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The Gaspee Affair In the history of the American Revolution, the attack and capture of the English Navy Ship Gaspee was the first deliberate strike against the English by American colonists. These colonists were termed as “Sons of Liberty”. The Gaspee Gaspee was a British yacht that patrolled the waters off Rhode Island. It checked on the ships carrying smuggled goods considered illegal i.e. imported from anywhere other than England. Burning of the Gaspee On June 10, 1772, when Gaspee stuck up in the shallow waters on Namquid Point in Rhode Island, John Brown and Joseph Bucklin along with fellow men attacked the yacht. He fired at Lt. Dudingston, the ship commander. The attackers took the entire crew of the yacht as prisoners. The raiders rowed away with the prisoners and set the Gaspee on fire. John Brown A pre-planned attack The attack involved merchants, sea captains, and lawyers apart from members of General Assembly of the Rhode Island colony. The attack was planned as taking 100 men to the Gaspee, armed with rifles which meant that the Rhode Island attackers had given a pre thought on the issue. Lt. Dudingston was saved, as killing anyone on the boat was not included in the plan. Reasoning the attack The burning of Gaspee was a symbolic event by the Sons of Liberty to express their hatred towards taxation goals under the policy of the British Empire. After-effects The English government announced a £1000 reward in the American colonies for information leading to Joseph’s arrest for treason. Although about 100 men were involved, and the attackers included many well-known men of Rhode Island, the people of Rhode Island successfully kept the identity of the attackers a secret from the English until after the end of the Revolutionary War. Connection with the Boston Tea Party The Gaspee affair and Boston Tea Party, both posed as major events that triggered the American Revolution, separated by a period of 18 months. Both the events attacked the English policies with mass violence without any legal effect. greaT civilizaTions Turning PoinT Historical arcHive A planed city state Rise of the civilisation The Sumerian civilisation emerged upon the flood plain of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers about 4000 B.C. It is thought to have arisen in Mesopotamia, which is close to modern Iraq. Social structure In this newly emerged land of Sumeria, people built huts, raised cattle, and farmed for their food. They built huge temples (called ziggurats) and monuments in their cities. They were the first to gather in large city-states. Their beliefs The Sumerian communities were city-states organised around a temple and ruled by priesthood. The bulk of the people of the community were considered to be the servant-slaves of the god of the temple. When calamities occurred, they believed that it is the result of other gods acting against their local deity. Their innovations The Sumerians were the first to develop a system of writing on clay tables called as Cuneiform script. It consisted of 500 characters and helped in systematic record keeping. They wrote books and stored them in a central place, thus making way for the concept of a ‘library’. The Sumerians primarily made the use of wheel for making carts for farming and trade. They built reservoirs to store water and canals to transport water from these reservoirs. They supplied water to their farmlands from rivers and lakes with a technique now known as irrigation. Influence Trivia The Sons of Liberty was a loosely organised group of influential men formed in the New York and Boston Areas. They were particularly noted for acts of violent threats towards tax collectors. The Sumerian civilisation influenced other civilisation, notably that of Babylon. Thus, the Sumerian civilisation appeared as a fully developed society with a technology and organisation that was different and superior to the other societies of the time. Young ExplorEr n february 2009 n 9