Dissolving the Political Bands
by Neil Bhamoo, Brenna Kidwell, and Reyaan Shah
Learning Outcome Statement
The resulting independence movement was fueled by established colonial elites, as well as by grassroots movements that included newly mobilized laborers, artisans, and women, and rested on arguments over the rights of British subjects, the rights of the individual, and the ideas of the Enlightenment.
The Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser
The skull with cross bones at the top represents the stamp act, and this installment of the Pennsylvania Journal was dedicated to informing the audience that the stamp act was mandatory for the Americans to pay the tax, and the writer wrote that he decided not to continue the Journal for a while because of the tax.
Unite Or Die
This political cartoon was created in order to convince the American colonies that they need to join together in order to be able to defeat the British, and that if the colonies and the people in the colonies wouldn't work together, they would be destroyed by the British.
The Sons of Liberty
The sons of liberty was an informal group formed by Samuel Adams in order to protest the acts that the British passed against the colonists. This group was secret and was behind the Boston Tea Party. Even common citizens that wanted to protest the British were in this group, not just people that had political power. This is an example of the less wealthy people working together with the more aristocratic people in order to fight against a common enemy, the British.
The Continental Congress
The continental congress was a meeting of representatives from 9 of the 13 colonies. The continental congress was the first representative government of the thirteen colonies. Once again, the "common people" in the colonies were a part of this because they are the people who voted for the representatives.
Relationships
All of the documents were meant to be for the common people, or at least the men who had rights to vote in the society, and they were even able to take part in the sons of liberty. They worked together with the aristocrats in order to make decisions, and to take action. Both the aristocrats and the people who weren't aristocrats were able to vote for the continental congress representatives, and they worked together in the group called the sons of liberty. The Pennsylvania Journal was a newspaper that was meant to be for all of the members of society, and it shared the ratification of the Tax Laws with the people who may not have known. In sharing the laws, the newspaper helped to foster the revolutionary spirit against the British. The sons of liberty kindled the flame of the revolution because they would rebel against the British, with the main example being the Boston Tea Party. The continental congress created an almost outright call to war against the British, and the Join or Die cartoon made real the threat of the British to the colonists. These worked together to lead to the revolution, and to inspire the colonists, both rich and poor, to work together to fight the British.