Primary Source Exercise

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Read chapter 5.
2. Examine Document 1, the Skull and Crossbones stamp image from the year 1765, and read Document 2, the Declaration of Rights and Grievances.
3. Answer the questions that follow at the end of these documents. One full single page or two full double space pages is required for Primary Source Exercises. Submit your responses in the accepted formats and label your answers.Skip identifying the paper (name, date, etc,) Just write.

Document 1
Skull and Crossbones Stamp, 1765
Source: Bradford, William, The Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser, 1765, October 24. Accessed through the Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004672606/

Document 2
Source: Declaration of Rights and Grievances, issued on October 19, 1765 by what has become known as The Stamp Act Congress. TeachingAmericanHistory.org http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/resolutions-of-the-stamp-act-congress/ (Links to an external site.)

Questions to Answer:

1. What key events sharpened the divisions between Britain and the colonists in the late 1760s and early 1770s?
2. Document 1: What was the artist who designed the image in Document 1 trying to do and/or say with this work?
3. Document 2: Who do you think are the "members of this Congress" referred to in Document 2?
4. What was it about the Stamp Act specifically and the way the colonists responded to it that paved the way for the American Revolution? What was so empowering about those events?

INTRODUCTION TO THE TOPIC
The Stamp Act Crisis of 1765 gave rise to the famous revolutionary slogan "No taxation without representation." It is clear from the documents included in this exercise how seriously the British colonists of North America believed in that principle. After months of angry protests and successfully organized boycotts in the American colonies, the British Parliament repealed the Stamp Act law. But instead of calming the colonists down, they became more empowered, leading eventually to their drafting of the Declaration of Independence and the beginning of the Revolutionary War.
Document 1 is a digitized image of a popular protest stamp from the 1760s. The modern student can think of this image as similar to a political cartoon. As we learned in the last chapter, the power of the printed word (or image) cannot be underestimated. To colonists angered by Parliament's actions and the passing of the Stamp Act, this image needed no explanation.
Document 2 is known as the Declaration of Rights and Grievances. This declaration represents the collective thinking of the Stamp Act Congress, which met from October 7 to October 25, 1765. The Stamp Act Congress is considered to be the first time that elected representatives from several of the British American colonies included elected representatives from several of the British American colonies and came together in organized and unified protest against the British imperial system.
This document is the result of hours of discussion and debate. An examination of the document provides a clear sense of what was at stake. The British citizens, who happened to live in the colonies, did not believe they were being treated as "citizens." The way in which the Stamp Act Congress worded and ordered their complaints and intentions provides compelling evidence that they believed they were being treated more as servants of a tyrant.

Sample Solution