The following is from Paul
Revere, a silver worker who
owns his own business in Boston,
Massachusetts.
Things were going great here in
colonies. . . for awhile. The Sons
of Liberty, which I am a part of,
encouraged people to boycott1
British products to try to force the
British to get rid of the Stamp Act.
Everyone in the colonies stopped
buying products from England,
and a lot of businesses in England
Paul Revere
were hurt by our boycott. The
British were forced to get rid of the Stamp Act. We were so happy, we
partied for days.
But the party didn’t last long.
Parliament still needed money to help pay for the French and Indian
War, and to pay for the British troops that are here in America to
protect us colonists. But rather than ask us to make our own taxes to
raise the money that the British need, Parliament decided to, again,
force another tax on us.
The new taxes, called the Townshend Acts, place high taxes on
products that everyone uses, like glass, paper, paint, lead, and tea. This
makes all of these products very expensive to buy.
1
boycott: refuse to buy
All of us colonists are obviously very angry about the new taxes. Some
people can barely afford to feed their families as it is, and now these
new taxes will make it even harder for them. And again, Parliament is
being totally unfair, and not giving us a chance to make our own taxes.
The people here in the colonies don’t get to choose who is in
Parliament, yet they still decide what taxes we will pay and how much.
My good buddy, Samuel Adams, is again encouraging all the colonists to
boycott all products that come from England. Last time when we
boycotted British products, the British got rid of the Stamp Act. We are
hoping this will work again.
Also, the British
recently crossed
the line, and now
the colonists are
even madder. On
March 5, a group
of British soldiers
was guarding the
Custom House
here in Boston. A
group of colonists
walked by the
people and started
shouting insults at
The picture of the Boston Massacre drawn by Paul Revere
them, and some of
the kids in the group of colonists threw snowballs with rocks at the
soldiers. Then, all of a sudden, the British soldiers started shooting at
the crowd. When it was all over, five colonists had been killed by the
British soldiers. We started calling this horrible event the Boston
Massacre2, and it made us ANGRY! I drew a picture of the Boston
Massacre for the Boston Gazette, a newspaper here in Boston.
Since the Boston Massacre, even fewer people are buying products
from the British. People are sewing their own cloth by hand, rather
than buy it from England. It takes a lot of extra time, but it’s a good way
to hurt the British! Hopefully all of this will end soon.
2
massacre: a large group of people have been killed