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American Revolution Dbq

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Question 3: The American Revolution Given that most colonists were not generally interested in independence why did the American Revolution happen? How was it justified by the likes of Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson? Based upon what you know, were the colonists justified in declaring independence? Why or why not? More than 10 years before the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, tensions build up between Britain and the American colonies. After the Seven Years’ War Britain was in great debt and since the colonies were a part of the British Empire, the British found it fair to let the colonies help paying off some of the debt. In order to do so, Britain imposed taxes on the American colonies, first by regulations of the trade, but later, in 1765, the Stamp Act was im-posed, which did not please the colonists. The Stamp Act required all sorts of printed material to carry an authorized stamp, purchased from …show more content…

Even though it was an equal fight between British and colonists, the massacre was depict-ed as a butchery of the colonists, especially by Paul Revere who made a famous image, called “The Bloody Massacre” that shows the soldiers shoot at an unarmed crowd of colonists. The image served as propaganda to persuade the colonists to a rebellion against the “evil” British. Inspired by the theory of natural rights, stated by John Locke, Thomas Jefferson wrote A Summary View of the Rights of British America in 1774, where he declared that the Americans were “a free people claiming their rights, as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.” What Jefferson says here, is that Americans should not submit to the laws of the British and the rights that they provide them, but instead be an independent people (Foner, 150 and

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