7/8 Social Studies

About the Lesson

In this lesson, students will learn about Faneuil Hall.  Faneuil Hall, located along Boston’s Freedom Trail, is was an important market and meeting place during the American Revolution and continues to be a busy educational, commercial and recreational venue today.

 

Student Objectives

After this lesson, students will be able to…

 

 

• Explain the role of Massachusetts in the American Revolution, including important events that took place in Massachusetts

 

• Identify the important role of Faneuil Hall in the history of Boston, both in the 18th century and today.

 

Standard Connections

 

MA Standards:

            USI.5 Explain the role of Massachusetts in the revolution, including important events that took place in                   Massachusetts and important leaders from Massachusetts. (H)

 

Common Core:

            2. Write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events, scientific                                     procedures/ experiments, or technical processes.

NCSS Themes:

            People, Place and Environment

            Time, Continuity and Change

 

 

Getting Started

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.  What do each of these pictures have in common?

 

2.  What do the commonalities in each of these pictures tell you about the role of Faneuil Hall in Boston?

 

 

 

Setting the Stage

            Faneuil Hall, dubbed the “Cradle of Liberty”, is located in the city of Boston. Faneuil Hall was a large market building that served as a meeting place for Patriots on the eve of the American Revolution. Meetings to discuss the Stamp Act, the Boston Massacre, the “tea crisis,” and other grievances with Britain were all held at Faneuil Hall between 1764 and 1775. From the completion of construction in September 1742 on the waterfront at the head of the Old Town Dock, Faneuil Hall was a thriving business hub, marketplace, and meeting center prior to, during, and after the American Revolution. Faneuil Hall was home to merchants, fishermen, meat and produce sellers, and assorted peddlers of goods. The Patriots met in a one-hundred-foot long and forty-foot wide wood-floored room above a marketplace with stalls. The room was twenty-eight feet high. Faneuil Hall was the scene of the most stirring public meetings on the eve of the American Revolution with the great Patriot orators of the day sounding from its platform. It was at meetings held at Faneuil Hall in 1773 that the “tea crisis” was discussed by Patriots such as Samuel Adams and ultimately culminated in the December 16, 1773 Boston Tea Party.

 

 

Locating the Site

 

                                                                                                        

                                                                                   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• What does the proximity of Faneuil Hall to the docks and wharves of Boston Harbor tell us about the significance as a marketplace?

 

• Why might its importance as a marketplace later help make it into an important meeting place?

 

Determining the Facts

 

 

Secondary Source – J.L. Bell Commentary on James Otis and “No Taxation without representation”

 

Until 2 Nov 2005, the phrase “taxation without representation” has almost always been credited to the Boston lawyer and legislator James Otis, Jr. The basis for this attribution is John Adams’s recollection of how Otis argued the writs of assistance case in 1761, in a letter to Otis’s biographer William Tudor, Jr., in 1818. After quoting that letter at length, Tudor wrote:

            From the navigation act the advocate [Otis] passed to the Acts of Trade, and these, he contended, imposed taxes, enormous, burthensome, intolerable taxes; and on this topic he gave full scope to his talent, for powerful declamation and invective, against the tyranny of taxation without representation.
From the energy with which he urged this position, that taxation without representation is tyranny, it came to be a common maxim in the mouth of every one. And with him it formed the basis of all his speeches and political writings; he builds all his opposition to arbitrary measures from this foundation, and perpetually recurs to it through his whole career, as the great constitutional theme of liberty, and as the fundamental principle of all opposition to arbitrary power.

However, neither Adams’s contemporaneous notes on what he’d heard in 1761 nor his letter contained the “taxation without representation” phrase or argument. We know he was urging Tudor to write about Otis as a way to capture some of the attention that William Wirt’s romanticized biography had brought to Patrick Henry of Virginia. Adams and Tudor had strong motives to present Otis, a Massachusetts man, as the first to establish the fundamental political conflict of the Revolution.

And in fact Otis did so—even if he didn’t use the words we remember. In his 1764 pamphlet The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved (extensive extracts here), Otis concluded:

 

            The sum of my argument is: that civil government is of God; that the administrators of it were originally the whole people; that they might have devolved it on whom they pleased; that this devolution is fiduciary, for the good of the whole; that by the British constitution this devolution is on the King, Lords and Commons, the supreme, sacred and uncontrollable legislative power not only in the realm but through the dominions; that by the abdication, the original compact was broken to pieces; that by the Revolution it was renewed and more firmly established, and the rights and liberties of the subject in all parts of the dominions more fully explained and confirmed; that in consequence of this establishment and the acts of succession and union, His Majesty GEORGE III is rightful King and sovereign, and, with his Parliament, the supreme legislative of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, and the dominions thereto belonging; that this constitution is the most free one and by far the best now existing on earth; that by this constitution every man in the dominions is a free man; that no parts of His Majesty’s dominions can be taxed without their consent; that every part has a right to be represented in the supreme or some subordinate legislature; that the refusal of     this would seem to be a contradiction in practice to the theory of the constitution; that the colonies are subordinate dominions and are now in such a state as to make it best for the good of the whole that they should not only be continued in the enjoyment of subordinate legislation but be also represented in some proportion to their number and estates in the grand legislature of the nation; that this would firmly unite all parts of the British empire in the greater peace and prosperity, and render it invulnerable and perpetual.

 

In case you missed it within that magnificent 311-word sentence, Otis wrote: “that no parts of His Majesty’s dominions can be taxed without their consent; that every part has a right to be represented in the supreme or some subordinate legislature;...”

