In the year 1775, two days after the spring equinox, a meeting was held in Pennsylvania’s York County of over one hundred freemen and an agreement was written to bind them into an Association. The agreement, now in the Rare Book Room of the York County History Center in York, Pennsylvania, read as follows: The […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor David Otersen on the influence of political philosopher Alergnon Sidney on Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and others. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the JAR Dispatches web site. Dispatches can now be […]
Throughout the churning tides of 1776 and 1777, John Brown, a prominent a prominent merchant from Providence, Rhode Island, amassed a fortune by investing in privateers. Through reviewing a comprehensive list of his privateers and their values, along with a list of the captures made by some of his privateers, and the values of the […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews actor, research, and JAR contributor, Sarah Swift on her research on the service record of Loyalist Samuel Babcock and the surprising connections she uncovered. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the JAR Dispatches web […]
“The King had evidently consented to the repeal, and then disavowed his Ministers.”—Horace Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Third In early 1766, in response to American violent resistance to the taxation levied by the Stamp Act of 1765, British leaders were concerned with determining “the best mode of restoring order & […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor William W. Reynolds on his examination of the surrender documents from Yorktown discovering differences between the original papers and subsequent copies. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the JAR Dispatches web site. […]
The surrender of the British Army at Yorktown in 1781 was implemented by the three-party Articles of Capitulation (“the Articles”), one of the most important documents of the Revolutionary War, since the surrender eventually led to the Peace of Paris (1783) and American independence. Curiosity as to the current location of the original Articles, i.e., […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews author and JAR contributor Todd W. Braisted on Israel Putnam and William Tryon trying to influence Hessian forces around Kingsbridge, New York, with dueling proclamations. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the […]
In Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774), Jefferson wrote of King George III’s unwillingness to use his “negative” to veto unjust proposals. Two years later, Jefferson echoed this sentiment in his first draft of Declaration of Independence. Here, Jefferson listed a “long train of abuses & usurpations,” at the hand of King George […]
As the year 1777 drew to a close, the region around the city of New York had been under British control for a year. Although the British position was strong, the recent surrender of a British army at Saratoga dramatically changed the prospects of the war ending any time soon. Troops in the New York […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews Marine Corps veteran and JAR contributor James M. Deitch on his analysis of the 23rd, 25th, and 27th Grievances of the Declaration of Independence. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the […]
In the summer and fall of 1776, the decrepit fortifications at Ticonderoga and the area surrounding it became one of the top five population centers in North America—ultimately numbering 12,000 or more. In early July, a brigade under the command of New Hampshire’s John Stark began building fortifications on the forested, 300-acre rocky peninsula across […]
“He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.”[1] As with the 25th grievance in the Declaration of Independence, in the 27th grievance Thomas Jefferson carefully constructed […]
When Thomas Jefferson wrote the twenty-seven grievances against the King listed in the Declaration of Independence, he did so with the intention of encapsulating the sentiment and objections that colonists felt about their current situation. It was a collective account of their grievances and their interpretation of the unfairness of how they were being treated […]
The Declaration of Independence, viewed by thousands each year, is one of the most revered documents in American history. Housed in a hermetically sealed glass enclosed frame located in the National Archives, it contains principles “both universal and eternal,” that are said to form the bedrock for American democracy. The first celebration of its importance took […]
During the era of the American Revolution, French and Spanish regiments were comprised primarily of Roman Catholics who customarily have objects and implements blessed before their use to invoke God’s blessing, favor and protection on them. Small objects, like medals, are blessed with a simple prayer. Larger, more important objects and occasions are blessed in […]
BOOK REVIEW: Thirteen Clocks: How Race United the Colonies and Made the Declaration of Independence by Robert G. Parkinson (Williamsburg, VA: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture; Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2021) The final grievance that Thomas Jefferson included in the Declaration of Independence used blatantly racist language, making it […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor James M. Smith on the political, legal, and philosophical influences considered by the First Continental Congress in the formulation of their Declaration of Rights, a 1774 draft that declared the American colonies independent, yet was never brought up for a full vote in that congress. […]
Clemson University Professor C. Bradley Thompson is a nationally recognized historian and Revolutionary Era scholar whose most recent book, America’s Revolutionary Mind, has earned copious praise and widespread acclaim. It is well-deserved. Nevertheless, Professor Thompson’s work is not without flaws as it renews, unnecessarily, the erroneous and ahistorical argument that God, as referenced in the […]
“We hold these truths to be self-evident . . . .” Who were the first people to hear Thomas Jefferson’s memorable words spoken in public? And who was the first person to read them? According to our embraced heritage, the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence happened in Philadelphia on July 8, 1776. […]
“Few people know the predicament we are in,” wrote George Washington, while he expressed the Continental army’s dire circumstances.[1] By January 1776, just six months into the Revolutionary War, the Continental army faced a crisis outside Boston. This particular crisis, not caused by a British attack, was a personnel issue. “Search the volumes of history through,” […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews Christopher Warren, historian and Curator of American History in the Rare Book & Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress, on his recent article in JAR discussing important documents of the American Revolution that are held in the collection. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published […]
It is often believed or reported that the 2nd New York Regiment of 1775, commanded by Col. Goose Van Schaick, morphed into the 1st New York that started late in 1776 as part of the third establishment of the Continental Army. This unit would continue through the derangement (better known today as “downsizing”) of the […]
In 1984, Ross Perot purchased a copy of the 1297 reissuance of the Magna Carta from the Brudenell family who had held the document for centuries. In 1988, it became a permanent fixture of the National Archives Museum where it stayed in the rotunda along with the American charters of freedom for several years. Nearly […]
Thomas Fletchall was a man of considerable influence in the South Carolina backcountry. Born in Maryland in 1725, Fletchall and his family relocated to South Carolina. By the 1770s, he owned a plantation in the Fairforest Creek region where he served his locality as a justice of the peace, coroner, and militia colonel for the […]
Our ancestors often believed in fate, and so do I. It was fate one day that brought me to the Fraunces Tavern in New York City. Fate that day that the waiter overheard me talking to my daughter. Fate that that same waiter told me of the museum on the top floor of the Fraunces […]
