The Minutemen and Their World by Robert A. Gross During the 1700s, in Concord, Massachusetts the American Revolution took place at the old Cambridge church. It was told that the “shot heard around the world” was there wake up call to do something about the revolution. In Robert Gross’ The Minutemen and Their World, he points out how the people viewed the British Invasion, their thoughts about the tariffs and their overall view of life in this era. He discovers the struggles that the people faced not only outside their walls, but the battle within their hometown. Concord was a town trying to stay united, yet they had different views on everything such as politics and religion. Such topics were often brought up in
In the book “Shays’ Rebellion: Authority and Distress in Post-revolutionary America”, Sean Condon shows us his outlook on how he saw post-revolutionary America to be within the late 1770’s and 1780’s. This book was released in 2015 by John Hopkins University Press, and was also made in a continuing book series by Peter Charles Hoffer and Willamjames Hull Hofer called Witness to History. The story takes us "Throughout the late summer and fall of 1786, farmers in central and western Massachusetts organized themselves into armed groups to protest against established authority and aggressive creditors. Calling themselves "regulators" or the "voice of the people.”” [1] Condon succeeds by prosing an appealing idea in an upfront style that shapes
Robert A. Gross the author of “The Minutemen and their World” gives a very detailed nonfictional narrative of the small town of Concord, Massauchessets. Gross describes the American Revelotion through the eyes of this community which paints a more vivid picture of the events taking place up to the war which seperated the Unite States for Great Britian through a perspective that I have never seen before.
Protests in the streets against the British soldiers for this Townshend Tea Tax led to the first bloodshed early in the Revolution. The “Boston Massacre” was the killing of eleven citizens on the streets of Boston when a group of sixty colonists led by Crispus Attucks were protesting the new act. The news of this slaughter was spread throughout the colonies by the Committees of Correspondence set up by a rich politician named Samuel Adams. These committees made it possible for information on everything resistance-related to reach all of the colonies in due time. In this way was news of the Boston Massacre spread across the United States which created outrage across the country. As tea was shipped to America under the new tea tax, rebellion stirred in Boston. Colonists disguised themselves and pillaged the trade ships, ruining millions of dollars worth of tea. In response to this, Parliament passed the ‘Intolerable Acts’ which outraged the colonists even further by closing the Boston ports, placing Massachusetts under royal authority, and allowing the Catholic French to settle along the Ohio River Valley under the new policies. Thus continued Parliament to colonist battle as the First Continental Congress met to discuss their rights as subjects under the king and announce the changes they wanted made in the Declaration of Rights which argued that the natural rights of
The book tells the story of how the American Revolution affects the city of Concord, Massachusetts. The American Revolution was a battle between the united thirteen colonies and Great Britain. The thirteen colonies fought for the independence under the control of Great Britain. The Treaty of Paris ended the war and the American colonies won their independence. There is no actual event that is proven to be the cause of the war, the war began as a disagreement of how Great Britain treated the colonies. The American colonies felt as if they should have the equal rights as the Englishmen. Britain however, believed that the colonies should be treated in a way that was best suitable for Britain. This event caused most of the up roar of the American
There was a battle at Lexington,Concord during April, 19 1775. It was a battle was between the minutemen/militia against the British redcoats. The minutemen were there in efforts to stop the redcoats to reaching Concord. The British was supposed to cross Lexington,Concord to get to Concord but was delayed by the minutemen. However, before all of this began , Paul Revere came to warn the militia but was arrested along with Mr. Dawes. So Prescot, another member of the Son of Adams, delivered the message to the minutemen about the British coming. In the end, the militia lost ,BUT it doesn’t end there. As soon as the British were coming back from Concord, The minutemen, that survived the battle, ambushed the redcoats in the forest killing
Robert Gross’ The Minutemen and Their World examines a town 's role in the events of the colonial revolution. Specifically that of Concord, Massachusetts in the years before, during and after the Revolution. Gross provides details about the inner workings of town politics, religion, and society for the period. He notes how town’s people’s rivalries and religious fissures occupied the townspeople through the prerevolutionary period. Gross details how Concord was largely absent from the pre-Revolutionary activities of other communities, and then the unification process that occurred as conflict grew closer. By analyzing specific events in the town’s history Goss is able to draw conclusions about why certain events took place leading up to
Before the Boston Massacre even occurred, tensions were high in the city of Boston between the Bostonians and the British. At this time people were just
The American Revolution was a critical turning point in American history. Following the French and Indian War, Britain ignored its previous policy of salutary neglect and began intervening in the colonies affairs through taxes, occupation of soldiers, violation of civil liberties, all the while ignoring colonial pleas for representation in Parliament. These events led to the “shot heard ‘round the world” at the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775. America was now at war with Britain. Nevertheless, the impact of
England made any town meeting, except authorized by the governor illegal, and housed British soldiers in select public buildings. In Massachusetts the British military governor, General Gage, ordered his 3,500 British soldiers in Boston to seize armories and storehouses in Charlestown and Cambridge. After the seizure, 20,000 colonial militiamen mobilized to protect other military supply depots and in the town of Concord the famous defensive force, the Minutemen, were organized.2 With these acts Parliament declared that Massachusetts was in open rebellion. British Secretary of State, Lord Dartmouth, quickly ordered Gage to send his soldiers on a search and destroy mission to capture colonial leaders, and military supplies in Concord. “At the same time Gage would attempt to find, capture, or kill John Hancock and Samuel Adams.”3 The stage was set for the first major engagements of the American Revolution.
