Lived British abuses, not abstract declarations, drove New Jersey civilians to embrace independence.
Evidence
These abuses turned many New Jersey residents against the Crown, Galloway claimed. For them, independence no longer rested on a declaration signed months earlier in Philadelphia, which up to 10,000 of them had repudiated in return for promises of protection, but on a spontaneous rising in defense of their own lives, property, and honor. — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 316
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Ideas and bloodshed together, not either alone, moved colonists to revolution; America’s sheer size made British generals dispute whether to seek a decisive battle.; Patriot newspapers publicized vivid atrocity stories of British rape in New Jersey. (+1 more)