Patriots and Loyalists

M & R both are learning about the Revolutionary war in school. M brought home this homework assignment yesterday:

During the American Revolution, Patriots were men and women who wanted to break away from Great Britain. More than half the colonists were Patriots. Loyalists were men and women who refused to fight against Great Britain.  About 500,000 colonists were Loyalists. The Loyalists and Patriots lived side by side in the same colonies and even in the same families. Benjamin Franklin, for example was a Patriot. His son, William, was a Loyalist.

Directions:  Pretend you are a Patriot living in 1776. You are talking with a Loyalist. Use the lines below to respond to each statement that the Loyalist makes. Make sure you answer like a Patriot would. Base your responses on what you have learned from reading about Patriots and Loyalists.

Loyalist: "We should stay loyal to Great Britain. Great Britain gave us the chance to come to America."

Patriot: No! The king is selfish.

Loyalist: " The leaders in Great Britain know what's best for us. They would never make any rules that would make us unhappy."

Patriot: The king taxed the tea.

Loyalist: "It's important for the colonists in America to pay taxes and support Great Britain. Without Great Britain we wouldn't have any supplies or soldiers to protect us."

Patriot: There should be no taxation without representation.

Loyalist: "Without Great Britains help, America will fall apart. We're too weak. We don't have any strong men or women in America to lead us."

Patriot: God has favored America's just cause.

His class also did a reinactment of the Boston Tea Party that day.

What surprised me about the assignment was that it challenged him to think about what was actually going on. He did ask me for help on the assignment. He didn't know how to answer the last question so we went to the words of a real Patriot. I found the quote in The Real Benjamin Franklin published by National Center for Constitutional Studies. His original answer was So! I was challenged to follow up on his comment because the comment rings so true today. I see America starting to fall apart. Americans are weak and America doesn't have strong leaders stepping up to the plate. I know I'm one of them.