Declaration Of Independence Research Paper

Ragini Inguva

Period 2

9/16/15

Due to the damaging French and Indian War, the British rapidly lost money and went into debt post-war. This had a tremendous effect on both the colonists and many British citizens as well. The British began to tax both its’ citizens and the particularly the colonists at high prices to compensate for the great loss they had suffered due to the war they had to fight in the Americas. Right after the war, the British had to send over extra military forces in order to enforce the Proclamation of 1763 and make sure that the new taxes would be enforced as well but this also took a great deal of finances from the government’s pockets. The government appointed George Grenville to solve England’s financial crisis

as it had gotten out of hand. This period after the war also marked the end of Britain’s method of control on the colonies called salutary neglect- they started to impose more rules and become stricter with the amount of control they held over the colonists.
To address the taxation of the colonists first, George Grenville came up with strict acts to regain the money lost. The British imposed many different acts on the colonists, namely the Currency Act of 1764, The Sugar Act of 1764, and the Stamp Act of 1765. The Currency Act was designed to reduce the loss of money due to the high and inflation and the low value of the colonists local currency. The colonists were banned from using any form of paper money. The next enforcement, the Sugar Act was designed to replace the previously ineffective Molasses’ Act. Colonists were then being charged a higher rate on their sugar. The last act was the Stamp Act and this was one of the most controversial of them all, it was an act that taxed many common goods and rather than following this Act, most people smuggled even at the risk of being tried in a vice-admiralty court. There were many other Acts that the British enforced but the listed three really triggered American resistance after the French and Indian War.
Americans were upset at this taxation and resisted the British efforts to enforce the taxes because they were not getting a say in the taxation and they felt like they were being treated as inferior to the English residents. Many patriots believed that the Parliament did not have any right to tax the colonies because each individual colony had their own government to internally tax them. One of the things that had a great influence on the American resistance to these taxes was the Enlightenment movement. Many colonists applied John Locke’s principle of every human’s natural right to the ‘forceful’ British taxation. As a result of the injustice the American’s felt, they were very resistant to the British efforts.

The colonists started to move away from abiding to the British parliamentary laws and rather focusing on their own colonial laws when they began to protest the British laws formally in a legal setting.

The House of Burgesses kicked off these formal complaints to in 1765 and later that same year the Stamp Act Congress took place. Rather than just occupying the Americas as English citizens, the colonists at this point began to use their local governments as the basis for all of their laws. Many colonial Leaders began to argue the Enlightenment philosophies like natural rights and these arguments would ultimately lay the foundation for the Declaration of Independence and the fundamental reasons for the separation between England and the United States. A group of colonial leaders that really led this movement toward independence were the Sons of Liberty. The Sons of Liberty was a group of colonists including many patriots who were intent on securing their rights as citizens of England and later wanted to completely separate from the nation. Although there were many patriots who consciously made the decision to shift toward colonial leadership as opposed to staying loyal there were also the people who wanted to stay true to Britain and those were the Loyalists who did not participate in the resistance against the British. Soon, with all the combined taxation that was being imposed on the colonies, the propaganda spread about the British by the Sons of Liberty, and

Enlightenment philosophies - the colonies were moving toward revolution and war against the British at a quick pace. The different approaches to the acts resulted in the final unification of the colonies.

Patriot leaders began to attempt to unify all the colonists under one cause by spreading propaganda like the Boston Massacre engraving and talking of the ideals about liberties and natural rights. Due to all of the Acts being enacted by the British that were loading an unfair amount of tax on the colonies, there was already a moderate base of people that had issues with the English but more people would continue to start unifying into a single unit because continuing bad decisions that King George makes in response to colonist resistance. The big organization that united the colonies and gave them something in common to feel like one entity were the Committees of Correspondence. These committees allowed the colonies to communicate grievances about the British to one another, share news about anything occurring, and start slowly developing what was later the American identity. Although there were a few measures taken to unite the colonies, the development of one, strong unified identity was a long ways away even during the Revolution. Although many people were uniting under one cause, there would still be a strong divide between a Virginian and a New Englander, for example.

a.

One of the first elements of the engraving that portrays the artist’s perspective about the incident of the Boston Massacre was that the “Red Coats” or the British are more clearly identified and they stand taller than the blurred-out, faded colonists. This element makes it seem like the British were brutally attacking an innocent group of colonists. Another piece that we can see is that the Captain in the painting is holding an arm outward which usually indicates that he is giving an order. Not much is known about how the fighting during the Boston Massacre actually started but one thing that is definitely known is that the British Captain did not give the order to shoot so the artist clearly tried to omit this fact and show the British in a worse light for the propaganda piece. A third part of this painting is that the only group of armed people in the engraving are the British, with large rifles. However, during the actual Boston Massacre, the colonists were not completely innocent- they were throwing stones and other large objects right at the officers in a mob formation. The artist is clearly trying to show the British in the worst possible light by engraving it in this

fashion.

b. There were many reasons why the Boston Massacre did not directly lead to war with the British. During this time period, not everyone was really convinced that they should think about separating with the British and instigate war with them. A lot of colonists did not even care about the incidents occurring all the way in Boston because their focus was solely on their own separate colony. In fact, even the patriots were not all interested in separating, they just wanted a say in the Parliament and more rights as British citizens. On top of that, many colonists were either Loyalists or undecided between the two groups. Those who were undecided were the prey of people like Sam Adams who spread propaganda like the Boston Massacre engraving and although some swayed, it took a while to gain a majority of the people to be patriots and wage war against the British. Close after the incident, there was a battle at Lexington and Concord but even after that, the colonists sent out a letter apologizing to King called the Olive Branch petition. So clearly, the colonists were not ready because of the amount of people they had and because they were not in the right mentality yet to go to war with Britain right after the Boston Massacre.

c. Another event that could be used by the colonial propagandists to rile up the colonists against the British would be the events during the battle at Lexington and Concord. A picture of the Red Coats, similar to the Boston Massacre engraving, marching to Concord in order to capture any colonials carrying weapons would be effective in angering the colonists just as the method worked with the engraving of the Boston Massacre. It would work because it can show how the British wanted to suppress the colonists and take away their rights without hesitation.