Dbq American Identity

One colony can't leave its mother country to rebel; it needs the support of other colonies. Only a united nation, like the American colonies, could successfully win a revolution against England. Until the eve of the revolution, the British were very absorbed in the lives of the Americans, so there was no unity within the nation. However, after all the acts forced on the Americans by England, several Americans began to see themselves as Americans instead of Britons. So by the eve of the revolution, America had formed a great sense of unity within the people and identity as a whole. Socially and politically, the American identity and unity was evident.

At the eve of the Revolution, the Americans had a strong sense of identity to differentiate themselves from the British. The British were trying to have some control in America, but the Americans wanted freedom and their own identity. They had several different methods of resistance. They began to boycott British goods through non-importation and non-consumption. They had mob riots, petitions to declare their desires, and propaganda to sway the people by insulting the British and making themselves look better. In "Notes for Speech in Parliament," Edmund Burke stated that "...The eternal Barriers of Nature forbid that the colonies should be blended or coalesce into the Mass..." He believed that the colonies differentiated too much from Great Britain, so they couldn't blend in with the "Mass." In Letters from an American Farmer, Hector St. John Crèvecoeur pointed out that Americans were distinct people. They were different genetically, having no prejudice or subordination. He believed that they would one day make great changes to the world. Furthermore, the colonist liked written law over a "word of law" that the British had. The Americans wrote their constitution and had their laws written on documents. Colonists began calling themselves Americans and felt that they were superior to the British. After the French and Indian War, the Americans felt that they were different from the British, so the colonists against Great Britain called themselves Patriots.

Before the Revolution, the colonists were becoming united for the coming fight for freedom. In 1754, Benjamin Franklin proposed the Albany Plan of Union, was an early attempt at forming a union of the colonies under one government during the French and Indian War. The political drawing that was published in the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1754 represented this Albany Plan of Union. If this snake did not unite to form a whole snake, then it wouldn't survive. And this directly represented how the colonies needed to unite in order to overcome the British. Richard Henry Lee stated that "all N. America is now most firmly united and as firmly resolved to defend their liberties ad infinitum against ever power on Earth that may attempt to take them away." He believed that since America