PRACTICE PRACTICUM ASSESSMENT

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PRACTICE PRACTICUMASSESSMENT
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5 minutes
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In 1767, British troops were sent to Boston to
ensure the collection of the import duties passed
under the Townshend Acts. Colonists were upset
with this. On March 5, 1770, a group of
colonists began harassing soldiers guarding
Bostons customs house by throwing snowballs and
rocks and them. The troops called for help. More
troops and colonists arrived at the scene. In
the confusion, shots rang out and eight colonists
were shot, five of whom were killed. This
incident became known as the Boston Massacre,
although this highly charged name exaggerates
what actually happened. This Paul Revere
engraving was a piece of propaganda used to sway
people to the belief that Boston was under attack
by the British. This poster incorrectly shows
the British giving the order to fire and fails to
illustrate how the conflict started. The dog in
the center is a symbol of loyalty, used by the
colonists to illustrate their belief that they
were in fact loyal subjects of the British crown.
In the end, John Adams defended the soldiers in
court, arguing that as British subjects, they
deserved a trial by jury, a right which British
policy in the 1770s denied smugglers who avoided
import duties. Most of the soldiers were
acquitted, but some were convicted of
manslaughter and branded on the thumbs. The
incident illustrates the growing tension between
the colonies and Britain, particularly, colonial
objections to having a standing army during peace
time.
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3 minutes
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• In 1773, Parliament repealed all of the Townshend
  Acts, except the one on tea. Britain had all of
  the excess tea of the British East India Company
  sent to America to prevent the company from going
  bankrupt. Even with a tiny tax attached, the
  British tea remained cheaper than smuggled
  American tea. American tea smuggles were
  outraged that their business was imperiled by the
  cheap tea. Others were angry that Americans were
  being seduced into paying a British tax. In
  December 1773, Sons of Liberty dressed as Indians
  boarded a ship in Boston Harbor and emptied every
  crate of tea into Boston Harbor. As a result of
  this destruction of property, Britain passed the
  Coercive Acts to punish Boston.

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6 minutes

• His Majestys subjects in these colonies are
  entitled to all the inherent rights and
  liberties of his natural born subjects within the
  kingdom of Great Britain. It is inseparable
  essential to the freedom of a people, and the
  undoubted rights of Englishmen, that no taxes be
  imposed on them but with their own consent, given
  personally or by their representatives. . .the
  only representatives of the people of these
  colonies are persons chosen therein by
  themselves, and that no taxes ever have been, or
  can be constitutionally imposed on them, but by
  their respective legislatures.

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This is an excerpt from the Declaration of Rights
and Grievances from the Stamp Act Congress which
met in 1765 in Philadelphia. In 1765, the
British Prime Minister George Grenville passed
through Parliament a Stamp Act for raising enough
money pay the cost of keeping a British army in
America. This decision came after Britain went
into enormous debts to win the French and Indian
War. This tax was the first direct tax that
colonists paid on products made in the colonies,
and they were outraged by it. The colonists
believed that rights guaranteed to all British
citizens by the documents in the British
Constitution included the right to be taxed only
with their own consent given through
representatives that they themselves elected.
Since no elected colonial representatives existed
in the Parliament, the colonists felt this tax
and future taxes were unjust. The Stamp Act
Congress agreed to boycott British goods and
wrote petitions such as this to the British
government, tactics the colonists would continue
to use throughout the taxation crisis of the
1760s and 1770s. Colonial outrage also included
destruction of personal property and threats on
the lives of stamp agents, often carried out by
the Sons of Liberty. The colonial outrage was
strong enough to scare anyone from actually
selling the stamps, and the Stamp Act was
repealed in 1766, but at the same time,
Parliament passed the Declaratory Act, a
statement that it did indeed have the right to
tax the colonists. Thus, the issue of the Stamp
Act was resolved, but the issue of taxation
without representation was left opened and would
eventually split the colonists from Britain. The
Stamp Act Congress was the second attempt at
colonial unity, the first having been the Albany
Plan of Union during the French and Indian War.
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3 minutes
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• This is a political cartoon about the 1774
  Intolerable Acts. The Intolerable Acts were a
  group of laws passed by the British Parliament to
  punish Boston for the destruction of British tea
  during the Boston Tea Party. The Intolerable
  Acts choked Boston economically by closing the
  harbor. The artist depicts this economic
  punishment by showing Boston as a cage full of
  starving prisoners who are eating raw fish that
  other colonists are feeding them. Other parts of
  the Intolerable Acts restricted Massachusettss
  self-rule. The cartoon is from a colonial point
  of view because it shows the desperation of
  Boston and the overly plentiful supply of British
  military force in the background. As a result of
  the Intolerable Acts, the colonies met at the
  First Continental Congress which wrote petitions,
  passed boycotts, and assembled colonial militia.
  It was the final of the controversial British
  laws before the firing of the first shots of the
  Revolutionary War at Lexington and Concord.

