Discuss the similarities and differences among the classes of people who were oppressed, manipulated, and controlled in the different colonies by both the British and the wealthy aristocrats and ruling classes of colonial America and the responses to that oppression such as protest and rebellion. [Take care to discuss the social, economic, and political forces and institutions that affected the different classes. Include information about the ways in which the colonial leaders focused colonial resentment and actions toward the British while avoiding a backlash of “levelling” against colonial elites. (Yes, I know it is spelled incorrectly but was the spelling offered in Zinn, and “levelling” is in both chapters 3 and 4 of Zinn.) Express the lengths to which the elites in power found it necessary to go in order to solidify the middle class and control the lower class in opposition to the British rather than colonial elites in order to address the prompt thoroughly. Consider the hypocrisy of the controls used and examine the effectiveness of such tactics even if they are contradictory to expressed political, social, and economic rhetoric of the period in colonial America |