It's All About The Patriots, Not Loyalist In The Postcolonialism

In 1776 we as colonist were faced with the tough decision of what side we were going to take, if the event of a war were to happen. There were three options that we could have taken. The first, was siding with the British, which would make us loyalists. The other being to side with fellow colonist making us patriots. Finally, the last option was that we could have not sided with anybody making us neutral. Obviously we made the decision of being patriots, and siding with the colonist.

Although it does not seems like it, the decision of becoming a patriot was a hard decision that took us many days to decide. One thing we took into consideration when choosing a side was, which outcome will be better depending on the side we took. We also took the different opinions of each side into consideration.

First we thought of what the outcome would be like if we were loyalist, and the British won the war. To predict what the outcome can be like, we thought back to a time when the colonist lost a battle. The battle of which we thought of took place on December 16, 1773, the political protest which the colonies had lost, being the Boston Tea Party. Once the British found out about the Boston Tea Party they gave us four, new, harsh, laws, that we called the Intolerable Act. This act consisted of shutting down the Boston port, which meant merchants could no longer sell their products. The second law was that Massachusetts could no longer have a town meeting more than once a year without the government's permission. The third law is that custom official charged by major crime can be trialed in Britain or Canada. Finally, the last law was the Quebec Act, which meant that colonist had to pay for soldiers. Although some colonist did not participate and thought that the British were right for introducing these laws, they still had to obey these laws. With this prediction we were able to conclude that being a loyalist if British had won the war, would be bad decision.

Next we thought of how our lives would change if the colonist had won the war and we were loyalist. Once again, we thought of a predicament were the colonist won. In 1765 the parliament passed the stamp act, which was the act that taxed legal documents and printed paper. The colonist did not like that they were being taxed and had no say in what or why they were being taxed, so they decided to boycott the act. The act was no longer being beneficial due to the boycotting, so in 1766 the parliament repealed the act. There was no consequences that the colonist experienced from the Britain, although the colonist might have looked down upon the loyalist. We came with the conclusion that it would neither be a good or bad decision to be a loyalist if Britain were to lose the war.

Then we thought of what it could be like to be a patriot, and the colonist won the war. This time it was easier to think of a predicament since we had already thought of one prior to simulating how it would be to be a patriot. Of course, the predicament that came to mind was the stamp act. Being a patriot and colonist winning the war, would be both the same and different as if when we were loyalist. The one thing that would be different is the only bad thing, which was being looked down upon. This time we would be part of the colonist and we would celebrate along with our fellow colonist. The last situation we thought of was what it would be like if we were patriots and the colonist lost the war. As before we already thought of this situation, but instead of being patriots we were loyalist. The result of colonist losing and being a patriot, would be the same as the result of colonist losing and being a loyalist. If we were neutral we would not get the satisfaction of victory, but still get the punishment.

After seeing all the possible outcomes, we looked at each side and their opinions. We first looked at the colonists’ opinion. The reason they wanted to start a war was because of the taxes. It is not that the colonist did want want to pay the taxes, the colonist problem with the taxes was that they had no say in them, which is why they created the slogan “no taxation without representation.” Needless to say, going to war was not the colonists first action. The colonist tried to send a petition to King George and the parliament but they paid little attention, so they tried boycotting. The boycotting only helped a little, and colonist did not want to live like this forever so they would separate by having a war.

Finally, we thought about Britain’s opinion. The original reason Britain was taxing the colonist was because they had lost money from a war and the taxes was a way of getting the money back. Even if they needed money we could not understand how they had not made the money back, since their taxes were so high. Not only were the taxes high but one of many of the taxes were on tea, and tea is sold all the time. We could also not comprehend why Britain only taxed colonist, and they did not tax the British. If there was a war, Britain would not have started the war they would have just been defending themselves.

After analyzing all of the possible outcomes and opinions we drew the conclusion that being a patriot was the best option. Although the outcome of Britain winning the war was bad for being a patriot, it would be a bad outcome either way. Overall patriots had the best outcomes and opinions. Being neutral was a close second, but we knew that the colonist were persistent and would eventually get their way.