Revolutionary war

Beginning The Revolutionary War

Thesis: The American revolution was not only a battle with muskets and cannons but also a battle of philosophy and gaining trust.

Many people were scared at the beginning of the American revolution. There were three ways you could go, loyalist, patriot, and neutralist. A loyalist was a person who was still committed to Britain, they were the majority at the beginning of the war and the minority near the end. A patriot was a person who was united with the colonies and against Britain, they were mainly in the older colonies. Lastly, there was neutralists. These people were not for Britain or the patriots, they would rather there not be war, but didn’t care if there was.
The loyalists were probably the most persecuted by the patriots. This is one reason that people would choose to be patriots. There was proof in this statement from stories like “A loyalist is tarred and feathered.” In this document a man named John Malcolm (who was a loyalist) was killed after a long night of suffering and torment from an angry patriot mob. They covered him in tar and feathers and then drug him around the rest of the night in a wagon doing more hideous things to him to the point of where the doctors said they could not fix him and that he would die. These were the kind of threats all the loyalists faced during this time. There was some persuasion and propaganda that was used though. In the photo “ the boston massacre” ,the British were portrayed to be evil killers and the patriots were portrayed to be innocent little sheep. Actually, it was quite the opposite. The patriots were the ones that were harassing the British officers to the point that they were throwing rocks at them. The soldiers then shot out into the crowd to protect themselves, killed about five people, and injured a handful of people. This poster was created and then spread like wildfire to all of the colonies titled as “the boston massacre”. This is how most people became aware of the war and had a change of heart. They began to think that it was their duty to fight and that the british were evil.
In the beginning of the war many people chose to be Loyalists. This was because of the great strength of Britain. The Patriots could not possibly win (or so they thought). This was addressed in a newspaper article called “Plain Truth”. This document was written by a philosopher named, James Chalmers. In his writing he told of the ridiculousness of the war rumors and how helpless the colonies were to the power of Britain. He also stated that Britain would strike hard and fast, and seeing as the colonies were untrained and minimally supplied, they wouldn’t last two seconds. Another reason people wanted to be loyalists was the weakness of the continental army and not wanting to join it. In the document “a description of the continental army, the real problems here are shown. They don’t have proper clothing/supplies and they don’t work together.It took them years of losses to get it together. I know I wouldn’t want to be a part of that army! Some people felt war just was not necessary. They didn’t want to get stuck with the consequences of of being on either side, or they were just too busy to care. In the “declaration of the causes and necessity of taking up arms”, it explained the reason most colonists became patriots: taxes and freedom. These two things just didn’t apply to some people. A good bit of people who came to the colonies were already poor from the way they had been taxed in Britain and they were used to it. As far as freedom goes, they knew the consequences of treason and some weren’t willing to go that far. Other times, neutralists switched sides based on who was winning or what benefited them at that time. It would be hard to choose to be on any of these sides. There are pros and cons to each. Loyalists were persecuted for their loyalty to Britain, but made the most sense because of how weak the colonies were. Patriots were scared for their lives seeing as they thought they couldn’t win, but were praised on their fight for freedom. And, Neutralists were looked down on for their lukewarmness, but were more secure than the loyalists and patriots. I personally can’t decide on what I would have been. Though, I most likely would have been a neutralist because I like peace. I think each person just picked sides based on their situation, age, family, background, etc. What would you pick?