AMERICAN REVOLUTION

Document Based Question

Computer Lab Assignment

Complete document analysis packet. Answer the questions for each document.Write practice document citations for each

document.

ExamplesDo not use “In Document B….”Incorporate the document into the sentence.“According to Paul Revere’s engraving…”

Question From the late 1760s to July 4,1776,

American colonists moved from merely protesting the decisions of the King and Parliament to a Declaration of Independence and a Revolutionary War to overthrow that authority.

Using both your own knowledge and the documents provided, identify and discuss the turning points which marked this changing relationship.

Directions:

View all of the documents in the slides that follow. Write a brief description of each slide including title and author.

Become familiar with the content of each document for future use on the test.

The Stamp Act

This political cartoon/poster was created in response to the Stamp Act. It criticizes the legislation that required that all paper goods be taxed. Proof of the paid tax was required in the way of a stamp.

Document A

Document B

“Bostonians Paying the Excise (tax) Man”

-A colored engraving by an unknown artist.

-This political cartoon/painting is describing the colonist reaction to the Tea Act.

-The sign on Liberty Tree is upside down and reads “Stamp Act”. The pot has the word “TEA” printed on it.

Document B

Document CTHE BOSTON MASSACRE:

“The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street”

An engraving by Paul Revere that was used as negative propaganda against the British. Three weeks after the occurrence, Revere was advertising his prints for sale. Patriotic propaganda like this was used to stir up feelings against the British government.

Document C

Document D George Hewes, 1773 - Firsthand America, A

History of the United States, David Burner, 1996.

This personal account of the Boston Tea Party and an original document of the remembrances of a participant in that event appears in one of the standard college textbooks used today in many colleges and universities.

Document is found on the next three slides…

One the evening of December 16, 1773, a gathering of perhaps 8,000 men, much of the town’s contingent of able-bodies males, assembled at the Old South Church. They were there to hold a town meeting, to ask that the hated tea not be landed. Their request was not granted, and at the end of the meeting Sam Adams rose from his seat and said… Document D

Document D

"This meeting can do nothing to save the country." As if by prearranged signal, as soon as the meeting adjourned, a band of men disguised as Mohawk Indians rushed down Milk Street to Griffin’s Wharf. Three companies of these instant Indians rowed out to the anchored tea ships, boarded them, split open the tea chests, and dumped their massive contents into the waters of the harbor. Their mission accomplished, the men quickly and quietly dispersed...."

Testimonial of George HewesDocument D

George Hewes, One of the Indians participating in the Boston Tea Party, December 16, 1773

"[I brought}... a small hatchet, which I and my associated demonated the tomahawk, with which, and a club, after having painted my face and hands with coal dust in the shop of a blacksmith, I repaired to Griffin’s wharf, where the three ships lay that contained the tea.... [T]here appeared to be an understanding that each individual should volunteer his services, keep his own secret, and risk the consequences for himself. No disorder took place during that transaction, and it was observed at the time that the stillest night ensued that Boston had enjoyed for many months."

Thomas Paine: Common Sense In the following pages I offer nothing

more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense: and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of a man, and generously enlarge his views beyond the present day.

Document E

Thomas Paine cont…

But Britain is the parent country, say some. Then the more shame upon her conduct. Even brutes do not devour their young, nor savages make war upon their families. Wherefore, the assertion, if true, turns to her reproach; but it happens not to be true, or only partly so, and the phrase PARENT OR MOTHER COUNTRY hath been jesuitically adopted by the King and his parasites, with a low papistical design of gaining an unfair bias on the credulous weakness of our minds. Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America. This new World hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from EVERY PART of Europe. Hither have they fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still.

Document F

The Olive Branch Petition, drafted on July 5, 1775, was a letter to King George III, from members of the Second Continental Congress, which, for the final time, appealed to their king to redress colonial grievances in order to avoid bloodshed. The Olive Branch Petition has been called different names over the years, the most popular of which include The Second Petition to the King and The Humble Petition. It was shipped by boat on July 8, 1775, and received by King George III six weeks later.

THE OLIVE BRANCH PETITION

Olive Branch Petition• To the King’s Most Excellent Majesty.

MOST GRACIOUS SOVEREIGN: We, your Majesty’s faithful subjects of the Colonies of New-Hampshire, Massachusetts-Bay, Rhode-Island, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, the Counties of Newcastle, Kent, and Sussex, on Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, in behalf of ourselves and the inhabitants of these Colonies, who have deputed us to represent them in General Congress, entreat your Majesty’s gracious attention to this our humble petition.

The union between our Mother Country and these Colonies, and the energy of mild and just Government, produce benefits so remarkably important, and afforded such an assurance of their permanency and increase, that the wonder and envy of other nations were excited, while they beheld Great Britain rising to a power the most extra-ordinary the world had ever known.

Document F

Olive Branch Petition cont…• “We beg further leave to assure your Majesty, that

notwithstanding the sufferings of your loyal Colonists during the course of this present controversy, our breasts retain too tender a regard for the kingdom from which we derive our origin, to request such a reconciliation as might, in any manner, be inconsistent with her dignity or welfare. These, related as we are to her, honour and duty, as well as inclination, induce us to support and advance; and the apprehensions that now oppress our hearts with unspeakable grief, being once removed, your Majesty will find our faithful subject on this Continent ready and willing at all times, as they have ever been with their lives and fortunes, to assert and maintain the rights and interests of your Majesty, and of our Mother Country.”

Document F

The Declaration of Independence When in the Course of human

events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Document G

Declaration of Independence cont… He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and

necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

Document G

Declaration of Independence cont…

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

Document G