Narrator: We are in England in the year 1619. England has a king. He is in charge of everything. His name is George. George is not a very nice man.
#16: My name is King George. Do what I tell you to and everything will be nice in England.
#1: I do not like doing what he says.
#18: Why not? He is the king. He is right.
#26: King George, I do not want to go to your church.
#16: Why not? My church is filled with gold and beautiful candles.
#9: But these things cost much money.
#16: I use the money that you pay in taxes. To keep my church pretty, you must pay more takes.
#34: But I cannot eat. I have no money to feed my family.
#16: If you do not pay, you will be in big trouble.
Narrator: Some people believed that God did not need gold and money. They did not like all these things in their church.
#5: I have an idea. Let us go to a place where we do not have to pay taxes.
#32: A place were we do not have a king!
#15: We can go to the New World.
#18: When we get there we will not have to worry about King George and we will not have to do what he says.
#9: We can build a ship and go to the New World.
Narrator: These people, who called themselves "Pilgrims," left England in the year 1620to start a new life.
Narrator: The "Pilgrims" are in the New World. It is winter. The people are weak and sick.
#28: I do not feel well. I think I am going to die.
#3: So many people are dying.
#18: But we are free from the King.
#24: I miss my home in England! But it is also good to be free.
#4: At least the Indians are being good to us and teaching us how to get food.
Narrator: More and more "Pilgrims" came from other countries to join these people. They called this new place "New England" because they were still English and they wanted to remember the place that they came from. Each group of Pilgrims made a place for themselves and made laws or rules so that they could live together peacefully.
#17: William Bradford is our leader. He is fair and he doesn’t make us do things we do not want to.
#27: My name is William Bradford. I think that we should work together and be kind to one another.
#37: I agree with him. We do not need King George if we work together.
Narrator: Now it [is] the year 1700. The people are not called "Pilgrims" any more. Now they live in the New World, which we call "America" and they are called "Colonists." They make their own rules and laws.
The "Colonists" did not need King George, but the King needed them. The New World had many trees and King George wanted to use the trees to make paper. The New World did not have many things that the "Colonists" needed. So they made a trade. The King got what he wanted and he gave the "Colonists" what they wanted.
#21: I just sailed from England to bring food and clothes for you colonists. Are you doing well?
#12: Yes. We are working the land and we are having families.
#33: We are very glad to see you. Did you bring us tea?
#9: We have missed our tea from England.
#21: I am glad to bring it to you. But King George wants more money for the tea.
#15: But we sent him most of our wood and the vegetables we grow on our farms! We need these things for ourselves.
#21: Then I cannot give you the tea.
#17: But I want my tea!
#28: So do I!
#5 So do I! Since we agree, let us do something about it.
Narrator: The King was making the "Colonists" pay more taxes because the "Colonists" were making him angry! He did not want them to think that he had been beaten by them when they left England. The first tax was on stamps. Every time someone sent a letter or an important paper, they had to pay extra money.
#2: I want to send a letter to my friends in London. I want him to send me a coat and a new pair of shoes.
#25: I am the stamp agent and I must ask you for more money if you want something to be sent to you from England.
#2: But I do not want to pay more money to send this letter.
#25: Then you cannot send it. I quit my job so that you cannot send your letter.
#2: This is a bad thing. I am sure other people feel this way, too!
#36: I tried to order some chairs and tables for my house and the stamp agent told me he would not help me send the letter.
#20: I think we should stop sending King George wood and vegetables from America. I think we do not need things from England.
Narrator: It is the year 1770. The "Colonists" stopped asking for things from England and because of that, England lost much money. A group of "Colonists," called the Sons of Liberty, all felt angry about the way England was treating them. They made other people think about how they were angry, too. Soon, England stopped taxing the "Colonists" for stamps and only taxed them for their tea. This made life difficult. Also, King George was sending soldiers to America to watch the "Colonists."
#16: I am still King and if the people in America really want their tea, then they will have to pay more money for it!
Narrator: It is the year 1773 and an English trading group called the East India Company has a lot of tea, but nobody wants to buy it.
#13: I am a worker in the East India Trading Company. I am not making any money because nobody wants to pay more money for tea.
#6: We Americans will not buy this tea. Do not send any more.
