Page 345 - Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students 4th Edition

one such ship that had docked at Boston by staging
the Boston Tea Party in 1773.
4. Angered at these developments, the British passed
a series of Acts of Parliament (called the Intolerable Acts by the colonists) designed to punish Boston and the Massachusetts colony. These included revoking self-government, closing the port of Bos- ton, and forcibly quartering troops in people’s homes. In effect, Boston was occupied and put under martial law, and steps were taken to reorga- nize the Massachusetts government.
5. In turn, the British actions alarmed the colonists, leading them to establish the First Continental Con- gress in 1774 to discuss how to respond to the devel- oping crisis and to arrange for the 13 colonies to act as a united group. Talks continued at the Second Continental Congress held in 1775, culminating in decisions to organize resistance to Parliament’s actions and to petition the king for repeal of mea- sures viewed as tyrannical, especially the “Intolerable Acts” directed against Boston and Massachusetts.
Revolution and Independence
1. Attempts to work out a peaceful settlement failed. The king ignored the colonists’ petition, sent more troops, and announced further restrictions. In the colonies, verbal resistance spilled over into armed conflicts, including battles at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill.
2. Giving up on attempts to compromise, the Con- gress accepted a motion to declare independence on July 2, 1776 and issued the Declaration of Inde- pendence two days later. In the process of listing grievances against England that justified the decla- ration, the document put forth some important basic principles concerning human rights that gov- ernments ought to respect and also identified actions that governments ought not to take. Many of these reflected the colonists’ recent experiences with the king and the Parliament.
3. The declaration meant war with England. The colo- nies established themselves as a federation through the Articles of Confederation, recruited George Washington to command the army, and began raising money to recruit, equip, and train soldiers.
4. The colonists were fighting the world’s foremost military power, but several factors worked in their favor that enabled them to prevail in the end. England was involved in empire building and armed conflict all over the world, so it could allocate only limited resources to the conflict in America.
England had to ship soldiers thousands of miles away to the colonies, but the colonists were fighting on their home ground. England’s enemies, most notably France, helped the colonies by sending needed materials and in some cases military assis- tance. Finally, there was considerable division of opinion in England about the war against the colo- nies, so that governmental leaders were less eager to pursue it and more willing to conclude a peace agreement than they might have been otherwise.
5. For the most part, the war involved relatively small battles between relatively small armies, nothing like what occurred later in the Civil War. Early battles were mostly in New England and New York, and were mostly inconclusive or won by the British. Later battles were mostly fought farther south, and more often won by the colonists. Hostilities cli- maxed with a major American victory at Yorktown in 1781, and the war ended after a long period of peace negotiations was concluded in 1783.
6. The united colonies were now an independent nation. The new nation still operated under the Arti- cles of Confederation at first, but this form of federal government proved to be too weak to be effective and was soon replaced by the U.S. Constitution. (These events will be the focus of the next unit.)
Possible Activities
The nature of the content (history) and the students’ lack of background knowledge limits opportunities for experiential learning or independent inquiry (except for research assignments based on textbook or ency- clopedia accounts of the Revolution or biographies of Revolutionary figures). However, students can use teacher-provided summaries of key information items or historically based children’s literature selections as a basis for dramatic reenactments, debates, simulations, or writing assignments that involve taking the role of an individual who was involved in some way in the Revolution. Representative activities include the following:
1. Have students pretend to be journalists or pamphle- teers writing about the Boston Massacre or the Boston Tea Party. Have some individuals or groups pretend to be Sam Adams or another colonist seeking to foment rebellion, others pretend to be newspaper reporters seeking to write neutral or balanced accounts, and still others pretend to be Tories dismayed by unjus- tified defiance of legitimate authority.
2. Have the class simulate a town meeting (or a Conti- nental Congress meeting) called to decide whether,
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Appendix B 317