May 1774

In march the first of the coercive acts was passed:  The Boston Port Act.  This act punished all of Boston for what had happened with the Boston Tea Party.  The entire port was to be shut down until the town of Boston had paid for the tea that had been destroyed.  This act and its enforcement demonstrated the power of Great Britain to shut down an entire City's port with their navy and to cause hardships among the citizens of the tow.

In May the second of the coercive or intolerable acts was passed by the British Government:

The Massachusetts Government Act which essentially revoked the charter of the royal colony and placed them under the direct control of Great Britain. 

Power was centralized in the hands of the royal governor, and historic rights to self-government were abrogated. The Act provided that local officials were no longer to be elected:

[The] governor, to nominate and appoint... and also to remove, without the consent of the council, all judges of the inferior courts of common pleas, commissioners of Oyer and Terminer, the attorney general, provosts, marshals, justices of the peace, and other officers... and nominate and appoint the sheriffs without the consent of the council.

Most important was the provision regarding town meetings, the key instrument of local rule:

whereas a great abuse has been made of the power of calling such meetings, and the inhabitants have, contrary to the design of their institution, been misled to treat upon matters of the most general concern, and to pass many dangerous and unwarrantable resolves: for remedy whereof, be it enacted... no meeting shall be called... without the leave of the governor, [apart from one annual election meeting].^[4]

General Thomas Gage was appointed by the crown as the governor

the Massachusetts Government Act which replaced the colony's elected local council with one appointed by the military governor, essentially eroding representative government in Massachusetts;

Across North America, Colonists rose in solidarity with the people of Massachusetts.  Goods arrived in Massachusetts from as far away as Georgia.  By late spring 1774, nine of the colonies called for a Continental Congress.  Virginia's Committee of Correspondence is largely  credited with originating the invitation.