Throughout The Shoemaker and the Tea Party, Alfred Young clearly walks us through the ordinary life of George Robert Twelves Hewes. Some main topics discussed are: average people in historical events, how groups of people view the past, and how memories are shaped over time. Hewes is not the only person discussed in the story, yet this book is essentially a biography of his life. Young touches all of the topics through talking about the different times in Hewes’ life. Ultimately, within this essay, I will demonstrate the understanding of The Shoemaker and the Tea Party, and effectively discuss the main topics during the course of this story.
An average person can play a vital role in major historical events in several different ways. In The
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Wheatley was born in West Africa around 1750, and was captured when she was 7. John Wheatley purchased Phillis for his wife, Susanna; together they taught Phillis how to read and write, and as early as 12, Phillis was writing poetry and her first poem had been published. Wheatley’s poems implicitly advocated for racial equality, while condemning slavery. Her work received some negative feedback from political figureheads, such as Thomas Jefferson. White America classified a human as having the ability to read, write, and reason; therefore, leaving no room for the uneducated Africans, seeing Africans as nonhuman. Jefferson claimed Wheatley’s work was not literature because the moment he admitted Wheatley’s work was indeed literature, he would have had to admit she was a human being. The way Phillis Wheatley handled the adversity she faced is admirable. Wheatley definitely impacted American history, and “owes her place in history to advocates of inequality” (Young 1999 …show more content…
As historians bring to light groups long excluded, or condescendingly treated only as victim, they are recovering the life stories of more and more “unknowns” and coming up with more and more unsung heroes and heroines.
Clearly, the reoccurring theme of “average” people playing an important role to the greater scheme of American history is shown in the quote above – these “average” people become America’s heroes and heroines, and we choose to remember them as great memories. The Shoemaker and the Tea Party examines three main events, The American Revolution, The Boston Massacre, and the Boston Tea Party, and in which ways they are shaped as memories over time. Within the chapter labeled “Taming the Memory of the Revolution, 1783-1820,” Young goes on to discuss what it takes for an event to pass into a public memory. During the time of the American Revolution, so many negative events happened that many Americans did not want to past as memories, such as the Boston Massacre. Young makes a point that instead of remembering all of the negative events that happened, “exchange that Anniversary for Another,” (Young, 1999, 108). With that being said, The Boston Massacre happened on March 5, 1770, while the Declaration of Independence was adopted into Congress July 4, 1776 – the Fourth of July overshadowed March 5th,
I discussed the differences between Captain Thomas Preston’s Account of the Boston Massacre (1770) and Paul Revere, Image of The Bloody Massacre (1770). I then explained both men’s story beginning with Captain Thomas Preston’s vision of the event. I then explained Paul Revere version of the event. I then included my opinion which account I believed was most accurate and explained why.
This story, as a whole, possesses both strengths and weaknesses. This book has two strengths. One of those strengths is that the book contains pictures. The pictures add a visual context to the story, which is quite useful and helpful to those in the audience that are visual learners. For example, in the eight pages in between pages 138 and 139 contain pictures along with descriptive captions. Some of these pictures include the famous picture or painting of the Boston Massacre, John Burgoyne, Major-General Sir Henry Clinton, Charles Lee, a political cartoon named “Six-Pence a Day”, a self-portrait of Major John Andre, a British drummer and fifer, General Burgoyne’s camp and German mercenaries of the Prince Carl Regiment. Throughout the book, there are also pages that contain various maps. By including these pictures in the book, as well as many others, readers are able to visualize the American Revolutionary War and its events as they read through the text. By doing this, they are able to better understand the book’s content and storyline. The second of these strengths is its organization. By putting the events in chronological order, the audience is able to create a mental timeline of war’s happenings and helps them
This chapter provided information from the trial of Captain Thomas Preston. The chapter asked the question, “What really happened in the Boston Massacre”. Chapter four focused on the overall event of the Massacre and trying to determine if Captain Preston had given the order to fire at Boston citizens. The chapter provides background information and evidence from Preston’s trial to leave the reader answering the question the chapter presents. Although, after looking through all the witnesses’ testimonies some might sway in Captain Preston’s favor, just the way the grand jury did.
