“Despite the view of some historians that the conflict between Great Britain and its thirteen North American colonies was economic in origin, in fact the American Revolution had its roots in politics and other areas of American life.” Great Britain and the American colonies had a relationship impacted with many hardships. I believe that there was a political struggle between the two groups, but that Great Britain and the American colonies used economics as a chance to show how much control they had. Multiple Acts written by Parliament, the colonies' Committees of Correspondence and Continental Congress created political friction between Great Britain and the American colonies.
Colonists took benefits from the mercantile system, large sums for ship builders, colonial protection by British army
Puritans created a yeomen society of independent farm families who owned their land as freeholders- without feudal dues or leases
Ellis, Joseph J. Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000. Print.
Throughout history, historians have spun events in order to alter and adjust others’ views on the event. This is especially true during Colonial times and the time leading up the American Revolution. During this time, information about the colonist’s events was passed on through word of mouth. One such man that was notorious for this was George Robert Twelves Hewes. Hewes was a Boston shoemaker, who at the age of twenty-eight witnessed four of his closest friends shot to death by The British red coats; he also participated in many of the key events of the Revolutionary crisis.1 Hewes recollections of the events that took place were passed along in the monograph The Shoemaker and the Tea Party: Memory and the American Revolution by Alfred
The American Revolution paved the way for democratic rule in nations and ignited the spreading thereof throughout the whole world. Yet events that led up the start of the revolution have been mixed in their significance by historians. Both historians, Carl Degler and T.H. Breen agree that the British mercantile system had benefited the colonists, allowing them to have comfortable lifestyles. Madaras L, SoRelle J (2011)
prolonged life, in such a polarizing period in Boston, Massachusetts Hewes was an effective vessel to examine the larger issues of the American Revolution. Through the life of George Hewes, Alfred Young was able to offer an effective analysis of public and private memory. Young successfully uses the mechanism of micro history to integrate a very specific case study to a national event.
(Devore, Lecture #3.) Even though most of the credit was issued from England, it allowed the colonists to buy more things and further strengthen and enhance the cohesiveness of the colonies. By this time the colonies had already well established external trade relationships with both the Indians and other countries. One of their major trade partners was the West Indies, where the colonists procured molasses from which they made rum. (Devore, Lecture #3.) All of these economic developments – consumerism amongst the colonies, Anglicizing of the colonies, the newfound availability and use of credit and the abundance of external trade – play a major role in the reasons that lead up to the American Revolution.
The Shoemaker and the Tea Party by Alfred Young revolves around two bibliographies written about one of the last living participants of the Boston Tea Party, and the authors own interpretations of the events surrounding the Tea Party and the American Revolution as a whole. In this particular novel, Young explores what it means to rediscover history, and how history is continually redefined. Particular attention in the novel is given to public history, and how highlighting people otherwise lost to time can completely change how an event is perceived. Readers are given the opportunity to see the history behind the American Revolution through the lenses of an average man of that time. In this essay I will review the novel and the message
Osborn and her fellow female commandants of war became true patriots, veterans devoted to a cause they imagined worthy of a fight. While it may seem easy to speculate her deposition as mere hearsay or engorged fabrications of an elderly woman, many claims Sarah Osborn purports are verifiable and unrequitedly true. Throughout this work I will, where reasonably necessary, corroborate Osborn's claims with that of others' similar testimony. The study of this document will mainly comprise of the role Sarah Osborn played, using her accounts of the years 1780 through the surrender of Yorktown in 1781, with contextual additions explaining social aspects of women during this era. To further this study and supply a deeper and thorough contextualization, the research and importance of other known accounts of women involved in the war serve as supplementing points to the main theme presented by Sarah Osborn's testimony. These studies along with my own interpretations of Sarah Osborn's deposition will hopefully create a view of life during the Revolution far too often unseen; that of a completely female perspective. I will attempt to show that they, as much as anyone, helped fight for, create, and maintain a union during crisis.
Soon after the settlement of Pennsylvania by William Penn, William Rodney, one of the descendants of this illustrious family removed to that province and after a short residence in Philadelphia, settled in Kent, a county upon the Delaware. This gentleman died in the year 1708, leaving a considerable fortune, and eight children, the eldest of whom is the subject of the following sketch. Mr. Rodney inherited from his father a large landed estate, which was entailed upon him, according to the usages of distinguished families at that day. At the early age of twenty-eight years, such was his popularity, he was appointed high sheriff in the county in which he resided, and on the expiration of his term of service, he was created a justice of the peace, and a judge of the lower courts. In 1762, and perhaps at a still earlier date, he represented the county of Kent in the provincial legislature. In this station he entered with great zeal and activity into the prominent measures of the day. In the year 1765, the first general congress was assembled, as is well known, at New-York, to consult
In 46 Pages author Scott Liell is able to poignantly illustrate the colonies metamorphosis from a dependent arm of the English Empire to an independent country, the catalyst for which was Thomas Paine's Common Sense. Liell is able to not only articulate the turning point of the American consensus towards independence, but he also very intelligibly depicts the sentiments of all facets of colonial dogma and the torrential effect that Common Sense had in loosening the cement that held those beliefs. Using fantastic examples of the opinions of Tories, Whigs, and those ambivalent towards independence, Liell efficiently and
Henceforth, the overall rundown of the book is based off the British view of the the American Revolution and how they viewed the colonist from a retrospect in the events happening. To begin with, King George the III had been placing taxes on the colonist, which made them furious over their relationship with him. The loyalist saw these “acts” as a part of
The creation of the American nation became what it is today from years of struggle in which the common people, as well as the Founding Fathers, played a vital part for independence. The promise of the Revolution, a nation based on the republican ideals of liberty, independence, and equality, was to some extent achieved. Yet the great principles of the Revolution have long shaped our thoughts of what it means to be an American. All the events leading up and after the American Revolution will have effects on the common people. The story of George Robert Twelves Hewes helps historians comprehend the part that the common people played in their struggle for freedom and republican ideals they wanted to achieve for the generations to come in the new nation.
Backwell’s business and status depended on his wealth which in turn depended on trade, both foreign and local. He was interested in becoming the treasurer of the Tangier Commission which would have put him in a position to influence England’s foreign policy. (Black, Reading 4-3, p. 7)