The Minutemen and Their World

Paper Masters uses the best resources possible when writing on history or any topic of interest. For example, you may request a custom written research paper on the minutemen of colonial times and have our writers use the excellent book by Robert A. Gross entitled The Minutemen and Their World as a reference.

Research papers demonstrate that in his preface to The Minutemen and Their World, historian Robert A. Gross sets the battle of Concord "in the context of the townspeople's ordinary lives, before and after April 19, 1775". On that morning, Lexington and Concord were witness to the famous "shot heard round the world," as the American colonies erupted into rebellion against the mightiest empire on the planet. The story of the American Revolution, and the action in Concord has been told countless times. Gross, however, took a new approach, and used the techniques of the "new social history," an approach now taken for granted, but still revolutionary in the 1970s.

The Story of Minuteman

To tell the story of the minutemen and reconstruct their daily lives, Robert A Gross used the following primary sources:

• Vital records
• Genealogies
• Tax and assessment lists
• Wills, deeds, petitions
• The minutes from town meetings-the everyday paperwork of 18th century Concord

He wanted his social history of Concord to be accessible to the lay reader, as his story "deals with everyday, fundamental experiences of human life-with work and play, with growing up and raising families, with growing old and facing death" so that the reader can recognize people from the past "as people like ourselves".

One of the most effective techniques Gross utilizes throughout the book is his ability to capture the truths of the continuation of daily life despite the earth shattering events that most other histories concentrate on.Concord, Massachusetts was a remote outpost of the British Empire in the 1770s, and not always concerned with events in nearby Boston, let alone London. In 1764, when the new policies of taxation began to be implemented in the colonies (to help the British government pay off the debt from the Seven Years War), "the farmers and artisans of Concord were absorbed in their own religious affairs". The main struggle in Concord in the 1760s and 1770s was internal strife within the town church, and during this time "Concord was more concerned with the local politics of Middle-sex County than with the great issues of the British Empire". Most of the farmers in and around Concord were concerned with having to travel as far as Cambridge or Charlestown in order to conduct simple business (registering deeds, proving wills or appearing in court). London might have been the moon for all that many of these people cared.

Sons of Liberty - Minutemen

Concord's situation changed by 1774, as the Sons of Liberty in Boston began to push their struggle onto a wider stage. Committees of Correspondence were set up, and regular communication to Concord began. An accident of geography led to the strategic location of Concord as the location of the emergency stockpile of arms and ammunition for the colonial militia.