Samuel Johnson, in his Taxation No Tyranny pamphlet, asked the infamous question: “how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty from the drivers of negroes?” Though this quote was meant to be ironic, in a way, it can be seen as true because of the fact that America was still under the reign of Britain. There were several reasons as to why the colonies wished to remove themselves from under British reign, two of the biggest ones happened to be the unreasonable taxation Britain put forth on the Colonies, as well as a fear of a slavery insurrection being instigated by the British government. Britain passed several acts that put fear and anger into the minds of Americans, which included the Stamp Act, the Tea Act, and other forms of taxation. The Stamp Act was first passed in 1765, this taxed Americans on any and all types of paper, including newspapers, legal documents, and even a deck of cards (Harris). The Tea Act put a taxation on the tea imports, and the other form of taxation the British government put forth was one that was set to pay the troop who were sent over by Britain to help fight in the French and Indian War. The taxes Britain implemented on Americans only angered the colonies even more; they felt that if they had no one in parliament, they should not be taxed for …show more content…
Shortly after Jeremiah’s execution, one that was implemented as a result of a conspiracy that Jeremiah was attempting to initiate a slave insurrection, a rumor began to spread that Britain had the intentions of instigating a revolution of slaves. Laurens had then began to fear “that the British ministry was trying to ‘enslave’ Americans like him,” (Harris) that being one of Colonial America’s biggest slave