| Subject Areas |
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History and Social Studies
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U.S. History - Colonial America and the New Nation |
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| Time Required |
| | 4-5 Class Periods |
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| Skills |
| | primary document analysis
oral presentation
critical analysis
debate and argumentation
understanding multiple perspectives |
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| Additional Data |
| | Date Created: 08/28/02 |
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| Date Posted |
| | 8/28/2002 |
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Voices of the American Revolution
IntroductionIn the years preceding the Declaration
of Independence on July 4, 1776, many American colonists expressed opposition
to Great Britain's policies toward the colonies, but few thought seriously about
establishing an independent nation until late in the imperial crisis. Throughout
the years of controversy beginning in the 1760s, Americans expressed a variety
of opinions about the legitimacy of open acts of resistance and rebellion, which
intensified as armed resistance began in April 1775. On both sides of the issue,
perspectives and motivations were diverse. Among those who favored resistance,
for example, not all would go so far as to advocate full-scale rebellion against
Great Britain or national independence for the United States. The debate, moreover,
was not a static one, and its terms shifted over time; by 1776 many colonists
found themselves advocating positions undreamed of a decade earlier. In
this lesson, students are taught how to make informed analyses of primary documents
illustrating the diversity of religious, political, social, and economic motives
behind competing perspectives on questions of independence and rebellion. Making
use of a variety of primary texts, the activities below help students to "hear"
some of the colonial voices that, in the course of time and under the pressure
of novel ideas and events, contributed to the American Revolution. Guiding
QuestionIn the years leading up to the American
Revolution, what were some of the attitudes expressed towards rebellion and what
were the motives and allegiances behind these diverse viewpoints? Learning
ObjectivesAfter completing lessons in this unit,
students will be able to - Critique varying reasons for why individuals
chose to rebel or remain loyal
- Analyze various documents that are rebellious
or loyalist in nature.
Preparing
to Teach this Lesson- Materials. Download
and copy any handouts you plan to use in this lesson. For activity
1 below, you will need the PDF file, Voices
of the Revolution: Document Analysis. If you plan to use Option
#1—Point-Counterpoint Debate, below, provide students with a copy of
the Point-Counterpoint
Rubric, available here as a downloadable PDF file. If you choose Option
#2—Group Research and Class Discussion, provide your students with a
copy of the Essay Rubric,
also available as a downloadable PDF file.
- Background. Before
beginning the activities described in this lesson, you should provide your students
with a general background on the differences that existed among the American colonists
prior to the outbreak of war. Guided
Readings on the American Revolution, including causes and motivations, are
available from The Gilder-Lehrman
Institute of American History, a link on the EDSITEment-reviewed History
Matters.
While you may wish to present the spectrum of colonial opinion
in terms of arguments for and against rebelling, help your students to understand
that the debate shifted over time, and that acts of resistance do not necessarily
amount to calls for rebellion. A good way to introduce such nuances is within
a chronological framework. You can find an excellent annotated
timeline of events during the Revolutionary War era from the EDSITEment-reviewed
American Memory collection.
Another
approach to providing an overview of the events and opinions leading up to the
Revolutionary war is to present students with the evolving views of a single influential
individual over time. For a central example, see the individual letters written
by George Washington, available from the EDSITEment-reviewed The
Papers of George Washington (in particular, look at the twelve letters in
the The Road
to Revolution 1765-1775 series).
- Primary Documents.
Introduce your students to a representative cross-section of the documents to
be examined in this lesson. One approach might be to identify documents from each
of the broad categories below:
A. Religious motivationsRead
the essay by Christine Leigh Heyrman, "Religion
and the American Revolution," available from the EDSITEment-reviewed TeacherServe.
Linked to this website is an exhibit produced by the Library
of Congress entitled Religion
and the American Revolution, which contains links to several documents showing
religious motivations both loyalist and rebel. Of special relevance to this lesson
is the webpage Religion
and the Founding of the American Republic. Below are just a few of a number
of relevant documents and artifacts to be found on this webpage: - Jonathan
Mayhew's "A Discourse Concerning
Unlimited Submission and Non-Resistance to Higher Powers," which argues from
Scripture that God does not forbid resistance to rulers who do not govern wisely.)
- Once a speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly and friend to Benjamin
Franklin, Joseph Galloway was a loyalist who fled to England in 1778. In this
excerpt from his book, Historical
and Political Reflections on the Rise and Progress of the American Rebellion,
he asserts that the cause of the rebellion was essentially religious, a result
of the animosity of Congregational and Presbyterian interests in America towards
the Anglican Church (for more, see Religion
and the Founding of the American Republic).
- An allegory done in needlework, "The Hanging of Absalom",
illustrates the tendency of American colonists to view the conflict with Britain
in biblical terms. The following interpretation of this allegory is provided:
" The creator of the work saw Absalom as a patriot, rebelling against and suffering
from the arbitrary rule of his father King David (symbolizing George III)…" (for
more, see Religion
and the Founding of the American Republic).
- Other possibilities from
Religion and the Founding
of the American Republic include a sermon arguing that rebellion is justified
by God, a revolutionary battle flag containing religious symbolism, arguments
among Quakers about whether to join the battle, and documents that illustrate
divided loyalties within the Anglican Church in America.
