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Causes Of The Great Awakening

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One of the initial fuses for revolution was the religious revival known as The Great Awakening from 1730-1740 which swept through the colonies. This revival taught of inner religious emotion being more important than church authority. The congregations which filled the colonies broke apart as beliefs differed, leading to several new denominations. Christianity also began to influence colonial culture like never before and Christian beliefs formed the nucleus of colonial thought. The church was made more tolerant through The Great Awakening and it caused the formation of key institutions. These members were composed of a large amount of Natives and Africans, their conversion introduced them to literacy via Scripture as well. New universities …show more content…

As a result of the widespread protests against the Townshend Acts, one thousand redcoats were dispatched to Boston so that they could ease the unrest. These soldiers were underpaid, as such they searched for part-time jobs from the populace often requesting lower wages. These actions caused the populace of Boston to hate the redcoats, the redcoats likewise began to hate the colonials. Insults and tensions raised steadily for two years and the city seemed ripe for revolt. Eventually on March 5, 1770, a mob of protesters surrounded a lone British sentry on King street, who promptly cried for assistance. His barracks sent six privates and the captain of the watch to relieve him. The crowd then began spitting, throwing snowballs, and one man hit two of the soldiers with a cudgel. This caused distress among the soldiers, and though no order was given, they fired into the crowd killing three instantly, causing wounds which gradually killed to two more, and injuring six others. This shooting quickly became a potent weapon in the hands of separatist groups such as the Sons of Liberty, outrage ensued and the redcoats were tried for murder. This shooting was one of the defining events which led to the revolution, as the redcoats were seen no longer as just another nuisance but as …show more content…

The Battle of Bunker Hill caused the colonials to send delegates to the Second Continental Congress to discuss further action against Great Britain. This convention elected to declare independence from Great Britain after hearing it proposed by Richard Henry Lee. The delegates sentiment for independence grew steadily from 1776 following Thomas Paine 's publication Common Sense. Enlightenment thought also has a prominent influence in the declaration, particularly in the thought of a government only having the right to protect its citizens. The drafting of this document was another step forward in representative government, and the document itself provides a strong basis for Conservative and Libertarian thought. It also greatly influenced the Bill of Rights and the later Constitution. The document itself is eloquently written and splits into two main sections. The first part of The Declaration of Independence listed a view of what a government should do for its people, it advocates a weaker form of Minarchism, and the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The latter part of the Declaration lists complaints against King George and intellectually justifies the new nation. In short, the colonists finally came together as one nation due to the battles which were endured together, they formed a new nation and resisted the tyranny of King

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The colonists decided that they wanted the troops out of the colonies so they began to harass them and officials. This then led to, “radical mobs that attacked Loyalists. Soldiers and civilians also clashed, raising the level of resentment on both sides. Adding to the mob's bravado was the erroneous belief, encouraged by radical agitators, that the soldiers could not use force, even to defend themselves, unless requested by a civil magistrate.”. British soldiers then began to fire out into the crowd; “nine soldiers were tried for murder” and were later acquitted of murder yet never faced the consequences of their actions

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During the later half of the eighteenth century, tensions increased between the British and their American colonists. In the years following the Seven Years War, actions done by the British government, such as increased taxes and limitations on expansion and settlement of British territory, angered the British citizens of the American Colonies and resulted in violent protests and resistance to British rule. These scuffles and disputes between colonists and soldiers snowballed into the Boston Massacre of March 5, 1770. During the confrontation, over 200 Bostonian rioters violently assaulted nine British soldiers defending a position, who then fired unordered shots into the crowd, killing five and injuring six. After the massacre, these soldiers stood trial for the killing of citizens and received little to no punishment.

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In July of 1765, the Sons of Liberty an underground organization opposed the stamp act by using violence and intimidation. In october of 1765 the stamp act congress convenes in NY petitioning requests of the repeal of the stamp acts and acts of 1764. In february of 1768, Samuel Adams of Massachusetts wrote a circular letter opposing taxation without representation and called for the colonists to unite in their actions against the British government. On March 5, 1770 the Boston Massacre occurs as a mob harrasses British soldiers who then fire their muskets into the crowd, killing 3. On December 16, 1773 the Boston Tea Party boards ships disguised as indians and dumped 342 containers of tea.

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The colonists continued to protest the Townshend acts, so the governor asked Great Britain to send soldiers to the colonies. Great Britain had sent soldiers to the colonies to tighten their control on them. One of the violent protests was the Boston Massacre. In this event, an officer, gathering a group, struck a colonist. This group provoked the officers, leading to the death of five colonists.

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Eventually, Officer Preston ordered his men to fire. They shot into the crowd and killed five people (Document B). This event also showed how cruel the British are. They murdered people who were not putting them in any danger. The colonists would not have killed any of the soldiers, they were just protesting and expressing their anger.

