to an unprecedented outbreak of public dismay and disaffection throughout British America (including the Caribbean) and directly resulted in the creation of the First Continental Congress in September 1774, compromised of delegates from 13 of the mainland colonies. (Colonial Williamsburg Foundation)

Instead of isolating Boston from the other North American colonies, the Intolerable Acts had the opposite result. Delegates from all of the colonies except Georgia gathered in Philadelphia for the First Continental Congress in the autumn of 1774.

The purpose of the Congress was to show support for Boston and to work out a unified approach to the British.

On October 14, 1774, the First Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Colonial Rights and Grievances. The declaration denied Parliament’s right to tax the colonies and lambasted the British for stationing troops in Boston.

It characterized the Intolerable Acts as an assault on colonial liberties, rejected British attempts to circumscribe representative government, and requested that the colonies prepare their militias. Despite its harsh tone, the declaration did affirm Parliament’s right to regulate trade, and did not challenge colonial loyalty to the British monarch, King George III.

Although some of the more radical delegates, particularly Samuel Adams, already believed that war was inevitable, the congress did not seek or declare independence from Britain at this time. The delegates agreed to meet again the following May if relations did not improve. (Khan Academy)

Click the following link to a general summary about the Coercive (Intolerable) Acts:

Click to access Coercive-Intolerable-Acts.pdf

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