Friday, September 18, 2009

The Road to Revolution

     

The Battle of Bunker Hill Oliver Branch Petition

Under the harsh rule of the British, colonists in America decided to express their discontent at the First Continental Congress by fighting against their mother country.  The colonists raised troops with soldiers called minutemen and stockpiled weapons.  When Britain heard about these events, British General Thomas Gage decided to seize illegal weapons in Concord, Massachusetts in the spring of 1775.  Some colonists like Paul Revere warned the arrival of the king’s troops by using subtle signals such as church bells.

            The first battle of Revolutionary War finally broke out after 70 minutemen refused king’s troop’s demand to lay down their arms and ran away, which resulted in eight minutemen killed.  However, the British soldiers did not realize that thousands of minutemen were waiting for them in Concord where they were returning to Boston.  The minutemen successfully killed some British soldiers and the British soldiers retreated with humiliation. 

            After the incident in Concord, colonial leaders argued among themselves at the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia over the actions they would take.  Some advocated for complete independence from Britain; while others wanted to recover the broken relationship.  In the end, they decided to appoint George Washington as the commander of the newly recognized Continental Army, which was formerly the colonial militia. 

            On June, 1775, British general Thomas Gage led a group of 2,400 men to Breed’s Hill, which was near Bunker Hill, to attack the militiamen.  The militiamen on the hill fought at the last minute against the soldiers and finally retreated.  In the Battle of Bunker Hill, 450 militiamen had died and Britain had 1,000 casualties.  Although the colonies were preparing for a potential war, many delegates at the Second Continental Congress were loyalists to their mother country who hoped for peace.  They sent an Olive Branch Petition in July to ask for the revival of past harmony between the colonies and Britain.  However, a Revolution War was inevitable when George III rejected the petition and issued a proclamation to urge the Parliament to blockade the American coast reasoning that the colonies were in a state of rebellion.

Written by Alvin

8 comments:

  1. good job, you have strong facts and it flows easily. Good use of numbers to show that it is accurate

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  2. Good job with the structure and the formatting. The pictures add a very nice touch of color and of change from the text. Well structured paragraphs, with all the information needed in a small amount of writing space. Also, you did a good job of putting the most amount of information into the least amount of space.

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  3. Well structured paragraphs, and the paragraphs are well written. I like the pictures.

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  4. Pictures are well used, and the paragraphs are very neat and organized making them easy to follow. good job

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  5. Easy to read the straight to the point. The way you wrote it showed a good understanding of the information.

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  6. the pictures really add to the blog. the blog is easy to read and straight to the point. nice job.

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  7. Great job on the summary. It was easy to follow and well organized. I like how you put so much space between each paragraph. Nice use of photos, too.

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  8. Good job, Alvin. Your summary flowed nicely in a smooth sequence of events. I would edit some grammatical errors like "troops'" instead of "troop's", but that's really just nitpicking.

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