Phillis Wheatley overcame extreme obstacles, such as racism and sexism, to become one of the most acclaimed poets in the 18th Century. Her works are characterized by religious and moral backgrounds, which are due to the extensive education of religion she received. In this sense, her poems also fit into American Poetry. However, she differs in the way that she is a black woman whose writings tackle greater subjects while incorporating her moral standpoint. By developing her writing, she began speaking out against injustices that she faced and, consequently, gave way to authors such as Gwendolyn Brooks and Countee Cullen.
Phillis Wheatley was an African-born slave in the last quarter of the eighteenth-century in New England. She was born in West Africa and brought to America on the slave ship Phillis. She was, however, much more than chattel-she was a poet. Phillis was the first African American to have a book published. In a time when women were not expected to be able to read or write, and when teaching an African American to be literate was frowned upon, Phillis Wheatley became educated in Latin and English literature. The education of Phillis Wheatley was, for the most part, for the intent of training "a servant and would-be companion for domestic utility," in which they undoubtedly succeeded. However, they "got an intellectual adornment" who, with her knowledge of the poems of Alexander Pope, the "Puritanical whiteness of her thoughts," and ability to write poems, soon became a celebrity among Boston?s social elite (Richmond 18,19).
In the article, The World of Phillis Wheatley, James Rawley’s main thesis is to show that Phillis Wheatley's work was mainly influenced by the religion. Rawley shows evidence for this claim by bringing up the person Wheatley held the tightest bond with was Suzanne Whitley, with Rawley describing her as "This remarkable woman was active in religious, humanitarian enterprises, and conducted a wide correspondence with philanthropic persons in England” (668). The relationship between the two women provided the main reason why Wheatley’s work became known to the public. “It was Susanna who planned for the publication of the Poems, and in England enabled the poet to meet distinguished personages, and ultimately secured the slave's freedom.”
The poetry of Phillis Wheatley is crafted in such a manner that she is able to create a specific aim for each poem, and achieve that aim by manipulating her position as the speaker. As a slave, she was cautious to cross any lines with her proclamations, but was able to get her point across by humbling her own position. In religious or elegiac matters, however, she seemed to consider herself to be an authority. Two of her poems, the panegyric “To MAECENAS” and the elegy “On the Death of a young Lady of Five Years of Age,” display Wheatley’s general consistency in form, but also her intelligence, versatility, and ability to adapt her position in order to achieve her goals.
Phillis Wheatley is a gem of her time; the first African-American woman to have her poetry published. Though purchased as a slave, her life was far from most African-Americans during the 17th century. She was educated and became deeply rooted in her faith, Christianity. From an outsider, her life may be viewed as an adopted child rather than a slave to the Wheatley family. However, she did not forget where she came from or those less fortunate than herself.
The illustration that Phillis Wheatley portrays in history is an African-American woman who wrote poetry. Her life goes more into depths that what is perceived, however. Phillis Wheatley uses her poetry as a unique way to get out the truth. Through poems such as On Being Brought From Africa to America and the poem about Lee, she made statements about was what going on at that time; a revolution. Phillis Wheatley was known as a revolutionary mother, for she gave hope to slaves, ease to whites, and was an influence to America. She was not known for conflict or trying to start an argument, but she more known for personalizing her thoughts onto a piece of paper, read by all of America. Her ideas were used as an influence during the revolutionary war. Phillis Wheatley was not an ordinary slave, but she was accepted into society my the majority. The family who raised her, taught her how to read and write, and she slowly turned into a woman of the revolution.