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Theresa Ren Professor Berkeley History 107 30 January 2018 Midterm Essay In the early 1700s, there was a religious movement in the colonies which is called the great awakening. There were many preachers such as Jonathan Edwards preached a classical sermon called Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God and the Great Awakening led to the thinking used in the American Revolution. By 1733, there were thirteen colonies.

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First, the colonists are not armed in this picture, and it can almost be assumed that the colonists were peaceful before the British attacked. This is a false hood as Preston’s account of the Boston Massacre in Marcus depicts the colonists as “striking their clubs and bludgeons.” The colonists were also armed with snowballs, but snow is not depicted in Revere’s engraving. The engraving also features the colonists reacting to the soldier’s violence, when this is a falsehood as the colonists instigated the violence, as Preston says the colonists “…surrounded the sentry there, and with clubs and other weapons threatened to execute their vengeance on him” (Marcus, pg. 104). The colonists that were involved in this mob would have been young men of the laborer class, as the Boston Gazette and Country Journal points out (Marcus, pg. 110).

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Events like the Boston Massacre and the publication of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense occurred in the midst of political protest, further contributing to the Americans’ growing acceptance towards republican ideas of independence and government formation. The Boston Massacre of 1770 was “a chaotic and unplanned event” where British soldiers open fire into a crowd of Bostonians, killing five working-class people. The massacre played a crucial role in inspiring republican ideals in the colonies by “galvanizing Boston and the colonies against the mother country.” When brought to trial, the British argued that “mob rallies had taunted them into shooting,” and “weapons [were] concealed under their clothes,” further severing the narrative that depicted British authority as tyrannical and oppressive. The incident served as a vivid illustration and underscored the colonists’ commitment towards defending their rights and liberties against the crown’s oppressive rule.

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Various newspapers called for a ban on imported British goods and non-consumption of British goods and more home manufactures (LEP,5-3b). Boston, Massachusetts once again set the stage for rebellion, “its assembly petitioned the King, not Parliament, against the new measures. Without waiting for a reply, it also sent a Circular Letter to the other assemblies, urging them to pursue “constitutional measures” of resistance” (LEP5-3b) against different taxes and use the profits from the Townshend Act to pay their political figure heads. With the Boston Massacre, British soldiers murdering innocent people simply by mistake, this was a turning point in regards to public opinion. In addition to this, Lord North prompted Parliament to repeal the Townshend duties, all but the one on tea.

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Not to mention that the colonists were demanding the British soldiers to fire. The Boston Massacre was nothing more than a street fight between a seemingly “patriot” mob and a squad of British soldiers that was blown out of proportion by the media. The involved

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All these acts, taxes, and the taking over of the colonists’ jobs by British soldiers left many colonists unemployed, angered, and annoyed at the British which led to revolting. An example of a famous revolt that occurred during 1773 is the Boston Tea Party during which colonists dressed up as Native Americans successfully dumped out £9,000 ($1,507,528.20) worth of tea into the Atlantic Ocean. But not all revolts were successful, for example, the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770 led to the death of five

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The American Enlightenment and the Great Awakening were two very important motivators that changed the colonial society in America through religious beliefs, educational values, and the right to live one’s life according to each individual’s preference. The Great Awakening and the American Enlightenment movements were two events in history that signaled a grand distinction to the teachings among religious believers. New beliefs of how a person should worship in order to be considered in “God’s good graces” soon became an enormous discussion among colonists across the land. “Men of the cloth,” such as George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards were well respected and closely followed when preaching about the love of God and damnation.

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This group of colonists starts to taunt the troops. There was a group of protestors who called themselves the Patriots, were outside the gates protesting the right and occupation and rights of the British troops because of the mistreatment the colonists have experienced over the years that the troops have been there. They were also protesting the unpopular taxation laws that were being force upon the colonists. During the protest, the British Captain Thomas Preston ordered his men to fix their bayonets and to join the guards outside dealing with the protestors. The colonists reacted by throwing snowballs at the guards.

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The Second Great Awakening also consisted of the growth of many churches in the United States and increased the percentage of religious people by a lot. The second great awakening influenced several social reforms that took place later and helped change our country into what it is today. The Second Great Awakening definitely expanded the number of active church members and affected the United States in many ways later in its

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I gift you all with a short response this week, your move Dylan. Bryen is essentially arguing that historians should read petitions as very pointed documents with an inherent bias. The quote, “petitions must not be read as form letters drafted mechanically and sent off to whichever official was available. They are conscious and calculated attempts to frame individual complaints in legal language, and petitioners chose the language they used with care” (155-56), just about sums up his argument. Petitions are in his eyes biased and must be read with that in mind, it is almost a sort of historical sensitivity toward Mary-Engle’s idea of “Forum Shopping.”

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