Common Sense

If anyone is interested I found a link to the third edition of Thomas Paine's "Common Sense." In places it is kind of hard to understand but it's pretty interesting.

http://www.ushistory.org/paine/commonsense/

The Colonists Are Rebels!

I believe that the colonists were being rebels. (well thats the side im suposed to be on). They didnt really have the right to be against us. For one they were British. The British also were the people who funded them to come to America. And the reason that the British taxed the colonists was to help them get out of debt from the French and Indian war. The British won it for the coloists. The colonists barley even helped to win it. The British were the people who did all the work. So really the colonists have no good reason to be apposing.

Opposing the Patriots

Ok, here's my piece.

Taylor said that like they were trying to escape the British, Right? Well....that is a great assumption. A decent amount of people were going to the new world for fame, fortune and gold! She says "The British." When really, i think that the patriots were just trying to escape from the King of England. I don't think that they HATED the British people, they were British. Taylor makes it sound like they were no longer British people, yet they were. They just did not like the king at that time. They did not hate the whole land of England. ALSO i find it interesting how only one patriot has posted....hmmmm that's interesting.....lol. We were treating America how we treated out own people.

I am on the side of the patriots. I believe that the British shouldn't come and rule over us.
We left for the New land to have freedom. I believe that it would compleetly destroy the point of coming to America if we are just going to have the British rule over us. The British is what we were escaping. We want our freedom. We will not get the freedom we have so greatly strived for if we let them rule over us. If we let the British take hold of us now there is no turning back.

The Colonists are REBELS!!

We have invested our money, our troops, our time, and our very PEOPLE in this fine colony. And how are we treated in return? REBELLION!! Red-handed thievery!! The colonists call themselves "Americans" and seem to have completely forgotten their British roots. Throwing SNOWBALLS and even ROCKS at our brave soldiers who have left their mother country to go and keep order in this rebellious, uncivilized "country" is unheard-of. And now they are calling it the "Boston Massacre"!! Simply because our troops were forced to defend themselves from a threatening mob and accidently killed a few peasants. Boston seems to be a very rebellious city, for another astonishing event also took place here - the Boston Tea Party, as they call it. THREE BOATLOADS of FINE, INDIA TEA were ruthlessly destroyed. Good tea, good money, completely and utterly ruined. I really don't know about you lot, but I vote we punish these colonists and teach them a lesson - teach them to obey their mother country. The country that gave them all they have now. The country that we stand in today, our very own ENGLAND!!!

(I don't know if I did this right... but FYI I'm supposed to be a young politition in England who has an interesting view of the events leading to the American Revolution).

The American war for Independence

Though the Americans were justified in some ways for rebelling against the English, in some ways they did act like rebels. For example, in the Boston Massacre, a crowd of men were throwing stones and snowballs at British soldiers. Eventually, the soldiers fired at the mob, and killed five men. Though it was cruel for the British to fire at the men, the colonists were acting very foolishly on that occasion, and provoked the British to fire.

Another reason why the Americans sometimes acted as rebels is because Titus 3:1 tells us to "subject to rulers and authorities, and to obey." This was written when the Roman Empire was in control. The British government was not nearly as bad or corrupt as the Roman Empire, and yet Paul tells us to subject to rulers and authorities, not rebel.

Thirdly, many Africans were being enslaved on American plantations during the War of Independence. Americans wanted more rights, though they treated their slaves like garbage. Compared to the way slaves were treated, most of the colonists were treated very well.

These are just three reasons why the Americans who fought for independence were sometimes acting like rebels.

The Boston Tea Party

A major event in the starting of the American War for Independence was the Boston Tea Party, in which many Colonial men dressed up as Native Americans and threw a shipload of tea into the Boston Harbour. This was to make a point that the colonists were tired of paying huge, unreasonable taxes. Here's a link about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party

FrEnCh AnD InDiAn WaR

This war basically, i think decided who would win America, the British, or the French..... thank goodness the British won, or i guess we'd be saying "Dieu bénisse le Canada" (God bless Canada.)

I am going to just give you a brief overview of the war. Basically Canadian French people came down and we whooped them....JUST KIDDING!!! (sorry Terry)lol


Do yo guys think it was crazy that the British were giving America taxes, and ruling them from another country?lol well, i don't have much to say, except that THAT'S UNFAIR!

it's also unfair how we treated the native American's but that is another topic entirely....i could go on and on probably about that!