In “On Being Brought From Africa To America” Phillis Wheatley speaks directly from her experience of coming to America, and how she became very religious on her arrival, so she uses her religious beliefs to explain how lucky she was to be in America and how she made a lot of achievements. Phillis Wheatley was a young black female poet, who started discovering her love for writing when she came to America, although it was illegal to educate black people she found a way to teach herself to read and write, even though a lot of people of her race were told that they weren’t good enough to deserve to be Christians and also to enjoy the advantage of being a citizen in America, Wheatley overcame these immense obstacles and she was so grateful for the chance to be a part of the Christian word and also to hear the word of Christianity, she was also very happy that she was brought to America where she has the opportunity to read and write. “Phillis” wasn’t her real name but her master named her that because the slave ship she boarded to come to America was named Phillis.
Alfred F. Young took on an interesting task with his book The Shoemaker and the Tea Party: Memory and the American Revolution. He began his project looking for what role the average person played in the history of the Revolution, but changed directions when he realized it was more than just the common persons account that mattered; it was also about the meaning behind an individual’s memory. The way a person interpreted their experiences was equally important, if not more important, than the details of the events themselves. Young describes the process of constructing memory as both a construction of personal experience and a construction of public memory. What is most important in “doing history” is how those events were forgotten, and then
Alfred F. Young’s The Shoemaker and the Tea Party illustrates the life of George Robert Twelves Hewes, a lowly shoemaker in Boston, and his transformation into a citizen active in the revolutionary events of his time. Young uses Hewes’ transformation to illustrate what liberty and freedom meant for the ordinary Bostonian during the revolutionary period, and emphasizes how the definition of freedom was an enigma even as the colonial rebels fought for their liberation from England. As the events of the revolution went underway, it brought an opportunity for everyone affected by and participating in these events to consider and challenge their own definitions of freedom as their new identity as Americans emerged. Hewes was directly impacted by
When she was seven years old, she was taken from her family and brought to America during the American revolution wrapped in a filthy carpet on board a slave ship in 1761, and she was purchased by a Boston merchant as a gift to his wife Susanna Wheatley. She was given her first name of the slave ship on which she was brought "Phillis", and her surname after her master’s family name “Wheatley"; at first, she spoke no English, but because she was Mrs. Susanna’s best servant of all the other servants for her intelligence and eagerness to learn; thus the Wheatleys afforded her with a high level of education equivalent to any free Native American in Boston at that time. She learned English, Latin, and the bible and she became Christian. Phillis started writing her first poetry when she was a teenager, and she was encouraged by Mrs. Susanna who helped her publish her first poems in the newspapers, and shortly she gained a great reputation for her poetry. An entire book of her poems combined different moral and religious subjects was published in 1773. "On Being Brought from Africa to America" was a poem of this book. Phillis Wheatley was the first black African American poet to publish a
George Hewes’ account of the Boston Tea Party is considered a firsthand account of this historically significant event. The Boston Tea Party took place the night of December 16, 1773. Three ships had arrived in Boston Harbor carrying Tea from the East India Tea Company. The Bostonians had were given a warning the cargo would be unloaded on December 17. Hewes recounts the events leading up to the Boston Tea Party including the actual attack on the ships and its aftermath. He provides a descriptive narrative, thus contributing to the historical context surrounding the Tea Party. This event as well as, the unfolding discord within the colonies provides the necessary spark to ignite the American Revolution.
Phillis Wheatley was born around 1753 and was the first African American woman to publish a book of poems. Her famous poem On Being Brought from Africa to America concerns her stand against slaves being treated as simply objects to be used under the name of God. Susan Lippert Martin’s journal article Diabolic Dye, Commodities, and Refinement in Phillis Wheatley’s ON BEING BROUGHT FROM AFRICA TO AMERICA analyzes the poem in-depth from the significance of the entire piece down to a single word. My intent in reading her essay was to gain more understanding on who Phillis Wheatley was as a person and where she stood in her society, for I have not