Responding to the Stamp Act: The British West Indies and the Mainland Colonies Go Their Separate Ways

The British West Indies diverged significantly from the mainland colonies in their response to imperial legislation during the 1760s. For example, Jamaica and Barbados complied with the Stamp Act even though it imposed the greatest tax burden on the Caribbean, not North America. Their submission was mocked by the patriots in North America, where none of the thirteen colonies that rebelled paid stamp duty (except Georgia, briefly). The British West Indies accounted for 78 percent of the colonial stamp revenues.

--Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy, An Empire Divided: The American Revolution and the British Caribbean, Early American Studies (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 81.