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1[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_howards_of_virginia_1940.jpg]]
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3->'''Patrick Henry''': Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell; and George the Third — ["Treason!" cried the Speaker] — may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it.
4->'''Jane Howard''': Go show them what we have built in the wilderness.
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6A 1940 historical drama directed by Frank Lloyd and starring Creator/CaryGrant, based on the novel ''The Tree of Liberty'' by Elizabeth Page.
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8Matthew Howard is a young boy growing up on [[UsefulNotes/TheThirteenAmericanColonies the colonial Virginian frontier]] in the 1750s. Strapping and energetic, he protests his schoolmaster's attempts to prod his study of [[SmartPeopleKnowLatin Latin]] by declaring that he doesn't want to learn noun declensions, he wants "to go to Ohio". Then a military messenger arrives with the news that young Mattie's father, a colonial militiaman, has died in [[UsefulNotes/SevenYearsWar Gen. Braddock's expedition]]. The young boy is urged to continue his studies to live up to his father's hopes.
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10Fast forward ten years, past the end of the war. Matt (Grant), now a young man, sits in the colonial legislature, having successfully proven his worth to his new wife, [[SouthernBelle Jane]] (Creator/MarthaScott), and her Tidewater family. The newlyweds have purchased land in Albamarle County's Shenandoah Valley, where Mattie has built them a house and purchased slaves to grow tobacco. Then, in 1765, the British Parliament passes the Stamp Act, for the first time directly taxing the colonies without their legislatures' consent. [[BadassBoast Protests ensue]], and the act is repealed, but [[RisingEmpire the repeal isn't clean]]. [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution Conflict builds]] [[TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized into open warfare]].
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13!!This Film provides examples of:
14* BadassBoast: On the part of Patrick Henry.
15* DarkestHour: The Valley Forge scene.
16* DeterminedHomesteader: The Howards.
17* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Gen. Washington, we presume?
18* RagtagBandofMisfits: the colonial militias, once war breaks out.
19* RoseTintedNarrative: Arguably, as the British are off stage actors whose perspective does not complicate the story.
20* TheRevolutionWillNotBeVilified: Although to its credit the film sets out the origins of the conflict clearly, there is little raising of any alternatives to a slide into armed conflict.

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