Book Description

The three essays and the collection of documents focus on the nature of the revolutionary process in North America between 1774 and 1776. Both suggest that this process was the work of Committees of Inspection and Observation founded in 1774/75 in all colonies and dissolved after the passing of the Declaration of Independence. These committees were founded as a result of associations in which colonists pledged their acceptance of the resolves of the Continental Congress. Associations defi ned revolutionary values as well as pre-national concepts, the committees supervised the trade boycott as well as the adherence to these revolutionary values. Those who broke the boycott or rejected the values were declared [alpha]enemies of liberty± or [alpha]enemies of the American cause±. As a result, American colonial society was divided into Revolutionaries and "enemies of liberty". The documents - texts of associations and resolutions of the committees of inspection and observations all published in colonial newspapers - illustrate this new interpretation of the nature of revolutionary process of the American Revolution.