Essay Questions for Thinking through Sources 5

Explore Definitions of “American”: Each of these sources expresses an assumption about what and/or who might be part of the group it identifies as “Americans.” Describe each source’s perspective on this question. Which sources speak more about individual rights, and which focus attention on collective rights? Whose perspectives are missing from this collection of documents?

Compare and Contrast: If the creators of each of these sources had joined together to talk about their views on the topics of rights and liberty and their beliefs about what it means to be American, how might they have responded to one another? What common understandings can you identify? What points of agreement might they share? What differences might arise in a conversation among them?

Assess Change over Time: These documents examine the ways and the extent to which American colonists and the thirteen colonies came to see themselves as part of a larger political entity over the period from 1754 to 1773. What do they demonstrate about how Americans’ understandings of their common experiences, rights, and interests changed over time? What do they suggest about why their views changed so dramatically over this relatively short period of time?

Link Ideas and Historical Change: Historians frequently debate the relative importance of ideas in shaping historical events. What impact do you think the ideas about liberty and American unity expressed in these documents had on the historical events that took place in the British North American colonies in the 1760s and 1770s? What specific contexts or conditions shaped the understanding of “rights” expressed in each of these sources, and how did the earliest articulations of the concept of “liberty” evolve in both intended and unintended directions?