Stamp Act Project
Read this
background information about the Stamp Act (secondary
source): http://investigatinghistory.ashp.cuny.edu/m2a.html
1) Why did the British believe it was
necessary to tax the colonists?
2) What legal rights did colonists believe
were being violated through the British government’s program of taxation?
3) How did the colonists protest these
taxes?
The British needed income to pay
back war debts from the French and Indian War and mainland Britain already had
high taxes. They also wanted to tax
products that were not British to raise their prices so colonists would be more
likely to buy cheaper British products. The
new Sugar Act changed people’s trials to have a paid British Justice instead of
a local “peer” jury. The British had
also never taxed the colonies and they thought that they should be exempt from
taxes. The colonists made petitions,
distributed pamphlets to the public about the taxes, and boycotted the taxes by
not buying the goods that were taxed.
(primary source)
4) What was the Stamp Act and what was
taxed?
The stamp act was a tax imposed on
the American colonies that was meant to help offset the cost of positioning
British troops in the colonies for protection.
The stamp act required the taxation of most printed goods and papers (ex. newspapers, diplomas, cards, wills, etc).
http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/makingrev/crisis/text3/stampactresponse1765.pdf (primary source)
Read page 5
which is an excerpt of Benjamin Franklin’s testimony before the British
Parliament about the Stamp Act:
5) What is Franklin’s explanation for the
Americans’ resistance to the Stamp Act tax?
(Explain the difference between an external and an internal tax,
according to Franklin.)
6) What is the overall message Franklin
conveys to Parliament?
Franklin, and most everyone else
in the colonies, believed that the British could not internally tax the
colonies because the colonies did not have representation in Parliament. The colonies accept the external tax that is
laid on them by the British because that is an import tax that is added the
products coming into the colonies, and if they think that it makes the
product’s price to high, they can just not buy it. An internal tax however is very different. An internal tax taxes the trades that occur
in-between colonist without goods entering the colonies. Franklin’s overall message to Parliament is
this. The people greatly disagree with
the Stamp Act and if it is not repealed, they will be willing to fight for
their freedom to tax themselves and not by someone else.
Read page 8 (primary source)
7) What is this source? (Provide the name
of the source, give the date and report the type of source it is.)
8) Provide the dates and describe the five
(5) incidents this source reports.
9) How did common, everyday people seem to
be affected by the Stamp Act?
The Public Protests Against the Stamp Act: North Carolina article
was part of North Carolina’s newspaper, North Carolina Gazette. The article was published on November 20,
1765 and is a primary source on the Stamp Act. The article entails the following instances
of protests. On October 19th,
five hundred people hung a statue of a man that was in favor of the Stamp Act
and they then burnt the statue with tar barrels that were lit on fire. On October 31st, a group of people
put an effigy of liberty into a casket and was about to bury it, but they then
marched it back to the bonfire, set it in a chair, and rejoiced that liberty
still existed in the colonies. November
16th brought about another protest.
When a distributer of stamps entered into a town, a crowd of people
surrounded him and made him sign a resignation so he would not disperse stamps
anymore. Later that night, the only
people that were on the streets had the word LIBERTY on their hats. They cheered for liberty while drinking
around a bonfire. In Newborn, an effigy
was made of Doctor William Houston. They
put it on trial, condemned it, and then hung it and burnt the effigy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Read page
10 (primary
source)
10) Who is the author of this source and who
do you think his intended audience is?
11) Describe two incidents that the author
relates.
12) What is the perspective of this author?
Peter
Oliver was a British loyalist (colonist still loyal the Britain) that feared
for his safety. I think the document was
aimed toward the British people to help them understand what was happening in
the colonies. Oliver relates to an
instance where a seventy year old clergy man in Boston told the people to
“Fight up to your Knees in Blood.”
Another instance he states is when the secretary of the province (the
Stamp Master) was brought to the Tree of Liberty and his house was
damaged. He was forced to resign from his
office or face death by the colonists.
Read pages 13
& 14 (primary source)
13) Who do the colonial assemblies seem to
be targeting as their audience for their “resolutions and boycotts.”
14) Provide an overview of what the colonial
assemblies are stating in these documents.
The colonial assemblies were
targeting the British government by stating what they believe and their rights
in formal documents. All the colonies
are stating that they have the same rights as British citizens, meaning that
they can only be taxed by themselves or by representing officials and not by a
government where they do not have representation.
Read page 16 (primary source to us, secondary source
when written)
15) In what ways does this source (even today)
serve as a secondary source? Give an
example.
16) In what way does it serve as a primary
source?
I think this source is a primary
source to us because it was written from a person who lived during the time
that the Stamp Act was active. It was a
secondary source to the people of his time because he was compiling information
that others had already written about.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
17) Individual Question: After conducting your analysis of the
Stamp Act, what is the new information you learned about the issuance of the
Stamp Act, the colonists’ and Loyalists’ response to it. Did reading primary sources change or broaden
your perspective on this time period? If
so, describe that change. (Write 200-300 words.)
This project widened my
knowledge of the Stamp Act greatly. I
knew the general information about the Stamp act, but reading many primary
sources and secondary sources on the subject has increased my knowledge of
it. The detailed protests included in
this reading was a great way to understand how strongly the colonists resented
the Stamp Act and anyone who favored it.
I learned that Ben Franklin went in front of Parliament to voice the
opinion of the colonies against the Stamp Act and even warned them that the
colonist would most likely fight for their freedom from internal taxation. The whole time I was reading this part I was
thinking how amazing Franklin knew the colonies and how that helped him predict
the future if things did not change. It
was also nice to read about this time period from the point of view of a
British loyalist. We are able to see how
they perceived the situation compared to that of the colonists. I also learned that most colonist wanted to
be a British colony if they received the freedom that they believed they were
entitled to and that they would have probably stayed with the British if it
were not for the internal taxes.
Great job!
ReplyDelete