Event · Significance tier 2
Parliament passes the Prohibitory Act
Parliament prohibited colonial trade and authorized the seizure of American vessels, treating commerce with the rebellious colonies as an enemy activity.
- Category
- imperial policy
- Episode relations
- 1
Episode coverage
Episode 2
not covered · spoken: caption verified
Visual check: directly verified
Exact and close-vocabulary caption searches found no spoken treatment. A targeted visual audit of 01:16:30–01:21:00 sampled one frame per second, OCR-searched the frames, and reviewed detected scene transitions; no identifiable Prohibitory Act title, text, or image appeared.
Direct visual audit window: episode-2#prohibitory-act-omission
Why it matters
The act attacked a remaining practical basis of imperial membership and helped colonial readers interpret Britain as waging war against them.
Why this tier
It converted political rebellion into a sweeping maritime and commercial rupture before Congress declared independence.
Counterfactual test: Without the prohibition and seizure regime, advocates of reconciliation could still point to significant legal and commercial bonds inside the empire.