B. Loyalist
perspectivesPlain
Truth, a response written by loyalist James Chalmers to Thomas Paine's Common
Sense (the text of Chalmer's response comes from Archiving
Early America, a link on the EDSITEment-reviewed Internet
Public Library). Charles Inglis, an Anglican clergyman and loyalist,
responded to Thomas Paine with an anonymous pamphlet, "The
True Interest of America Impartially Stated," which argues for a reconciliation
between Britain and the American Colonies (the text comes from Revolution
to Reconstruction, a link on the EDSITEment resource Internet
Public Library). C. Rebel perspectivesAvailable from the Avalon
Project at the Yale Law School, the famous speech by Patrick Henry in which
he proclaimed, "Give me
Liberty or Give Me Death." Another example, from The
Papers of George Washington, is George Washington's letter of May 31, 1775
to a close friend in which he suggests his resolve to rebel: "But
can a virtuous man hesitate in his choice?" D. African American voicesA
number of documents related to the position and perspective of African Americans
during the Revolution are available from the EDSITEment resource, Africans
in America. The following are just a few of the possibilities available on
this website: - African American petition
in 1773 to Governor Hutchinson, written by Felix on behalf of "many Slaves, living
in the Town of Boston, and other Towns in the Province."
-
"Free Black Patriots," an essay on free black men from the North who fought
on the American side.
-
"Runaways," an essay about black slaves who fought on either the British or
American side during the Revolution in order to escape slavery.
- In
"Of the Natural Rights of Colonists," Bostonian James Otis wrote that "the
colonists are by the law of nature freeborn, as indeed all men are, white or black,"
making him one of only a few American writers of the time who combined an argument
for succession with an argument against slavery.
E. Official and
legal documents
Suggested Activities
1.Tools
for Analyzing Primary Documents 2.
Voices of the Revolution: Individual or Group Options for Independent Study 3.
Essay Assignment 1.Tools
for Analyzing Primary Documents Prior to
assigning option #1 or option #2, below, provide your students with a general
introduction to interpreting primary documents. Here are some possibilities for
questions that students can ask themselves of each document (the questions below
are also available as a downloadable PDF file, Voices
of the Revolution: Document Analysis): - What is the general motivation
of the writer of this document (i.e., religious, philosophical)?
- Were
there any antecedent events directly preceding the authoring of the document that
may have influenced it (i.e., the Stamp Act, Boston Massacre)?
- Are there
any significant attitudes about rights of various groups expressed? Explain.
- Was
this a document originally intended for a small audience or large audience? Would
the type of original audience affect how the document was authored?
- Is there
a specific call to action in the document? If so, what?
- Is there a claim
of authority or credibility made by the author of the document (i.e., moral, common
sense)?
In addition to these questions,
you can also download a Written
Document Analysis Worksheet from the Digital
Classroom, a resource from the National Archives and Records Administration.
To model the process of analyzing primary
documents, you may wish to provide the class with copies of the letter
of George Washington to George Mason in 1769. Although a little long, it provides
a strong document of which to ask all of the preceding questions. Its readability
is also aided by annotation provided following the document. The letter provides
natural interest since it was written by the future commander of the armed forces
and first president of the United States. 2.
Voices of the Revolution: Individual or Group Options for Independent Study Option
#1—Point-Counterpoint Debate: Assign students to individual historical
persons or viewpoints based upon particular primary documents. After students
have had time to examine their assigned documents and to fill out a Document
Analysis Worksheet, they are ready to prepare for an in-class debate. Use
the Rubric for
Point-Counterpoint Debate, available here as a downloadable PDF document,
to present students with instructions for preparing for the classroom debate.
Direct students to the Internet resources described in Preparing
to Teach, above, to research the additional information they will need to
clarify their position in the debate. As outlined in the Rubric,
students then do a "point counterpoint" debate during class time. Option
#2—Group Research and Class Discussion: Students are put into groups
where they will form an answer to the following question: "Before 1779, the reasons
for an individual's support for or opposition to independence were primarily economic."
Assess the validity of this statement. Each
of 4-5 student groups will be given a cluster of primary documents (see examples
in Preparing
to Teach, above) that supports a viewpoint being driven by a certain reason
(i.e., religious, economic, philosophical). Each group must frame their answer
based upon the documents that they are given. There will be an overall class discussion
with opportunities for each group to present their views. 3.
Essay Assignment Assign students an essay
based on their work for one of the two options described above. Student essays
should develop a focused thesis statement supported by the evidence from both
primary and secondary sources. Specific instructions for the essay, as well as
an assessment tool, can be developed from the downloadable PDF file, Rubric
for Student Essay. Selected EDSITEment
Websites
Africans in
America from PBS
[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/title.html] American
Memory Collection
[http://memory.loc.gov/] Avalon
Project of the Yale Law School
[http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/avalon.htm]
Digital
Classroom
[http://www.archives.gov/digital_classroom/index.html] Internet
Public Library
[http://www.ipl.org/] The
Papers of George Washington at the University of Virginia
[http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/index.html]
TeacherServe:
From the National Humanities Center.
[http://www.nhc.rtp.nc.us:8080/tserve/tserve.htm]
Standards Alignment
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