The Albany plan of Union

The Albany plan of union had two purposes.
Thinking of the uprising French and Indian War, the British and the Colonists were worried that the Iroquois would join the French in the war.
So they wanted to meet with delegates from the other colonies and with some of the chiefs of the Iroquois to persuade them to support their side.
But another reason was that delegates wanted a plan of union for the colonies and make a council that would make certain decisions. Each colony would have a delegate to create this council and a royal governor that would be over them.
These certain decisions would be such as finance, indian affairs, and defense.
When hearing the plan, both the British and the Colonists disagreed. The British didn't want to lose the control that they had over the colonies. And the colonists didnt want to some the amount of freedom they had then.
Although the plan never worked out many of these ideas came up again thirty years later.

A short overview of the French and Indian war

In the 1750s, France and Britain were fighting in Europe. The war was now spreading to North America. British Colonists wanted to take over French land in North America. The British wanted to take over the fur trade in the French held territory.
British soldiers fought against French soldiers and Native Americans. Native Americans joined in the battle against the British because they were afraid the British would take over their land. French Indian War Burning at the Stake The war ended in 1759 when British Major General James Wolfe captured Quebec.

french and indian war

The conflict is known by several names. In British North America, wars were often named after the sitting British monarch, such as King William's War or Queen Anne's War. Because there had already been a King George's War in the 1740s, British colonists named the second war in King George's reign after their opponents, and thus it became known as the French and Indian War.[1] This traditional name remains standard in the United States, although it obscures the fact that American Indians fought on both sides of the conflict.[2] American historians generally use the traditional name or the European title (the Seven Years' War). Other, less frequently used names for the war include the Fourth Intercolonial War and the Great War for the Empire.[1]
In Europe, the North American theatre of the Seven Years' War usually has no special name, and so the entire worldwide conflict is known as the Seven Years' War (or the Guerre de sept ans). The "Seven Years" refers to events in Europe, from the official declaration of war in 1756 to the signing of the peace treaty in 1763. These dates do not correspond with the actual fighting in North America, where the fighting between the two colonial powers was largely concluded in six years, from the Jumonville Glen skirmish in 1754 to the capture of Montreal in 1760.[1]

George Washington's Religion

I got interested in Washington and decided to look at a book we have on what the Founding Father's religions were. What George Washington believed in is something still disagreed over. People say he was a Christian, but most of the evidence shows that he was a deist. Deists believe that God did make the world, but then he just left it and there is no way to communicate with him or have fellowship with him. The reason I say he was a deist is because of what he himself said, did, and wrote. He didn't take communion a single time after the Revolutionary War. Instead of saying "God", "Father", and "Lord", he used Deistic descriptive phrases such as "the Deity", "the Supreme Being", "the Grand Architect", and "the Great Ruler of Events". In official documents he wrote that winning the Revolutionary War, and successfully creating a new republic was a work of "Providence", not God. Like deists, he was also more concerned with ethics and morality than theology. After he died he was buried with Episcopal and Masonic funeral services, and a Masonic monument still marks his grave today. George Washington was a great leader however, because he used God's truths and laws even though he ignored the God of those truths. Because of this, he is thought of as a Deistic Episcopalian - but since you either serve God or someone else, and you cannot have two masters, I think that he was not a Christian even thought he was an amazing leader.

source: The Religion of the Founding Fathers by David L. Holmes

Braddock's Road

Edward Braddock took a total of 25,000 soldiers in attempt to capture Fort Duquesne. He lost the battle pretty badly and he also got a fatal head wound from it. Now this sounds like it acomplished nothing but it did. On the way to Fort Duquesne Edward and his troops made a road. This road would soon be useful in future settlement of the frontier. I thought that was kinda cool. It sort of shows how God works all things together for good. Even though they lost the battle, they did do something that helped in the settlement of our country.

The Start of the War

The opening skirmish of the War was started when George Washington (at that time a lieutenant colonel) was leading his men to meet up with some frontiersmen who had set out earlier to build a fort. He soon got word of a group of French soldiers in the area. Thinking they might be a raiding party Washington ambushed them, and nearly every soldier was either killed or captured.

The Seven Year's War

I found some good websites about the Seven Year's War (French and Indian War). The first one:

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0007300

is from a Canadian website that talks about the global effects of the war, not just in North America. With the next website:

http://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/205/301/ic/cdc/louisbourg/enghome.html

If you scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the letters it will lead to some pictures from that area of Fort Louisbourg. It was crucial for the British to gain this fort if they wanted to gain New France (and Quebec) because it blocked the entrance into Canada and New France. They gained the fort by a siege.

I also noticed something interesting in the textbook. On page 76, when describing Washington's defeat in the Ohio River Valley, the book says: "After a valiant defense, Washington's outnumbered men were forced to surrender." I found this very interesting because I read about the same battle in my Canadian textbook and it just said that Washington's troops were beaten. I found it interesting that the Canadian textbook made it sound like Washington was totally beaten, while our textbook made him sound like a valiant hero. This is a good case of how textbooks can be bias in the way they present facts.