3. Authorities & decisions: Committees of correspondence

Decision-makers, laws and consequences

Samuel Adams helped organize Boston’s committee of correspondence in 1772. Virginia’s House of Burgesses established an intercolonial correspondence committee in 1773. These networks circulated accounts of imperial policies and coordinated resistance.

Committees were political organizations, not neutral information services. Their influence grew alongside colonial assemblies and congresses, but they did not represent all inhabitants of the colonies.

Institutional consequences

The authorities identified above acted within institutions that determined who could govern, enforce decisions and challenge official power. The resulting changes to political participation, legal status, military control or property administration are part of the historical record of this specific event, rather than evidence that every later government followed the same path.