For Primary Source Assignment 2, read the three documents linked below (two different accounts of the 1770 Boston Massacre and the Declaration of Independence) and examine the two images located below. Using the primary documents, the images, the textbook, and the videos (optional), write an essay answering all of the prompts listed below. Grades will be based on the content of the answers and must be more than 400 words in length (400 for the whole assignment, not 400 for each question). Direct quotes do not count toward the required word count.
Documents:
Image1-BostonMassacre.jpg
Image2-Join_or_Die.jpg
Document1-BostonGazette.docx
Document2-Preston.docx
Document3-DeclarationOfIndependence.docx
Assignment Prompts:
Remember to address all 4 prompts in your paper.
1. In Document 1 and Document 2, what are the primary differences in how each author described this event? Why do you think each author chose to describe the event in that way?
2. What elements of Image 1 reinforce the account from Document 1? How do you think this imagery affected Bostonians and other American colonists? Why?
3. What message did Benjamin Franklin hope to convey with the phrase, “Join, or Die” and Image 2? Why did that message become even more relevant during the 1770s?
4. Why do you think Image 1 and Image 2 became important pieces of propaganda for American Patriots? In want ways do you see the messages conveyed by these images reflected in the Declaration of Independence (Document 3)?
Image 1:
Engraved by Paul Revere shortly after the event in 1770 and titled, “A Bloody Massacre.”
Image 2:
Originally published by Benjamin Franklin in the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1754, but began to appear regularly across the colonies after 1763 and throughout the Revolution.
