People's History: Revolt (Chapter 4,5)
Music: Yankee Doodle
| (by Mari Therese) | (recitation by Barb) |
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Summary The Revolution -- how the reasons fade. As England taxed the men conducting trade and common men were cheated by the rich, the rich man's voice was at a fever pitch: We the people, we the people, come unite against the foe, our common foe, our common foe. Chapter The Stamp Act stirred rebellion, but the reasons fade with passing years. Frontiermen, men of trade, and laborers were subjugated by the rich, but now Sam Adams' voice was at a fever pitch inciting commoners against the British tax, and in the Boston Massacre the main attacks were on the "motley rabble." Sons of Liberty arose to rail against the aristocracy of England, while in Boston tea was dumped in scorn, and now the apprehensive wealthy rose to warn the lower classes: "We the People" must unite against the foreign foe! And speakers would ignite the crowd, including Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine, and other rabble rousers: Let us now ordain a Declaration: independence, nothing less, equality for those in economic stress because of taxes. But excluded were the blacks, the landless, women, Indians - indeed, the tax was mainly hurting merchants, yet the poor would fight against the English while the rich employed their right to buy exemptions. All was not forsaken, though, as Daniel Shays would lead a quest to overthrow a local government when farmers lost their land, and frightened men of affluence would understand that something more profound was needed to relieve the rage, and this the Constitution would achieve. |