What kinds of provocation caused colonists to riot or otherwise act directly, even violently, in defence of their interest?

There are three:

Coercive acts: Four British acts of 1774 meant to chastise Massachusetts for the destruction of three shiploads of tea. Known in America as the Intolerable Acts, they led to open revolt in the northern colonies.

Townshend act of 1767: British law that recognized new duties on tea, glass, lead, paper and painters' colors imported into the colonies. Townshend duties led to boycotts and intensified tensions between Britain and American colonies.

Taxation without representation: They had Virtual Representation, which was not representation at all.The statement made by British politicians that the interests of the American colonists were sufficiently represented in Parliament by merchants who dealt with the colonies and by absentee landlords (mostly sugar planters) who owned estate in the West Indies.