So James Otis certainly focused on the idea that the Parliament in London couldn’t lay taxes (or Customs duties) on American colonists because that legislature didn’t represent those colonists, that the only legislatures which could impose such taxes were those the colonists elected according to their charters. But Otis didn’t phrase his argument in rhyme.

 

 

 

• Why was the phrase “no taxation without representation” associated with James Otis?

 

• Even if Otis did not coin the phrase, why would his argument have such resonance with the colonists in Boston and beyond?

 

 

 

Primary Source – Minutes from Boston Town Meeting 10/28/1767

At a Meeting of the Freeholders and other Inhabitants of the Town of Boston, legally assembled at Faneuil-Hall, on Wednesday the 28th of October, 1767.

THE Town then took into Consideration the Petition of a Number of Inhabitants, "That some effectual Measures might be "agreed upon to promote Industry, Oeconomy, and Manufactures ; thereby to prevent the unnecessary Importation of European Commodities, which threaten the Country with Poverty and Ruin :" Whereupon in a very large and full Meeting, the following Votes and Resolutions were passed Unanimously.

Whereas the excessive Use of foreign Superfluities is the chief Cause of the present distressed State of this Town, as it is thereby drained of its Money: which Misfortune is likely to be increased by Means of the late additional Burthens and Impositions on the Trade of the Province, which threaten the Country with Poverty and Ruin :

Therefore, VOTED, That this Town will take all prudent and legal Measures to encourage the Produce and Manufactures of this Province, and to lessen the Use of Superfluities,& particularly the following enumerated Articles imported from Abroad, viz. Loaf Sugar, Cordage, Anchors, Coaches, Chaises and Carriages of all Sorts, Horse Furniture, Men and Womens Hatts, Mens and Womens Apparel ready made Houshold Furniture, Gloves, Mens and Womens Shoes, Sole-Leather, Sheathing and Deck Nails, Gold and Silver and Thread Lace of all Sorts, Gold and Silver Buttons, Wrought Plate of all Sorts, Diamond, Stone and Paste Ware, Snuff, Mustard, Clocks and Watches, Silversmiths, and Jewellers Ware, Broad Cloths that cost above 10s. per Yard, Muffs Furrs and Tippets, and all Sorts of MillenaryWare, Starch, Womens and Childrens Stays, Fire Engines, China Ware, Silk and Cotton Velvets, Gauze, Pewterers hollow Ware, Linseed Oyl, Glue, Lawns, Cambricks, Silks of all Kinds for Garments, Malt Liquors and Cheese. -- And that a Subscription for
this End be and hereby is recommended to the several Inhabitants and Housholders of the Town; and that John Rowe, Esq; Mr. William Greenleafe, Melatiah Bourne, Esq; Mr. Samuel Austin, Mr. Edward Payne, Mr.Edmund Quincy, Tertius, JohnRuddock, Esq: Jonathan Williams, Esq; Joshua Henshaw, Esq; Mr. Henderson Inches, Mr. Solomon Davis, Joshua Winslow, Esq; and Thomas Cushing, Esq; be a Committee to prepare a Form for Subscription, to report the same as soon as possible; and also to procure Subscriptions to the same.

And whereas it is the Opinion of this Town, that divers new Manufactures may be set up in America, to its great Advantage, and some others carried to a greater Extent, particularly those of Glass & Paper

Therefore, Voted, That this Town will by all prudent Ways and Means, encourage the Use and consumption of Glass and Paper, made in any of the British American Colonies ; and more especially in this Province.

 

THE Committee appointed in the Forenoon, to prepare a Form for Subscription, reported as follows.

 

WHEREAS this Province labours under a heavy Debt, incurred in the Course of the late War ; and
the Inhabitants by this Means must be for some Time subject to very burthensome Taxes : -- And as our Trade has for some Years been on the decline, and is now particularly under great Embarrassments, and burthened with heavy Impositions, our Medium very scarce, and the Balance of Trade greatly against this Country :

WE therefore the Subscribers, being sensible that it is absolutely necessary, in Order to extricate us out of these embarrassed and distressed Circumstances, to promote Industry, Oeconomy and Manufactures among ourselves, and by this Means prevent the Unnecessary Importation of European Commodities, the excessive Use of which threatens the Country with Poverty and Ruin -- DO promise and engage, to and with each other, that we will encourage the Use and Consumption of all Articles manufactured in any of the British American Colonies, and more especially in this Province ; and that we will not, from and after the 31st of December next ensuing, purchase any of the following Articles, imported from Abroad, viz. Loaf Sugar, and all the other Articles enumerated above. --

And we further agree strictly to adhere to the late Regulation respecting Funerals, and will not use any Gloves but what are Manufactured here, nor procure any new Garments upon such an Occasion, but what shall be absolutely necessary.

 

The above Report having been considered, the Question was put, Whether the same shall be accepted ? Voted unanimously in the Affirmative.
 

• What are some of the items the Town Meeting votes to avoid if possible?

 

• How could the restriction of European goods help the economy of Massachusetts?

 

Visual Evidence

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• The above picture shows a new American citizen oath ceremony on the second floor of Faneuil Hall.  Is there symbolism of the choice to hold the ceremony there?

 

 

Putting it all Together

 

Activity 1:  Students will write an essay describing the role of Faneuil Hall’s role in Massachusetts history.

 

 

Activity 2:  Students will research a location in their community that has roots to the past.  They will then create a digital presentation about that location connecting the past to the present.