Mercy Otis Warren: Revolutionary Propagandist
byOn March 26, 1772, The Massachusetts Spy ran an unusual item on page 3 of that day’s newspaper: an advertisement for a dramatic performance of…
On March 26, 1772, The Massachusetts Spy ran an unusual item on page 3 of that day’s newspaper: an advertisement for a dramatic performance of…
On June 1, 1774, in response to the Boston Tea Party, the newly appointed governor, Lt.-Gen. Thomas Gage, shut down the towns’ harbor. All…
Parliament responded to the Boston Tea Party by imposing on the colony of Massachusetts a series of Acts, collectively called the Coercive Acts. The…
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR Associate Editor and historian, J. L. Bell on Samuel Dyer, a person few have heard of,…
As recounted in a previous article, in October 1774 a sailor named Samuel Dyer returned to Boston, accusing high officers of the British army…
On October 10, 1774, the brigantine Charlotte arrived at Newport, Rhode Island, from London. On board was a sailor named Samuel Dyer, and he told a…
In 1817, as popular sentiment finally forced Connecticut to adopt a new constitution separating church and state, Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Adams: “I…
It may have been Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s patriotic paean that belatedly canonized a heroic horseman as a key figure of the American Revolution, but…
Tea in 18th Century America by Kimberly K. Walters. (K. Walters at the Sign of the Gray Horse, 2019) Best-selling author Lucinda Brant offers enthusiastic…
The skirmishes at Lexington and Concord are often considered the beginning of the American Revolution, a violent change in the controversy between Great Britain…
The Boston Tea Party famously saw the destruction of the almost 300 chests worth of tea, tossed into the harbor by “Indians” on December 16,…
By the end of 1772, Catharine Macaulay had completed and published the first five volumes of her History of England from the Accession of…
The story of the Boston Tea Party has been told and retold endlessly. It has become a part of American mythos. On the evening…
The news that many dreaded reached Virginia in May 1774. The British parliament, determined to punish the inhabitants of Boston for the destruction of…
Myth: “The fate of a nation was riding that night,” Longfellow wrote. Fortunately, a heroic rider from Boston woke up the sleepy-eyed farmers just…
Myth: Toward evening on December 16, 1773, Francis Rotch, beleaguered owner of one of the tea-laden ships in the Boston Harbor, announced to thousands…
Have you ever tried to imagine what it would have been like to witness an important historical event? If so, the Boston Tea Party…
On 6 December 1773, Lt. Col. Alexander Leslie of the 64th Regiment of Foot wrote a letter to the highest ranking official in the…
1. MYTH: The Tea Act imposed a tax on American colonists (which is why tax protestors often revere the Boston Tea Party). BUSTED: The…
In April 1775, reports about the bloodshed at Lexington and Concord took five days to reach Philadelphia and nearly three weeks to reach Charleston,…
“No Tax on Tea! A Colonial Tea Debate”[1] On Friday July 5, I returned to the Old South Meeting House for the “No Tax…
My Quest As a historian, I am interested in how people understand and interact with the past. I find the question of how present-day…