The battle at Lexington and Concord was similar to the Boston Massacre. A brigade of English soldiers opened fire on group of armed minutemen. At that moment an intense battle broke out and the revolutionary war began at that spot. The English expressed their iron grip on the colonies in several violent ways such as the attempted hostile takeover of the Middle and Southern Colonies. A more famous act of violence against the British was the Boston Tea Party in which several disguised Sons of Liberty members went aboard several British trade boats and tossed over 45 tons of tea into the Boston Harbor at an estimated value of 1.87 million dollars worth in damages.
Document I also talks about colonists displeasure towards the British parliament. They claim that they do not have the same rights and privileges as their fellow subjects in Britain and that it is unconstitutional. In 1770 the Boston Massacre took place. An angry mob of colonists threw sticks, stones, and snowballs at British soldiers provoking them to open fire on the innocent colonists, killing many of them. Document B is quoted as saying “The propaganda impact throughout the colonies was profound”.
This law angered the colonists because this impeded them from obtaining new, cheap land. The Proclamation Act was the first act in which Parliament, and the King imposed on the colonies after the prolonged period of salutary neglect. The colonies were affected them because they were not used to the total control/rule of Britain exercised over them. The Navigation Laws of 1650 were now being enforced in the colonies which only allowed commerce through Britain, and controlled items of trade. Restrictions on what colonist manufactured angered the merchants because they were not allowed to produce certain items in the colonies, just as they were prohibited from distributing paper currency, and the ability of having any legislation passed in the assemblies nullified.
This act affected nearly all residents of the colonial ports. The colonies suffered a constant shortage of currency due to the creation of the Currency Act. This act banned colonials paper currency in which it caused a much bigger issued for the colonies because they was not allowed to used their own paper money to repay debts. An act that affected colonists that was rich, poor, merchants, farmers, and artisans was the Stamp Act. The reason that the Stamp Act affected this group of colonist because it placed a tax on printed material.
The worst of the Townshend Acts was the tax on tea, which on estimate tea was drank by at least one million people usually twice a day, and later caused the Boston Tea Party. The Boston Port Act, being the worst of all of the Intolerable Acts, was a law passed to close the harbor until all of the damages from the Boston Tea Party were paid off. Therefore, the Boston Port Act took away the colonists ability to trade and fish. With that being said, the conflict between
Hector St. John Crevecoeur strongly argued that the colonists emerged towards creating their identity through the molding together of a melting pot. After the French and Indian War, the colonists realized that they were much different than the British. Written law was preferred by the colonists over “word of law” which the people of Great Britain were fond of. The group of colonists in America who opposed the British referred to themselves as the “Patriots”. The colonists also abolished primogeniture and entail which pulled them further and further away from their mother country’s ways.
The king continuously ignored the colonists list of complaints being the British parliament was passing a number of laws that was severely limiting the freedom of English colonists in America. Due to the king ignoring the colonists complaints they had no other choice but to rebel. This is why the second continental congress met in Philadelphia and decided it was time to declare independence from Britain. When writing the Declaration of Independence they made sure to include all men would be created equal no matter black or white. Not only did the colonists want freedom from Britain but they also wanted freedom for their people (Scotti, Ciro).
One fateful March night in Boston, Massachusetts 1770 five men were killed and six more were wounded. Dubbed The Boston Massacre by the Sons of Liberty, this event was built up to be much more than it really was. The soldiers were not guilty, but simply victims of tragic circumstance. A common primary source looked at when referring to The Boston Massacre is Paul Revere’s The Bloody Massacre. The silver engraving appears to show the British soldiers standing in a line being commanded to shoot at the colonists who are running away in fear.
The American Revolution is one of the biggest events of American history. It resulted in the independence of those who no longer saw the queen as their ruler. What lead to the free people of the British Empire to revolt? One major turning point was the evening of March 5th, 1770 a fight between British soldiers and the townsfolk of Boston. This skirmish lead to the death and injury of civilians and the soldiers arrested for murder.
* Oppression of Indentured servants * Navigation acts making tobacco prices to high, with no profit * Governor his friends land advances * Restrict the vote to only landowners * Consequences of Bacon’s Rebellion * Bacon was imprisoned * The whole town of Virginia was burnt down * Social Instability was complicated by a slow economy, due to navigation acts (High Tabaco cost) * Over production of tobacco and high taxes led to financial instability * What was the long term importance of the rebellion? * Prompted White landowners to get rid of indentured servants and replace with African slaves * The rebellion also decimated the remaining tribes in Virginia and forced many of the survivors to flee the colony. * How did influence the south? * By them replacing the servants with all african slaves, with the thought of them being property not a humans. It created a line of Racism.