#30: I agree. I like to drink my tea, but I will not let King George tell me what to do!
Narrator: It is still the year 1773. Three ships full of tea have come to Boston Harbor. The Sons of Liberty are not happy abut this. They talk to their neighbors and all the people decide that they will not pay the tax. The tea ships must go back to England.
#11: I am the [G]overnor of Boston. I think we should pay the tax.
#6: But I belong to the Sons of Liberty and we will not take this tea. All who agree with me, I have a plan.
#23: We will dress up like Indians and put feathers in our hair, and make our faces dark so we [sic] no one knows who we are.
#22: And then we will go onto the ships and throw the tea into the water. Then maybe King George will stop sending tea to us.
Narrator: So, the "Colonists" did this and King George became angry. He told his soldiers to punish the "Colonists." The soldiers would not let the "Colonists" choose their leaders or meet with each other. The Americans met in Philadelphia [and] talked about the way that they were being treated.
#8: I am not happy about this. I think we need to talk about this.
#29: I agree. This King is not being fair. We have our rights as American people.
#14: I have an idea. Let us make a list of our rights and agree to boycott England until they see that we are right.
Narrator: They made a list of rights. Three of these were the right to life, liberty, and property. King George would not change his mind.
#16: If you do not trade with England you will trade with no one. And you cannot fish in the North Atlantic Ocean. Unless you do what I say, then I will make your lives hard.
#7: My name is Patrick Henry. I think that we are getting into trouble, and there will be a war. But we need to be free. So, I say, give me liberty or give me death!
#35: My name is George Washington and I agree with you, Patrick. I will lead our army and because I feel strongly about this, you do not have to pay me!
#7: Thank you, George. I am glad you feel that way!
Narrator: It is 1776. Many battles have been fought at Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill, Trenton, Saratoga, Yorktown, Valley Forge, Philadelphia, Ticonderoga, and Charleston. The British have surrendered.
Everybody: HIP HIP HOO-RAY! HIP HIP HOO-RAY! HIP HIP HOO-RAY!
Narrator: The Revolution is over! We are celebrating, and we are talking about uniting into one whole country because we work so well together. We have called together a meeting, a convention, in Philadelphia, to declare our independence from England and to write a constitution or document that we all will agree on. This is how we will build our new country.
#19: My name is Benjamin Franklin. I am the oldest person here. I am 81. I believe that George Washington is the best person to lead us. He was a good leader in the war and he is very wise. But that is only my opinion. Does everyone else agree?
Everybody: We do! We agree!
#35: Thank you, Benjamin. I accept with pride.
#38: Now that we have agreed on a leader, we should talk abut how we want our government to be.
#31: We will have a democracy. That means that everybody gets to say how we run our country. Everybody can say their opinion.
#15: Rich or poor.
#3: Young or old.
#24: And they will all have a chance to say what they feel.
#20: First, we will declare that we are free to England. We will declare our independence. My name is Thomas Jefferson and I will write this declaration of independence, so that England will know how we feel.
Narrator: So they declared their independence in 1776. Then the set up a system of government in the year 1787. This was written down as the Constitution. There were 42 men at the meeting and only 3 did not agree.
#7: I did not sign it because I do not agree. I think that we should talk about the rights of each person. I think we need a Bill of Rights.
#37: Good idea. Let us do it.
Narrator: But there were enough who agreed that it was passed in 1789. The 3 who did [not]agree were happy when the new government said they could make some changes. So they wrote the Bill of Rights. These were things that were not in the Constitution, but were still very important to everybody.
#1: We fought to be free and now we agree to work together and make this new country great.
#30: George Washington is our president and he will lead us well.
#2: No more King George. No more soldiers.
#5: The government will work for us. What a good change.
Narrator: And so, the United States of America was formed.
Thanks to Leta Hall for transcribing this for me!
This play was given to me by a good friend who taught english in China for ahwile. This was given to them to teach American history. It is actually quite sympathetic to the early Americans, but many of the facts are more than a bit wrong. Don't write your class report off the facts in this play! Do enjoy it though.
Each student has an assigned number and when their number is in the script that is when they read. Just like when I was in school some numbers have better parts than other.
Keep in mind that while this may seem cute and quaint, how much Chinese history did you have when you went to school?
