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Document Based Question Essay
On the Road to Revolution
Question:
ESSAY IS DUE 10-30-09
(Take your choice of one of the following)
1. What do the quotations say was the fundamental cause of The American Revolution?
2. Did the colonists from different sections and different social classes share the same political ideas?
3. Were the colonists' grievances calm and carefully reasoned or exaggerated and paranoid?
Help in drafting the Essay:
Write a 4-paragraph essay in response to one of the questions above. CLICK HERE, for a detailed
explanation of how to structure and write the essay. Make sure that you review the example and hints prior
to developing your essay. You should include at least one reference (quotation) from four of the
documents (A, B, C… H) in your essay’s supporting paragraphs, a total of four references
(quotations),
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Format: (points will be deducted for not following this format)
All essays should be typed and double spaced, using Times New Roman or Arial font, 12 pt.
Your paper should have 1-inch margins all around.
Your name, period, and date should be at the top left of the paper.
There should be no less than 4 paragraphs contained within the essay, introduction, supporting
paragraph 2, supporting paragraph 3, and conclusion.
Paragraphs should consist of no less than 4 complete sentences each. (Quotations from the
documents are not included in this number).
This essay will be worth 120 points.
Background
There were a series of things leading to the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War in America.
From Chapters 5 and 6 you learned about a series of things leading to the Declaration. Such as: (not in order)
Salutary Neglect, High literacy rates, economic advantages present in the colonies, The Enlightenment, The Great
Awakening, Natural Rights, The French and Indian War, The Proclamation of 1763, The Treaty of Paris, The Stamp
Act, Sugar Act, Townshend Acts, Quartering Act, Declaratory Act, British occupation of Boston, Suspension of the
New York Assembly, Boston Massacre, Tea Act, Boston Tea Party, Coercive Acts (Intolerable Acts), Quebec Act,
Lexington and Concord, First Continental Congress, Second Continental Congress, Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration of Independence states the reasons for independence and the subsequent Revolution. The
population of the colonies was split with about an equal number being patriots (wanting independence) and loyalists
(Tories, who remained loyal to the King and England). Later in Chapter 7 you will learn how many colonists fought
against other in the struggle for independence, some calling the Revolutionary War the first Civil War in America.
From the document excerpts below, respond to one of the three questions listed above.
Document A:
For fire and water are not more heterogeneous than the different colonies in North America. Nothing can exceed the
jealousy and emulation which they possess in regard to each other.... In short...were they left to themselves there
would soon be a civil war from one end of the continent to the other, while the Indians and Negroes
would...impatiently watch the opportunity of exterminating them all together.
Rev. Andrew Burnaby, 1760
Document B:
The revolution was effected before the war commenced. The revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people.
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Document Based Question Essay
On the Road to Revolution
John Adams, 1818
Document C:
A colonist cannot make a button, a horseshoe, nor a hobnail, but some snootly iron monger or respectable button
maker of England shall bawl and squall that his honor's worship is most egregiously maltreated, injured, cheated, and
robbed by the rascally American republicans.
Boston Gazette, 1765
Document D:
We have called this a burthensome tax, because the duties are so numerous and high...that it would be totally
impossible for the people to subsist under it.... We further apprehend this tax to be unconstitutional. We have always
understood it to be a grand and fundamental principle of the constitution, that no freeman should be subject to any
tax to which he has not given his own consent, in person or by proxy.... We take it clearly, there fore, to be
inconsistent with the spirit of the common law, and of the essential fundamental principle of the British constitution,
that we should be represented in that assembly in any sense, unless it be by a fiction of law....
Resolution of the Town of Braintree, Massachusetts, 1765, opposing the Stamp Act
Document E:
If we view the whole of the conduct of the ministry and parliament, I do not see how any one can doubt but that there
is a settled fix'd plan for enslaving the colonies, or bringing them under arbitrary government....If the ministry can
secure a majority in parliament...they may rule as absolutely as they do in France or Spain, yea as in Turkey or
India.... View now the situation of America: loaded with taxes from the British parliament, as heavy as she can
possibly support under,--our lands charged with the most exorbitant quit rent,--these taxes collected by foreigners,
steeled against any impressions from our groans or complaints...our charters taken away--our assemblies
annihilated,--governors and councils, appointed by royal authority without any concurrence of the people, enacting
such laws as their sovereign pleasure shall dictate...the lives and property of Americans entirely at the disposal of
officers more than three thousand miles removed from any power to control them--armies of the soldiers quartered
among the inhabitants, who know the horrid purpose for which they are stationed, in the colonies--to subjugate and
beat down the inhabitants....
Reverend Ebenezer Baldwin, 1774
Document F:
Considering the utter impracticability of their ever being fully and equally represented in parliament, and the great
expense that must unavoidably attend even a partial representation there, this House thinks that a taxation of their
constituents, even without their consent, grievous as it is, would be preferable to any representation that could be
admitted for them there.
Circular letter, Massachusetts House of Representatives, 1768
Document G:
The New Englanders by their canting, whinings, insinuating tricks have persuaded the rest of the Colonies that the
Government is going to make absolute slaves of them.
Nicholas Cresswell, a Tory, 1774
Document H:
I have heard it asserted by some, that as America hath flourished under her former connection with Great Britain, that
the same connection is necessary toward her future happiness, and will always have the same effect. Nothing can be
more fallacious than this kind of argument.... Not one third of the inhabitants, even of this province [Pennsylvania] are
of English descent. Wherefore I reprobate the phrase of parent or mother country applied to England only, as being
false, selfish, narrow and ungenerous.... The injuries and disadvantages we sustain by that connection are without
number; and our duty to mankind at large, as well as to ourselves, instruct us to renounce the alliance: Because, any
submission to, or dependence on Great Britain, tends directly to involve this continent in European wars and
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Document Based Question Essay
On the Road to Revolution
quarrels; and sets us at variance with nations, who would otherwise seek our friendship, and against whom, we have
neither anger nor complaint. As Europe is our market for trade, we ought to form no partial connection with any part
of it.... [Continued British rule will lead to] the ruin of the continent. And that for several reasons. First. The powers of
governing still remaining in the hands of the king, he will have a negative over the whole legislation of this continent.
And as he hath shown himself such an inveterate enemy to liberty, and discovered such a thirst for arbitrary power; is
he, or is he not, a proper man to say to these colonies, "You shall make no laws but what I please".... Secondly. That
as even the best terms, which we can expect to obtain, can amount to no more than a temporary expedient, or a kind
of government by guardianship, which can last no longer than till the colonies come of age, so the general face and
state of things, in the interim, will be unsettled and unpromising.... O ye that love mankind! Yet that dare oppose, not
only tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression.
Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776
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