VS5b
By Miss O.
 “Give me liberty or give
me death!”
 Patrick Henry inspired
patriots from other
colonies when he spoke
out about taxation
without representation.
 Capitol city
 Where the king’s governor
lived
 Where the House of
Burgesses met
 Patriots army, fighting
against the British for
independence
 Many Virginians were
Patriots and fought in the
Continental Army
 Some Virginians were neutral and did not take sides.
 Some colonists in Virginia were neutral.
 A colonist who remained loyal to Great Britain and the
king.
 Some colonists in Virginia were loyalists.
 Took on more responsibility
to support the war effort.
 Enslaved African Americans
fought in the Continental army
for a better chance of freedom.
 Some free African Americans
fought for independence in the
American Revolution.
 Some enslaved African
Americans also fought for the
British, because Lord Dunmore
and other British generals
“promised” them their freedom if
they fought for their side.
 Fought alongside both the Virginia patriots and the
British.
 The first land battle of the
American Revolution
fought in Virginia.
 The American victory
forced the British colonial
governor, Lord Dunmore,
to flee the City of Norfolk.
 wrote the Declaration of
Independence, signed July 4,
1776
 He believed that the
authority to govern belongs
to the people rather than to
kings and that all people are
created equal and have rights
to life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness.
NOTICE
KNOW
QUESTIONS
When in the course
of human events it
becomes necessary
for one people to
dissolve the political
bands that have
connected them and
to assume among
the powers of the
earth
Over the years of human history,
sometimes it is needed for
people to go against their
current government if it is not
working for them.
The separate and equal
stations to which the
laws of nature and of
nature’s God entitle
them a decent respect
to the opinions of
mankind requires that
they should declare the
causes which impel
them to the separation.
Human nature has certain
“laws” that give people the
ability to think for
themselves and have
opinions about the way
that they should live. And
sometimes, that means
that groups of people
should leave their current
governments and start a
separate, new one.
We hold these truths to
be self evident that all
men are created
equal—that they are
endowed by their
Creator—with certain
unalienable rights that
among these are life,
liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness.
Self-evident = __________
Endowed = ____________
Unalienable = ___________
Pursuit = ______________
Talk and turn: So what
does this mean?
That to secure these
rights, Governments
are instituted among
Men, deriving their
just powers from the
consent of the
governed
The purpose of
governments are to protect
people’s rights. The
government’s power and
authority should come
from the agreement of the
citizens themselves when
they vote for people to
represent them in
government.
That whenever any
Form of Government
becomes destructive of
these ends, it is the
Right of the People to
alter or to abolish it,
and to institute new
Government, laying its
foundations on such
principles
But when governments are
more hurtful then helpful
towards the people, the
people have the right to get
rid of the bad government
and to create a new
government that is based
on those people’s rights
that they believe in and
think are fair.
and organizing its
powers in such form, as
to them shall seem
most likely to effect
their Safety and
Happiness. Prudence
indeed will dictate that
Governments long
established should not
be changed for light
and transient causes;
The people who have power
and are in charge in the
government will have the
responsibility to make laws
that protect the people’s
safety and happiness.
Goodness will lead the
government, and the whole
government should not be
done away with just for
small or unimportant
things.
and accordingly all
experience hath shown
that mankind are more
disposed to suffer,
while evils are
sufferable than to right
themselves by
abolishing the forms to
which they are
accustomed.
 Even though sometimes
people continue to put up
with a government that
doesn’t operate correctly
it doesn’t make it right
and changes still need to
be made. It is the duty of
the people to make sure
that the government
treats the people fairly.
But when a long train
of abuses and
usurpations, pursuing
invariably the same
Object evinces a design
to reduce them under
absolute Despotism, it
is their right, it is their
duty, to throw off such
Government and to
provide new guards for
their future security.
 Even though sometimes
people continue to put up
with a bad government
that doesn’t treat them
fairly, it doesn’t make it
right and changes still
need to be made. It is the
duty of the people to
make sure that the
government treats the
people fairly.
 Absolute authority when the government has a ruler
who has all the control over the people and the people
have NO SAY in how their country is ruled.
Talk and Turn Questions:
1. Who had despotism over the
colonies?
2. What did the colonies want to do
about that “despotism”?
3. What did they say about
despotism in the DOI?
 We, those who have been putting up with an
inoperable government have been patient and
suffered through a lot of things without complaining,
but it is our duty to make the needed changes. It is
evident that King George III who is our ruler right
now, that he wants to take all power away from the
people and will not listen to our leaders.
 Looking at the King of England's record, it's clear England
wants total control of our colonies, compromising our
liberties. Here are our facts:
 1. He won’t let us pass important laws we need now. He’s
got to sign off on them, and when he doesn’t suffer.
 2. He’s refused to let us pass laws affecting large groups of
people in our colonies unless they swore allegiance to him
even though they’ve had the right to self govern, clearly
showing he’s a tyrant.
 3. He requests meetings of our representatives in far
away cold, and strange places for the purpose of
wearing them down into submission, so they’ll agree
with him.
 4. He’s disbanded our leaders whenever we complain
about human rights abuses.
 Did Thomas Jefferson come up with all of the ideas
and words of the DOI all on his own?
 wrote Virginia Declaration of
Rights
 Which led to…
1. Some of Jefferson’s words in the
Declaration of Independence
2. Later…in the Bill of Rights with
the Constitution (after the war)
 He believed all Virginians should
have certain rights and freedoms
 Freedom of Religion
 Freedom of Speech
Your Mission:
Read through George
Mason’s Virginia Declaration
of Rights and find matching
words and phrases that are
identical (or mean the same
as) to Thomas Jefferson’s
Declaration of Independence
written only a month later.
•Highlight those words and
phrases when you find them!
Virginia Declaration of Rights
Declaration of Independence
 Commander – in – Chief of
the Continental Army during
Revolutionary War
 1st President of the United
States and made a good
leader and model president
 “Father of our Country”
 Absolute authority when the government has a ruler
who has all the control over the people and the people
have NO SAY in how their country is ruled.
Talk and Turn Questions:
1. Who had despotism over the
colonies?
2. What did the colonies want to do
about that “despotism”?
3. What did they say about
despotism in the DOI?
Talk and Turn to make a list:
 Mission: You will be
given one part of the
DOI to “decode” with
your partner. Your goal
is to find out what your
piece of the Declaration
of Independence means
using dictionaries, the
internet, and piecing
the words of the
sentence together with
its overall context.
Unfamiliar Meanings
Vocabulary

What
might this
mean? 
Reasons
for why I
think so.
 This activity will take a few days. So do your best and
don’t rush. You will be graded on your research and
your final project presentation.
 Your partner and you will “re-write” the section of the
DOI that you have been assigned in your OWN words
or “translate” for us what your section means, so we
understand it better.
 Rode on horseback
through the back roads
of Virginia to
Charlottesville to warn
Thomas Jefferson
(governor of Virginia)
that the British were
coming to arrest him
and the Virginia
Assembly!
 Slave who served in the
Continental Army and gained
freedom after the war
 Spy for the Patriots!
 Helped Washington and
French General Lafayette win
the battle of Yorktown.
 British General who surrenders
to Washington at the Battle of
Yorktown in Virginia marking
the end of the Revolutionary
War
 Helped the Continental Army
and George Washington by
blocking the British with their
ships to surround the British at
Yorktown.
 The American victory at
Yorktown resulted in the
surrender of the British army,
which led to an end to the war.