The Quartering Act is a name that was given to two or more Acts of British Parliament requiring local governments of the American colonies to provide the British soldiers with housing and food. Each of the Quartering Acts was an amendment to the Mutiny Act and required annual renewal by Parliament.
Quartering Act, (1765), in American colonial history, the British parliamentary provision (actually an amendment to the annual Mutiny Act) requiring colonial authorities to provide food, drink, quarters, fuel, and transportation to British forces stationed in their towns or villages. Resentment over this practice is reflected in the Third Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which forbids it in peacetime.
