Introduction to the Text: America's History. 9th Edition

Mob in New Hampshire protesting the Stamp Act

1. In what chapter of the text is your event mentioned? Provide a page number too. Some events may have multiple page numbers. If terms related to your event are not located in the index, use your prior research to identify related terms. 

- My event is mentioned in chapter 5 of the textbook, throughout the chapter, but specifically on pages 145-153, 156-159, and 162-163.

2. Under which heading and subheading can your topic be found?

Headings:

• An Empire Transformed
• The Dynamics of Rebellion
• The Road to Independence

Subheadings:

• George Grenville and the Reform Impulse
• An Open Challenge: The Stamp Act
• Formal Protests and the Politics of the Crowd
• The Ideological Roots of Resistance
• Another Kind of Freedom
• Parliament and Patriots Square Off Again
• Parliament Wavers
• A Compromise Repudiated
• The Continental Congress Responds
• The Rising of the Countryside
• Loyalists and Neutrals

3. Why and how is the text discussing your topic? What larger conversation is your event part of?

- The textbook is discussing my topic because the revenue-raising acts by British Parliament and the colonists' reactions to them is essential to the outbreak of the North American Revolution, the larger topic that my event is a part of. The book explains why Great Britain needed to tax the colonies, what sorts of items they taxed, and how they treated the colonists, while also explaining the colonists' reactions, how they took action, and how these events led to revolution.

4. Read the passage mentioning your event. What more can you learn, that you did not already learn from your first research?

- The Sugar Act of 1764 was introduced as a replacement for the Molasses Act of 1733, which was disregarded by the colonists for the most part, as they instead bribed customs officials at a lower rate per gallon than the tax demanded.
- Some colonial patriots compared their situation with the British Parliament to that of slavery, causing ethical questions of slavery by African Americans as well as many colonists to ensue.
- Colonial women were able to contribute to the protest as well, forming the Daughters of Liberty and aiding the rebellion by making cloth, flax, and wool at home, or drinking rye coffee and eating bear venison.


By looking through what the textbook had to say about taxes and revenue-raising acts initiated by the British Parliament, and what the North American colonies' responses to those taxes were, I not only became more familiar with my topic, but also with how the textbook is written and arranged.