Class Update: 10-12-12 and 10-15-12

On Friday we went into groups and each group had a different document pertaining to the revolution. My group had "The Plain Truth". It was written by James Chalmers, who was a loyalist. He wrote this 70 page pamphlet to convince other people that the colonies should not try to gain independence from Britain. He said that democracies and republics such as Rome and Greece would always come and go, and it was not a stable way to run a government. He thought we would not be able to find a better way to run the colonies than what Britain was already doing. This was written in response to a pamphlet called "Common Sense" which came before. It was written by Thomas Paine, who was a patriot. Paine explained that it was time for the colonies to distance themselves from Britain. The next document we talked about was the Olive Branch Petition. This was a letter written by the Second Continental Congress to the King. It was in hopes that they could find a way to solve their differences without bloodshed. It was ignored, and the colonists could see that war would be necessary. Today in class we presented our Revolutionary Replica projects in front of the class by explaining who our person was and what was in their "pocket".