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5 MINUTES
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• In 1754, France had claimed North America between
  the Appalachian Mountains and the Rocky
  Mountains. Under the pressure of growing
  population, settlers in the 13 British colonies
  began pushing westward into this French
  territory. They began clashing with the Indians
  who lived there. After a battle at Fort
  Necessity, the French and Indian War began. It
  was actually the beginning of a World War (fought
  on multiple continents) between France and
  Britain called The Seven Years War. Indians
  sided with the French rather than the British
  because British cleared Indian hunting grounds to
  establish farms, while the French just set up
  trading forts that did not destroy Indian lands.
  In order to win the war, British Prime Minister
  William Pitt authorized massive spending, which
  sent England into huge debt. The war ended in
  1763 with the Treaty of Paris, which transferred
  land east of the Mississippi to Britain and
  announced the end of French authority in North
  America. In order to prevent future Indian wars,
  the British government set up the Proclamation
  Line of 1763. This line was meant to keep
  settlers from sparking future Indian wars. In
  order to pay for the continued protection of the
  colonies, Britain starting passing direct taxes
  on the colonies, which was the major cause of the
  American Revolution.

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Salutary Neglect
30 seconds
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Salutary Neglect
30 More seconds
This adding of time will not actually happen on a
practicum assessment. The point here is to get
you used to the element of pacing and to
understand how to quickly narrow and expand the
scope of your writing.
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• According to the theory of mercantilism, colonial
  trade was supposed to support the economy of the
  mother country. In accordance with this theory,
  England passed the Navigation Acts to restrict
  colonial trade, but England didnt bother
  enforcing the Navigation Acts because enforcing
  them was more expensive than ignoring them. This
  unofficial policy of ignoring the Navigation Acts
  was called Salutary Neglect, to which the
  colonies grew accustomed. The same term is also
  applied to Englands policy of allowing the
  colonies to govern themselves during most of
  their early history. When England suddenly
  reversed Salutary Neglect, it infuriated the
  colonists and provoked the American Revolution.

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THE END
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3 minutes
The Revolution was effected before the war
commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and
hearts of the people. -John Adams, 1818
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• Historians have argued that the American
  Revolution was not just the explosive decade
  leading up to 1776. Rather, as John Adams
  suggests here, it was a social and intellectual
  change that began when the first settlers arrived
  in Jamestown. Being in a rugged new environment
  forced colonists to find the most efficient ways
  of survival. Being far away from the stagnant
  social traditions of Europe encouraged
  independence and individualism. They developed a
  tradition of self-government based upon an
  English system. The main difference was that the
  availability of cheap land created a large middle
  class of propertied voters. When Parliament
  tried to suggest that virtual representation
  justified its power to tax the colonies directly,
  it made cries of no taxation without
  representation ring out..
• Like a children who grew up on their own into
  fully self-sufficient adults, the colonies
  thought of themselves as self-regulating. There
  was no need for a British parent to help them
  get along. This quote suggests thatThe
  American Revolution that began around 1776 was
  merely the result of Britain tinkering with a new
  political and social system that had already
  fallen into place.

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3.5 minutes

• We hold these truths to be self-evident that all
  men are. . . endowed by their Creator with
  certain inalienable rights. To secure these
  rights, governments are instituted among men,
  deriving their just powers from the consent of
  the governed. . .Whenever any government becomes
  destructive of these ends, it is the right of the
  people to alter or to abolish it and to institute
  new government.

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This is a passage from the Declaration of
Independence by Thomas Jefferson. It was signed
in July 1776 in the Second Continental Congress
after many attempts to obtain a redress of
grievances against Britain failed. The colonists
main complaint was that they did not get to vote
for Parliamentary representatives who were
levying taxes. This dispute escalated into a war
that started in 1775 at the Battle of Lexington
and Concord. In this passage, Jefferson justifies
the reasons for independence. He uses
Enlightenment theories about the social contract
and natural rights to do so. He uses John
Lockes argument that a government must protect
the natural rights of life, liberty, and property
as part of the social contract. According to
Locke, when a government fails to protect those
rights, the people have the right to change the
government. Since Britain failed to protect the
colonists rights to vote for parliamentary
representatives (a long-cherished right of
Englishmen), they decided to establish a new
government. The Declaration of Independence is
important in world history because it was the
first time that a nation was founded upon the
principles of the Enlightenment. In some ways,
it achieved John Winthrops dream of A City on a
Hill or a model society that the rest of the
world would admire from afar.