Tyranny Is Tyranny

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In Howard Zinn’s, A Peoples History of The United States, Chapter 4 Tyranny is Tyranny; Zinn exposes the events that led to the American Revolution, which allowed for the process and sanction to break from Britain’s controls of Colonial America. The Chapter discusses how the colonial elite kept controls high and wealth heavily flowing within the upper class causing an uneven leveling within the colonies under Great Britain which did not change post-Independence. Zinn also describes how unrest started with the “common” person struggling to survive as England had increased the taxes post French and Indian War because firstly, Britain had to earn back the money they put into the war; and secondly, greed of continuously making enormous profits from the colonies. By 1770 the profit was worth 2,800,000 pounds. Zinn explains how this resulted in hardship for the colonies, and how locally the wealth was concentrated within the rich elite only, and that “The elements were there for conflict.” Howard Zinn quoted Gray Nash’s research of the early 1770s, where he examined court-recorded wills and found that the people with the most wealth in “the cities were leaving 20,000 pounds (equivalent to about $5 million today).” The poorest of poor’s people began to “vent their grievances” at town meetings. “James Otis, Samuel Adams, Royall lyler, Oxenbridge Thacher, and a host of other Bostonians linked to the artisans and laborers through a network of neighborhood taverns, fire companies, and the Caucus, espoused a vision of politics that gave credence to laboring-class views and regarded as entirely legitimate the participation of artisans and even laborers in the political process.” Thus through their oratory and writing "molded laboring- class opinion, called the 'mob' into action, and shaped its behaviour."” Otis, in one of his speeches captured their hopes and longing with

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