Patrick Henry Dbq
Thomas Ash
A complex mythology has been built up around the American Revolution: it is a national story of great significance to the way the United States views itself. But the mythology is just that - a mythology. Contrary to the picture presented in American primary schools, the Americans were not a separate, turkey-eating people, subjugated by the cruel, tyrannical and essentially foreign British. In fact, many colonists thought of themselves as British. Historians accept that the American Revolution had a wide variety of motives and causes: these included slightly differing political traditions, the economic interests of both parties, the trading interests of those directly or indirectly involved in transatlantic commerce, the large …show more content…
It was powerful as a sign of Parliament's intervention, as it was a duty all Americans were likely to pay and meant all official documents like wills, newspapers, advertisements and playing cards had to be on special stamped paper. In the wake of the Sugar Act, which had elicited only fearful warnings against further intrusion, resistance to the Stamp Act was stronger. It was triggered by the wealthy, English oligarchies, politically aware and wishing to defend their acquired status. Patrick Henry's inflammatory Virginia resolves were partly accepted by an unrepresentative rump of the Virginia assembly, and other assemblies began to condemn the Stamp Act. They began closer inter-colonial opposition (as all colonies were affected in the same way) with an October Stamp Act Congress, which declared that only colonists' own representatives had the right to tax them, adding that they were loyal British …show more content…
The Townshend customs commissioners there had been at risk as targets of public anger, but this anger now transferred itself onto the at times high-handed Redcoats, who were seen as the military arm of British encroachment. On March 5th, 1770, the Boston Massacre, the culmination of a series of clashes, saw eight British soldiers, pelted with ice and stones, open fire and kill five Bostonians. Though Parliament was subsequently quiet for 3 years, the mood in the American towns had changed to one of tension and imminent confrontation, and this soon spread to the countryside.
In 1773, Parliament made a change to tea duties again, changing the way tea was sold and taxed to prop up the failing East India company. This actually made tea cheaper for the colonists. But they were by now so conditioned against any British involvement that they took the act as raising the issue of British taxation in America again, and reacted by turning the ships away from port. In Boston, though, when the governor allowed the ships to dock and insisted the tea be unloaded, 60 Sons of Liberty disguised as Mohawks boarded the ships and dumped the
A complex mythology has been built up around the American Revolution: it is a national story of great significance to the way the United States views itself. But the mythology is just that - a mythology. Contrary to the picture presented in American primary schools, the Americans were not a separate, turkey-eating people, subjugated by the cruel, tyrannical and essentially foreign British. In fact, many colonists thought of themselves as British. Historians accept that the American Revolution had a wide variety of motives and causes: these included slightly differing political traditions, the economic interests of both parties, the trading interests of those directly or indirectly involved in transatlantic commerce, the large …show more content…
It was powerful as a sign of Parliament's intervention, as it was a duty all Americans were likely to pay and meant all official documents like wills, newspapers, advertisements and playing cards had to be on special stamped paper. In the wake of the Sugar Act, which had elicited only fearful warnings against further intrusion, resistance to the Stamp Act was stronger. It was triggered by the wealthy, English oligarchies, politically aware and wishing to defend their acquired status. Patrick Henry's inflammatory Virginia resolves were partly accepted by an unrepresentative rump of the Virginia assembly, and other assemblies began to condemn the Stamp Act. They began closer inter-colonial opposition (as all colonies were affected in the same way) with an October Stamp Act Congress, which declared that only colonists' own representatives had the right to tax them, adding that they were loyal British …show more content…
The Townshend customs commissioners there had been at risk as targets of public anger, but this anger now transferred itself onto the at times high-handed Redcoats, who were seen as the military arm of British encroachment. On March 5th, 1770, the Boston Massacre, the culmination of a series of clashes, saw eight British soldiers, pelted with ice and stones, open fire and kill five Bostonians. Though Parliament was subsequently quiet for 3 years, the mood in the American towns had changed to one of tension and imminent confrontation, and this soon spread to the countryside.
In 1773, Parliament made a change to tea duties again, changing the way tea was sold and taxed to prop up the failing East India company. This actually made tea cheaper for the colonists. But they were by now so conditioned against any British involvement that they took the act as raising the issue of British taxation in America again, and reacted by turning the ships away from port. In Boston, though, when the governor allowed the ships to dock and insisted the tea be unloaded, 60 Sons of Liberty disguised as Mohawks boarded the ships and dumped the