THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION:for Kids

1. THE AMERICANREVOLUTION:for Kids By: Phillip Tran

2. DEFINITIONS: Colonist: the people who lived in the 13 colonies. • Britain: The nation that controlled the Colonist. • King George the 3rd: The King of Britain. • Taxes: Money that you have to pay to the government. • Stamp Act: The law that King George passed to make the Colonist pay more money . • Once upon a time, there was a place called the “13 Colonies”, the people here were called the “Colonist” Now the 13 colonies were under control. They were under control by the place called “Britain”. Now see, the king of Britain, King George the 3rd was a bully to the Colonist. He made them pay him money, this was called taxes. Now he wanted more then just taxes. Being the bully he was, he used something called the “Stamp Act”, this means he forced the Colonist had to pay more taxes for stamps on their papers. Unfortunately, it got worse for the Colonist. Pg: 1

3. DEFINITIONS: Privacy: When you want to all by yourself. • Quartering act: The law that was passed that forced the Colonist to take in British soldiers and take care of them. • A couple of years later, the bully King George the 3rd did another thing to the Colonist to make it harder for them. He had passed another law for the Colonist to follow. It was called the quartering act. The Colonist had to take in the British soldiers and basically treat them like family. They had to feel them, clean them, just like they gave birth to them. Now they Colonist felt like they had no privacy. I mean they had British soldiers living with them, how isn't that having privacy. Now the Colonist would want pay back, they did something called “Tar and Feathering”. They would put sticky stuff called tar and cover you in feathers. They would do this to tax collectors who enforced this act. You might think that after this the bully King George the 3rd would stop, but it got worse. Pg: 2

4. Massacre: When a lot of people are killed in a very nasty way . Trial: When people have an argument on who is right and who is wrong about some things. Tension: The feeling of stressed emotions being felt. Now a couple of weeks later, with all of the laws being passed, tension started to build between the Colonist and the British. They started to hate each other at this point so more tax collectors were starting to get tar and feathered. It all came to a boiling point when the Boston “Massacre” happened. So what happened was a bunch of really angry Colonist were yelling at a guard for the British. They then started hitting him so what he did was call up some more soldiers like captain Preston to help out. Even after they got there they still were starting to hell “Fire at us if you dare” Now what happened next was the Captain said not to fire. One soldier was confused what to do and someone knocked him down. His gun accidentally fired and then everyone else fired. 5 Colonist died because of this so they had a trial. Now John Adams, one of the major revolutionaries defended them. He won the case because he had all the evidence right and not biased evidence. The investigation they did helped them to get fair evidence. Now with this, it built even more tension , so it was not the end yet. Pg: 3

5. Tea act: The law that King George passed that made Colonist have to buy British taxed tea only. Boston Tea Party: When the Colonist dumped all of the British tea into Boston Harbor. Intolerable act: The law that King George passed to make sure that Boston didn’t have any power to do anything. Independence: To do what ever you want. A couple of days after the Boston Massacre, the British leader King George the 3rd passed another law to make them pay more money. He called this the tea act, the tea act made them only buy British tea, which was really taxed. This means that they had to pay even more taxes just to get some tea for themselves. Now on top of al the other things, they had to pay taxes for tea. Now the Colonist were very angry but they decided to actually do something about it. They decided to fight back this tea tax by dumping all of the British tea into Boston harbor. They called this the Boston Tea Party. Now this made King George the 3rd go nuts. What he did was take away Boston’s chance to do anything .This was called the Intolerable act. This lead Ben Franklin to make a drawing banner with the saying “Join or Die”. He meant if we, the 13 Colonist don’t band together then we wont have independence from the British. Pg: 4

6. Concord: A town in Massachusetts that at time had weapons stored over there. Lexington: The town in between Concord where the first shots of the revolutionary war happened. Revolutionary war: The war where 13 colonies fought for independence with the British. A few weeks later, the British found our that the Colonist had been hiding weapons that they had at a town called Concord. Since they did, the British wanted to break all of them, so they started walking from Boston to the town called Concord. There was a town in between called Lexington. So the Colonist soon found out that the British were after their weapons, so they hid it somewhere else and went to Lexington to fight the British. So at Lexington, the Colonist waited for the British to get there. When the British got there, they had waited, staring at each other. Now there are a lot of stories on who fired first, but when that happened, everyone shot at each other. A couple of people died there. From then on, the revolutionary war began between the British and the Colonist. Pg: 5

7. Thomas Paine: The man who wrote “Common Sense”. Common Sense: The book that the man Thomas Paine wrote, it was about Britain’s cruelty and the freedom of America. Loyalists: The people in the 13 colonies who wanted to stay dependent on Britain. In 1776, there was a man, his name was Thomas Paine. He had recently immigrated to the 13 colonies, he had it funded by Benjamin Franklin who had said he was a bright young man. He previously had only caused trouble in his life, as he was a tax collector. He would argue about anything inside the market place, causing trouble. Now in America, Thomas Paine tried his hand at writing. The book he had published was called “Common Sense”. Now in his experience of Britain, and its cruelty, his book was a product of that experience. That means he ranted on Britain and talk about freedom and independence of America. The Colonist just ate this book up, he sold 120,000 the first 3 weeks, millions over the course of the years. Now not everyone agreed with what this book said. The loyalists shunned this book and called Paine a traitor for writing the book. Pg: 6

8. Thomas Jefferson: One of the founding fathers of America who was there when the Constitution was written D.O.I: Short for the declaration of independence, it was written to declare the 13 colonies independence. All Men are Created Equal: The first line in the constitution that means that all men are equal to each other. Constitution: The document that gives the American citizens their rights. After Common Sense was published, this inspired the Colonists to further the revolution. They decided to create the American constitution. Now to do this, they gathered 2 of the most wealthy and powerful men in the colonies, representing two each for one colony. Now to help, people such as Thomas Jefferson helped out with making the D.OI and Constitution. Now the D.OI started off on the lines” All Men are Created Equal.” Now when this was written, it was written only by rich white men. So essentially they only wanted people like them to benefit from it. People who benefitted from it were usually the rich, as it gave them their power over money back. The poor most likely didn’t benefit much from this. Now with all this rallying, the Colonists didn’t know about their uphill battle. Pg: 7

9. Treaty of Paris: The treaty that the Colonist made with the British that got them more land that belonged to the Native Americans. Alliance: When 2 people work together to do something. Yorktown: A town in the south that had a battle in the revolutionary war. Surrender: When someone gives up against someone. Continental army: The Colonist army. The End Now soon after the D.O.I was signed, the Colonists and the British had a full out war. Now the Colonists would always tease the British by calling them Red Coats. The Leader of the Colonies' army was none other then our first president, George Washington. Now even with George Washington being really smart and all, the first few fights with the British were tough for them. The turning point of the war was when George Washington crossed the Delaware and surprised the British, making them surrender. Now from here on out, the Colonists Continental army started winning. This is when the people of France made an alliance with the Colonists. Now after the last battle, thanks to France’s help at the battle of Yorktown, they surrendered the war. Now some thing called the Treaty of Paris was made. It gave the Colonists way more land. Now this seems good but the land they took were the Native American’s land. After, they natives had no home to go to. Pg: 8

10. About the Author • Phillip Tran lives in Boston, Massachusetts. He is 15 years old. The previous books that he have written are books such as “Conflicts of the new world.” and other things in that category. His future projects are going to involve things revolving around the American Revolution and history overall.