A Summary View of the Rights of British America

A Summary View of the Rights of British America was a tract written by Thomas Jefferson in 1774, before the U.S. Declaration of Independence, in which he laid out for delegates to the First Continental Congress, a set of grievances against the King, especially against his (and Parliament's) response to the Boston Tea Party. Jefferson, in this work, held that allodial title, not feudal title, was held to American lands; thus the people did not owe fees and rents for that land to the British crown.