Fasttrack to America's Past
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Page 30 - Section 2 Title Page

The pictures:

1.  A meeting of the Pilgrims and a group of Native Americans shortly after the Plymouth colony was established in Massachusetts in 1620.  Most Indians in the area had been wiped out by diseases that were carried by Europeans who had landed in the area in earlier voyages.  The Indians helped the Pilgrims survive in the early years by teaching them how to grow corn.

2.  One version of a political cartoon first created by printer Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia around 1760.  It became a popular image as trouble with England grew in the 1770s.  Its message is a clear warning for the separate colonies to unite for their own protection.

3.  An illustration showing a mob gathering to protest the Stamp Act of 1765.  The sign reads, "England's Folly is America's Ruin." Resistance to the law was so widespread that few of the tax stamps were actually used, and the law was repealed.  But the protests helped spread a sense that the colonists could effectively challenge the power of the British.


The famous quotes:

1.  "He that will not work shall not eat."

   This is a well known warning used by Captain John Smith to motivate the discouraged and disgruntled men who formed the English colony at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607.  Many had expected to find gold or other easy riches.  Instead, they found that just surviving would be an enormous challenge. 

2.  "For we must consider that we..."

   These are the best known lines from a sermon spoken by John Winthrop to his fellow Puritans on their way to Massachusetts in 1630.  It expressed his belief that people throughout the world would be watching to see if the new settlement could live up to its ideals of Christian brotherhood.  The sermon planted the belief, shared by many Americans even today, that America has an obligation to set an example for the world of a good and just society.

3.  "Taxation without representation is tyranny."

   These words are usually attributed to James Otis, a leader in the independence movement in Boston as trouble rose with England in the 1760s and 1770s.  They spread far and wide in the colonies as calls for independence grew louder.

4.  "The distinction between..."

   These words are from Patrick Henry's speech in 1774 at a meeting of the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia.  They reveal that some colonists were beginning to feel a sense of unity they had never felt before.  This shift of consciousness was crucial for the creation of the United States in 1776, since most colonists had always thought of themselves mainly in terms of their own colonies. 






Copyright Notice

   Copyright 2018 by David Burns.  All rights reserved.  Illustrations and reading selections appearing in this work are taken from sources in the public domain and from private collections used by permission.  Sources include: the Dover Pictorial Archive, the Library of Congress, The National Archives, The Hart Publishing Co., Corel Corporation and its licensors, Nova Development Corporation and its licensors, and others.  Maps were created or adapted by the author using reference maps from the United States Geological Survey and Cartesia Software.  Please see the home page for this title for more information.