Benjamin Franklin made two missions to London prior to the Revolution; the first from 1757 to 1762, the second from 1764 to 1775. In the final four months of his second mission he became involved in three efforts to secure a peaceful solution to the constitutional divergence that was growing between England and her American […]
Peter Oliver, the Crown-appointed Chief Justice of provincial Massachusetts, knew how to discredit popular protest. Mindless and incapable of acting on their own, crowds that opposed British imperial policies “were like the Mobility of all Countries, perfect Machines, wound up by any Hand who might first take the Winch.” They needed a director who could […]
Like thousands of colonists in British North America, Virginians were alarmed in the summer of 1774 by news of Parliament’s harsh reaction to the Boston Tea Party (which occurred months earlier in December 1773). Disturbed by the military occupation of Boston, the closure of Boston Harbor, and the suspension of Massachusetts’s charter and colonial government, […]
The summer of 1774 was eventful for the colonists of British North America. News of Parliament’s harsh measures against Massachusetts, and particularly Boston, for the destruction of East India tea back in December 1773, produced much anxiety and sympathy for the Bostonians from their fellow colonists. Many agreed with Edmund Pendleton, a moderate member of […]
Two men are sitting drinking pints of ale in a Boston tavern. One is a strapping, full-faced young merchant given to loud laughter; the other has shoulders broadened by work in an iron forge, but is lame, asthmatic and a little unsure of himself in the big city. It’s 1774 and the men are meeting […]
The news that many dreaded reached Virginia in May 1774. The British parliament, determined to punish the inhabitants of Boston for the destruction of thousands of pounds of tea in December 1773, closed Boston Harbor to all commerce until restitution was paid to the East India Company and the King’s treasury. The sum included the […]
Do you think there was a greater strategy behind most of the pre-war violence, or was it primarily raw emotion and vengeance? There was a greater strategy but, unfortunately, that strategy routinely used raw emotion and vengeance against its opponents. As early as the Stamp Act Crisis, the Sons of Liberty learned to target […]
Edward Snowden and the NSA documents. Julian Assange and the WikiLeaks diplomatic cables. Daniel Elsberg and the Pentagon papers. Benjamin Franklin and the Hutchinson letters? Snowden, Assange, and Elsberg all considered themselves to be self-appointed whistleblowers. Individuals who wanted to open governments by disclosing sensitive government documents. Without a doubt, all three started huge controversies […]
1. Myth: Tarring and feathering could be fatal. Busted: The notion that hot tar caused severe, sometimes fatal burns is based on the assumption that “tar” meant the asphalt we use on roads, which is typically stored in liquid state at about 300°F (150°C). But in the eighteenth century “tar” meant pine tar, used for […]
As a near-life-long New York resident and “struggling actor,” it is always a pleasure to see the ever-present throngs of theatre-goers throughout the City. Theatre has for well over a century been recognized as an American art form, especially the musicals that so dominate Broadway. Yet while common today, the theatre had a far different, […]
If Ray Raphael had a personal mission statement, it would likely be three sentences from a recent profile story in Reed magazine: Ray wants to rescue history from mythology. He wants our understanding of revolutionary America to be based on evidence, not ideological convenience. And he won’t stop until he gets it right. I’ve had […]
At what point during the American Revolution is it most acceptable to classify colonists as either Patriots or Loyalists? 1776. Before this, many people who were indisputably Patriots (John Dickinson, James Wilson) were also loyal; in fact, most still professed loyalty. They were being forced to make choices in 1773, 1774, 1775—but after July […]
In the fall of 1774, just before adjourning, the First Continental Congress outlined the Articles of Association, an aggressive plan of economic resistance to Great Britain that included nonconsumption, nonimportation and nonexportation. These boycotts were to be enforced by local committees and supplant Colonial governments. Westchester, New York Reverend Samuel Seabury responded with a series […]
I started with an innocent question about the British Parliament’s Quartering Act of 1774: Did American Patriots list that law as one of the “Intolerable Acts” that led them to outright rebellion against Great Britain? Some of the Revolutionary histories I’d read said that was one of the five Intolerable Acts, along with the Boston […]
Myth: Americans did not formally resolve for independence until 1776. Busted: On October 4, 1774, the town meeting of Worcester, Massachusetts, declared that British rule was over and it was time to form a new government, not answerable to the Crown and Parliament. This act by a public body was twenty-one months before Congress approved […]
When researching the biography of Revolutionary War hero Dr. Joseph Warren, I had the unexpected pleasure of becoming acquainted with his fiancée Miss Mercy Scollay. Readers of the Journal of the American Revolution may already be familiar with Joseph Warren as the author of the foundational Suffolk Resolves, head of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety […]
