Loyalists and Patriots

As it always happens, we have black and white, an evil side and a bad side. Patriots where honorable people who fought against the Britain Government. But not many know that as we had patriots who fought for the colonies we had the Loyalists. These were people that preferred British rules that remained loyal to British. Some were happy being suppressed by British and some others only just feared, others depended financially from the crown and so on many purposes for being in favor of their rules. This people doubted that the colonists could defeat one of Europe’s greatest empires. But loyalist were definitely against patriots causes for various purposes, they feared that Britain could not win the war, the patriots did not allow free speech, they dislike militia drafts, they shutdown loyalist newspaper, and they feared oppression from patriots.



Declaring of Independence!

One of the big achievements continental congress had when they assembled was moving towards independence, adopting the United States Declaration of Independence. The congress select a committee to draft the declaration, explaining their reasons, more specifically Thomas Jefferson drafted this.

By Spring 1776, July 2 congress voted that America was free and by July 4 they approved the

declaration stating that the 13 American Colonies were now independent states. They didn’t depend anymore from the British Empire.

The declaration containing a long list of grievances against King George, also declared the idea that all men were created equally:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain Unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”.

Battles of Lexington and Concord

 

John Hancock, Samuel Adams and other colonist leaders convened in a provincial congress where they wanted to govern without any British influence. They started gathering weapons and amunisions not letting Thomas Gage who was a British general, military who was named governor of Massachusetts, know about the plans they had together.

When Gage knew about this plan he send troops to arrest John Hancock and Samuel Adams. This provoked the battles in this towns west of Boston.  When the secret was spread Paul Revere travel all the way to Boston to warn Hancock and Adams , so knowing this the patriot fighters (militia), got ready to defend their town. This patriots were full-time farmers and part-time soldiers. But this didn’t stop them, they were ready to attack rapidly and their attacks were sudden and silent.

When redcoats arrived they attacked but the militia killed more than 200 British soldiers and so winning this short battle.

The Second Continental Congress

After the revolutionary war it was decided to form a second continental congress. This congress assembled representatives from the colonies, this time from the 13 of them. The second continental congress happened on May 1775. This congress was form after the war to take responsibility of it.  This congress took place in Pennsylvania States House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They took executive and legislative power. Armed volunteers from middle and southern colonies marched north to join patriots that had seized Boston. The congress gave the leadership of army to George Washington. They wanted to declare independence from Britain.

Boston Massacre

Boston Massacre! This terrible event started March 5th 1770.

British started abusing the colonists, they were sending soldiers to the colonies to make sure that they were fallowing the rules as the British wanted. All this started creating tension between soldiers and colonists. Soldiers weren’t happy about this and some were looking for other jobs because they were paid few for their work as soldiers.

On this evening of march a soldier looking for other job step on colonist territory and was encountered by angry colonists. All this anger was created by the tension around them, soldiers al around them! So they took advantage so the angry mob started attaking the soldier.

All this conflists provoced a first shot even though soldiers didn’t wanted to attack colonists, the several shots started appearing, as a result 5 civilians rest dead. All this continued until it was taken to trial. After all the massacre justice was made, only 2 soldiers were charged for commiting a crime.

Townshend Act

The Townshend Acts are named for Charles Townshend. He started with this idea of taxing colonists indirectly, this way of taxing was more reasonable than others. This acts were passed in 1767 by the British Parliament. This were made because Parliament needed to raise money to get out of England’s debt so they easily passed this laws and people couldn’t elect any member of the Parliament soy they say these as a violation.

They decided to levy new taxes on the colonies of British America, on products that were used in everyday life-Lead, glass, tea, paper, and paint. This money raised was used to pay to pay the salaries of governors and judges so that they would be independent of colonial rule. This way colonists wouldn’t have any rights over governors and judges.

Intolerable Acts



The Boston Tea Party was a key event in the growth of the American Revolution. Parliament responded in 1774 with the Coercive Acts, which, among other provisions, closed Boston's commerce until the British East India Company had been repaid for the destroyed tea.

Also called the Intolerable Acts, this acts were made mainly to restore the order after the Boston Tea Party. This were a series of laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774, this included, Boston Port Act, Quartering Act, Administration of Justice Act, Quebec Act and Massachusetts (4 of this were directly in response to the Boston Tea Party). With this, they were preventing colonists to challenge the Parliament authority.

Colonist started seeing this Acts as an abuse to their rights and in 1774 they organized the first Continental Congress to protest against them. In my opinion the colonists thought wisely, and made a good decision doing this congress, it was a better way to protest against the British Parliament than other ways of acting like the Tea Party.

The Boston Tea Party



After all the protests made by colonists, all taxes were repelled (1770) except for the taxes on TEA.  People started this movement against Tea Act called de Tea Party, this movement was passed by the British Parliament in 1773. Protesters had successfully prevented the unloading of taxed tea in three other colonies, but in Boston, Thomas Hutchinson refused to allow the tea to be returned to Britain. He never expected colonists acting in another way than we thought. People started the boycott and this gave problems to the British East India Company.

On December 16, 1773, after officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, a group of colonists boarded the ships and destroyed the tea by throwing it into Boston Harbor. A group of colonists disguised themselves as Indians, the dumped 342 trunks of tea in all.