Elisa Maknojia
Evaluate the extent of change in the colonists’ sense of their identity and unity as Americans by
the eve of the Revolution.
By the eve of the American Revolution the colonists’ felt the strong urge to be independent from
Great Britain, however they associated themselves with their individual colony instead of as a
country.
Before the American Revolution had begun colonists were controlled by Great Britain. There
was a period of time where colonists were experiencing benign neglect where Great Britain was
neglecting the day to day affairs of the colonists and only cared about the goods being produced.
Eventually the French and Indian War occurs where there is a fight going on between Britain and
French over the monopoly of fur in the North American continent. Eventually French loses the
fight and Britain exhausts all their money in the war and regains imperial control over the
colonies. They are forced to pay taxes to the mother land and mercantilism is heavily enforced
which angers many of the colonists.
According to Document 1 this cartoon is of a snake promoting unity among all the colonies on
the north American continent. It shows how each colony had their own sense of identity and
even though they had a very strong bond through the trading amongst each other they lacked the
sense of unity of supporting each other. And even though they saw themselves as citizens of their
own colonies they were very comfortable with the fact that they were part of Great Britain.
Additionally, the image was created by Benjamin Franklin in efforts to unify the colonists but
was not very popular because they wanted to remain separate.
In Document 3, Henry Lee explains the fear of having a strong national government as opposed
to a strong state government. His strong sense in a colonial government proves that the colonies
wanted to have their own freedom and felt more part of their own colonies compared to a more
unified union. His excerpt also explains that the colonists felt comfortable in their bubble where
they received the safety from the Britain parliament and their own resources and local
government from their own colonies and had a sense of pride for their colonies.