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The Pilgrim's Journey on the Mayflower
The Mayflower first set out in July of 1620 but had to turn back twice because of the ship they were sailing with, known as Speedwell, leaked. Finally after two attempts to sail with the Speedwell, the people of the Mayflower decided to abandonded Speedwell, and continue their journey on the Mayflower alone. The people we know as pilgrims have become so surrounded by legends that we sometimes forget they were real people. -
The Pilgrim's Arrival to the New World
When the pilgrims arrived in the America's they didnt land where their original destination was. The intened destination was father south, but they actually landed on the coast of what is now Massachusetts. -
The Puritan's Arrival to the New World
In 1630, the first wave of Puritans met up with survivors from an abandoned colony and renamed the little settlement Salem. -
William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation
This book was about things of the past about their journey. For example, life on the mayflower. William Bradford was an English Separatist leader in Leiden, Holland, and in Plymouth Colony. Puritan poetry was offered uniformly to the service of God. Michael Wigglesworth's Day of Doom (1662) was uncompromisingly theological, and Anne Bradstreet's poems, issued as The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America (1650), were reflective of her own piety. -
Anne Bradtsreat's "Upon the Burning of Our House"
"Upon the Burning of Our House" is a poem by Anne Bradstreet that describes her reaction to waking up in the middle of the night and fleeing her house because it was burning down. In the later part of the poem Bradstreet struggles with materialism, but ultimately decides she should not mourn the loss of her house because God has created a home for her in Heaven. Anne Bradstreet was the most prominent of early English poets of North America and first female writer in British North America. -
Edward Taylor's "Upon a Spider Cathcing a Fly"
Taylor was a Christian Puritan minister and poet whose sermons and poems centered on righteous living. Puritans were known for their religious devotion and fear of Satan lingering around every corner. In his poem, Taylor uses the image of a spider catching a fly to represent Satan and his schemes to entrap men in sin. -
Cotton Mather's Wonders of the Invisible World
One of the most famous of early New England books, here in the first British edition printed at London, following the first edition published in Boston the same year. Mather meant to expose witchcraft and to support his friends in the government. He gives detailed descriptions of each case, thus providing an invaluable record. Cotton Mather, FRS was a socially and politically influential New England Puritan minister, prolific author, and pamphleteer. -
Colonialism 1450-1950
American Literature during this time period was mostly political, and it came in the form of pamhlets, speeches, and newspaers. Their topics centered on politics, relations with Great Britain and the nature of the government. Americans were not writing fiction or drama during this time. The style can be described as pursausive. The Colonist believed in good, not evil. They also believed in free will, the opposite of predestination. -
Jonathan Edward's "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"
The doctrine was intended to plunge the fear of God into those who were being sinful. Many people could not understand the sermon without knowing about it's author first. Edwards provided crucial theological points on the problems of free will and original sin, fueling American revivalism. Jonathan Edwards was a revivalist preacher, philosopher, and Protestant theologian. His initial affiliation inside Protestantism was Calvinist and Congregational. -
Benjamin Frankiln's "The Speech of Polly Baker"
Franklin used Polly Baker to examine the negative way women were treated in the eyes of the law. "The Speech of Polly Baker" seems to be aimed as a direct shot to the traditional Puritan lifestyle. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He was the tenth son of soap maker, Josiah Franklin. -
The Royal Proclomation
The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued October 7, 1763, by King George III following Great Britain's acquisition of French territory in North America after the end of the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War, which forbade all settlement past a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains. -
The Stamp Act
The Stamp Act was passed by the British Parliament on March 22, 1765. The new tax was imposed on all American colonists and required them to pay a tax on every piece of printed paper they used. Ship's papers, legal documents, licenses, newspapers, other publications, and even playing cards were taxed. -
The Townshend Acts
June 15–July 2, 1767. The Townshend Acts were a series of acts passed, beginning in 1767, by the Parliament of Great Britain relating to the British colonies in North America. The acts are named after Charles Townshend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who proposed the program. -
The Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was a street fight that occurred on March 5, 1770, between a "patriot" mob, throwing snowballs, stones, and sticks, and a squad of British soldiers. Several colonists were killed and this led to a campaign by speech-writers to rouse the ire of the citizenry. -
The Tea Act
The Tea Act of 1773 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain. Its principal objective was to reduce the massive surplus of tea held by the financially troubled British East India Company in its London warehouses and to help the struggling company survive. -
The Bston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a political protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, on December 16, 1773. The demonstrators, some disguised as American Indians, destroyed an entire shipment of tea sent by the East India Company, in defiance of the Tea Act of May 10, 1773. They boarded the ships and threw the chests of tea into Boston Harbor, ruining the tea. The British government responded harshly and the episode escalated into the American Revolution. -
The Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable Acts was the American Patriots' term for a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea party. They were meant to punish the Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in throwing a large tea shipment into Boston harbor. -
Patrick Henry's "Speech in the Virginia Convention"
Patrick Henry introduced a resolution to the Virginia Convention to form the local militia to be prepared to fight the British. Patrick Henry was an American attorney, planter and politician who became known as an orator during the movement for independence in Virginia in the 1770s. -
Paul Revere's Ride
On the evening of April 18, 1775, Paul Revere was sent for by Dr. Joseph Warren and instructed to ride to Lexington, Massachusetts, to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock that British troops were marching to arrest them. After being rowed across the Charles River to Charlestown by two associates, Paul Revere borrowed a horse from his friend Deacon John Larkin. -
Lexington & Concord Battles
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War.[9] They were fought on April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy (present-day Arlington), and Cambridge, near Boston. -
The Battle of Fort Ticonderoga
On the morning of May 10, 1775, fewer than a hundred of these militiamen, under the joint command of their leader, Ethan Allen, and Benedict Arnold of Massachusetts, crossed Lake Champlain at dawn, surprising and capturing the still-sleeping British garrison at Fort Ticonderoga. -
The Battle of Bunker Hill
On June 17, 1775, early in the Revolutionary War, the British defeated the Americans at the Battle of Bunker Hill in Massachusetts. Despite their loss, the inexperienced colonial forces inflicted significant casualties against the enemy, and the battle provided them with an important confidence boost. -
Thomas Jefferson's The Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of independenc states the reasons the British colonies of North America sought independence in July of 1776. Thomas Jefferson was an American Founding Father, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, and the third President of the United States. -
Thomas Paine's The Crisis
Thomas Paine wrote of his support for an independent and self-governing America during the trials of the American Revolution. Thomas Paine was the editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine in Philadelphia. An earnest supporter of the move towards independence he used media as a weapon against British rule. He was in strong favor of a war against Britain, if that is what it was going to take to gain independence. -
The End of the Revolution
On 3 September 1783, the Peace of Paris was signed and the American War for Independence officially ended. The war was truly over. It had lasted well over eight years, 104 blood-drenched months to be exact. As is often the habit of wars, it had gone on far longer than its architects of either side had foreseen in 1775. More than 100,000 American men had borne arms in the Continental army. Countless thousands more had seen active service in militia units.