Pounds, Police, and Patriots: How Colonial Reactions to British Quartering Transformed from 1756-1774

Abstract

Of all the legislation which edged the thirteen colonies towards independence, none are as misrepresented as the Quartering Acts of 1765 and 1774. From an early age, generations of American students are still taught that through the Quartering Acts, Britain forced colonials to take red-coated troops under their roofs, feed them, and care for them. This was not the case.¹ In fact, the Quartering Act of 1765 was actually the first time England ever explicitly banned quartering in private homes.²