Station 1 - Mercantilism |
Watch the following video and answer the following two questions in your Interactive Notebook:
1. Define, in your own words, the term "Mercantilism". 2. Who did the system of "Mercantilism" favor - the mother country or the colonies? Explain. |
Station 2 - Interactive Notebook Map Entry |
Glue in the map of North America and label on it the following:
1. The English Colonies 2. The Proclamation Line of 1763 3. The Former French Territory (before the French and Indian War) 4. The Appalachian Mountains |
Station 3 - Video on French and Indian War |
Watch the video and answer these questions in your Interactive Notebook after:
1. How much money did the French and Indian War cost? 2. What were the results of the British victory? (what happened to France's lands) 3. Summarize the results of the French and Indian War. |
Station 4 - Virtual Representation and the concept of "No Taxation without Representation" |
Read the following piece on "Virtual Representation" (just the first page) and answer the following questions in your Interactive Notebook:
1. What was "Virtual Representation" and how did it apply to the English (British) colonists? 2. What was the English argument in having the colonists pay the tax? |
Station 5 - The 3 Acts that caused the Revolution |
Summarize the three acts and record the summaries in your Interactive Notebook.
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-Taxes passed on colonies by Parliament
Sugar Act- The Sugar Act of 1764 was a modified version of an older the Sugar and Molasses Act (1733), which was about to expire. The Act was supposed to raise revenue to help pay back money spent on the French and Indian War by taxing foreign molasses and sugar. But because of corruption, colonists mostly evaded (got out of paying) the taxes and undercut the intention (purpose) of the tax. After the Sugar Act was passed, Britain beefed up its Navy presence and instructed them to strictly enforce the tax. The act also taxed certain wines, coffee, pimiento, cambric and printed calico, and further, regulated the export of lumber and iron. The enforced tax on molasses caused the almost immediate decline in the rum industry in the colonies. Even worse, the act disrupted the colonial economy by reducing the markets to which the colonies could sell, and the amount of currency available to them for the purchase of British manufactured goods.
Stamp Act - The Stamp Act was passed by the British Parliament on March 22, 1765. The new tax was imposed on all American colonists and required them to pay a tax on every piece of printed paper they used. Ship's papers, legal documents, licenses, newspapers, other publications, and even playing cards were taxed. The money collected by the Stamp Act was to be used to help pay the costs of defending and protecting the American frontier near the Appalachian Mountains (10,000 troops were to be stationed on the American frontier for this purpose).
Tea Act- passed by Parliament on May 10, 1773, would launch the final spark to the revolutionary movement in Boston. The act was not intended to raise revenue in the American colonies, and in fact imposed no new taxes. It was designed to prop up the East India Company which was floundering financially and burdened with eighteen million pounds of unsold tea. This tea was to be shipped directly to the colonies, and sold at a bargain price. The Townshend Duties were still in place, however, and the radical leaders in America found reason to believe that this act was a maneuver to buy popular support for the taxes already in force. The direct sale of tea, via British agents, would also have undercut the business of local merchants.
Sugar Act- The Sugar Act of 1764 was a modified version of an older the Sugar and Molasses Act (1733), which was about to expire. The Act was supposed to raise revenue to help pay back money spent on the French and Indian War by taxing foreign molasses and sugar. But because of corruption, colonists mostly evaded (got out of paying) the taxes and undercut the intention (purpose) of the tax. After the Sugar Act was passed, Britain beefed up its Navy presence and instructed them to strictly enforce the tax. The act also taxed certain wines, coffee, pimiento, cambric and printed calico, and further, regulated the export of lumber and iron. The enforced tax on molasses caused the almost immediate decline in the rum industry in the colonies. Even worse, the act disrupted the colonial economy by reducing the markets to which the colonies could sell, and the amount of currency available to them for the purchase of British manufactured goods.
Stamp Act - The Stamp Act was passed by the British Parliament on March 22, 1765. The new tax was imposed on all American colonists and required them to pay a tax on every piece of printed paper they used. Ship's papers, legal documents, licenses, newspapers, other publications, and even playing cards were taxed. The money collected by the Stamp Act was to be used to help pay the costs of defending and protecting the American frontier near the Appalachian Mountains (10,000 troops were to be stationed on the American frontier for this purpose).
Tea Act- passed by Parliament on May 10, 1773, would launch the final spark to the revolutionary movement in Boston. The act was not intended to raise revenue in the American colonies, and in fact imposed no new taxes. It was designed to prop up the East India Company which was floundering financially and burdened with eighteen million pounds of unsold tea. This tea was to be shipped directly to the colonies, and sold at a bargain price. The Townshend Duties were still in place, however, and the radical leaders in America found reason to believe that this act was a maneuver to buy popular support for the taxes already in force. The direct sale of tea, via British agents, would also have undercut the business of local merchants.
Station 6 - Common Sense
Glue the portrait of Thomas Paine and the cover to his book, Common Sense, into your Interactive Notebook.
After that, read the passage to the right and create a T-Chart in your Interactive Notebook for "Loyalists" and "Patriots", filling it in on both sides with the views on Thomas Paine's book. Use the following link to see what the views of Loyalists and Patriots were, from there, you should have an idea of how each group would view Thomas Paine's book. Underneath the T-Chart, summarize the book and its effect on Pre-Revolutionary America. |
Common Sense is a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–76 that inspired people in the Thirteen Colonies to declare and fight for independence from Great Britain in the summer of 1776. The pamphlet explained the advantages of and the need for immediate independence in clear, simple language. It was published anonymously on January 10, 1776, at the beginning of the American Revolution and became an immediate sensation. It was sold and distributed widely and read aloud at taverns and meeting places.
Washington had it read to all his troops, which at the time had surrounded the British army in Boston. In proportion to the population of the colonies at that time (2.5 million), it had the largest sale and circulation of any book published in American history. As of 2006, it remains the all-time best selling American title. Common Sense presented the American colonists with an argument for freedom from British rule at a time when the question of whether or not to seek independence was the central issue of the day. Paine wrote and reasoned in a style that common people understood. Foregoing the philosophical and Latin references used by Enlightenment era writers, he structured Common Sense as if it were a sermon, and relied on Biblical references to make his case to the people. He connected independence with common dissenting Protestant beliefs as a means to present a distinctly American political identity. Historian Gordon S. Wood described Common Sense as "the most incendiary and popular pamphlet of the entire revolutionary era". |
Bonus Assignment |
What was Thomas Paine saying in the excerpt below from his book, Common Sense?
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Excerpt of "Common Sense"
IN the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense: and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of a man, and generously enlarge his views beyond the present day ...
The Sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. 'Tis not the affair of a City, a County, a Province, or a Kingdom; but of a Continent — of at least one-eighth part of the habitable Globe. 'Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected even to the end of time, by the proceedings now. Now is the seed-time of Continental union, faith and honour. The least fracture now will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak; the wound would enlarge with the tree, and posterity read in it full grown characters.
– Thomas Paine, "Common Sense" (1776)
IN the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense: and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of a man, and generously enlarge his views beyond the present day ...
The Sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. 'Tis not the affair of a City, a County, a Province, or a Kingdom; but of a Continent — of at least one-eighth part of the habitable Globe. 'Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected even to the end of time, by the proceedings now. Now is the seed-time of Continental union, faith and honour. The least fracture now will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak; the wound would enlarge with the tree, and posterity read in it full grown characters.
– Thomas Paine, "Common Sense" (1776)