When the fighting at Lexington and Concord broke out in 1775, the conflict unleashed a flood of resentment that had been building over the right of the colonies to govern themselves. This conflict became a symbol of the American fight for "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." As James Kirby Martin and Mark Edward Lender argue in A Respectable Army: The Military Origins of the Republic, 1763-1789, the patriotic mythology of a united people fighting the tyrannical British oppressors for basic human rights permeated historical thought about the American Revolution until recently and obscured the inner conflicts that nearly destroyed the rebel
On 19 April 1775, the battle begun. The colony protected by local militiamen was vastly outnumbered, armed with only 77 men including “minutemen,” named for their ability to be ready to fight in a minute’s notice were
American history is full of battles and freedom fighters. From the Boston tea party to voting rights. America fought against a king who was unfair and unjust. They may have had a civil war but it was also for the idea that rights were being taken away. The country has many amazing historical characters that made it the country it is today. This paper will discuss the Boston Tea Party, George Washington’s inaugural address, his warnings upon leaving office as well as the Boston Massacre, the Battles of Lexington and Concord, and John Adams on voting rights.
“Is there a single trait of resemblance between those few towns and a great and growing people spread over a vast quarter of the globe, separated by a mighty ocean?” This question posed by Edmund Burke was in the hearts of nearly every colonist before the colonies gained their independence from Britain. The colonists’ heritage was largely British, as was their outlook on a great array of subjects; however, the position and prejudices they held concerning their independence were comprised entirely from American ingenuity. This identity crisis of these “British Americans” played an enormous role in the colonists’ battle for independence, and paved the road to revolution.
The Boston Massacre is considered by many historians to be the first battle of the Revolutionary War. The fatal incident happened on March 5 of 1770. The massacre resulted in the death of five colonists. British troops in the Massachusetts Bay Colony were there to stop demonstrations against the Townshend Acts and keep order, but instead they provoked outrage. The British soldiers and citizens brawled in streets and fought in bars. “The citizens viewed the British soldiers as potential oppressors, competitors for jobs, and a treat to social mores”. A defiant anti-British fever was lingering among the townspeople.
While the Revolutionary War was going on, so was the Age of Reason in American literature. During the Revolutionary War, the future citizens of the United States were divided on whether or not to fight the British. Political pamphlets were given out to get the American people to support fighting the British and once most of America agreed to fight the British the decision still had to be made by the president and delegates at the Virginia Convention of 1775. Patrick Henry, a representative at this convention, persuaded the delegates to fight the British in his very famous speech at the convention. In his speech, he used passionate words and phrases such as the most famous, ??give me liberty, or give me death? (Henry 90). Soon after his speech, the first battle of the Revolutionary War was fought in Lexington, Massachusetts. The writers of this age also wrote autobiographies and essays. In the essay ?Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America? by Benjamin Franklin, Franklin examines the word ?savages? and what it really means. He subtly criticizes the settlers who refer to the Native Americans as ?savages? and points out that the Native Americans are less savage than the settlers. The Revolutionary War not only brought about the independence of our country, but also encouraged free expression.