Evidence From the Revolution
D2.His.16.3-5
Read each source, then answer the questions.
The Boston Tea Party
An information text written for this worksheet. On the night of December 16, 1773, a group of colonists, some dressed as Mohawk people, boarded three ships in Boston Harbor. They dumped 342 chests of tea belonging to the East India Company into the water. They were protesting a tax on tea passed by Parliament in London, where the colonists had no representatives. In 1774 Parliament punished Boston by closing its harbor until the tea was paid for. Other colonies sent food and supplies to help the people of Boston.
- 1. What does the help from other colonies suggest?
- 2. Whose tea was it?
- 3. What does this text not tell you about the people who dumped the tea?
James Armistead Lafayette, Spy
An information text written for this worksheet. James Armistead was an enslaved man in Virginia. In 1781 he volunteered to serve under the Marquis de Lafayette, a French general fighting for the Americans. Pretending to be a runaway, he worked in the camp of the British general Cornwallis and sent back reports on British plans. His reports helped Washington and Lafayette trap the British army at Yorktown in October 1781. After the war he was still enslaved, because Virginia freed enslaved soldiers but not spies. In 1787, after Lafayette wrote a letter praising his service, the Virginia legislature freed him. He took the name James Armistead Lafayette.
- 1. What helped him win his freedom in 1787?
- 2. What does this text not tell you about his life after 1787?
- 3. Whose camp did James Armistead work in as a spy?
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