This Week on Dispatches: Brooke Barbier on John Hancock
byOn this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews author and JAR contributor Brooke Barbier on her new book, King Hancock: The Radical Influence of a…
John Hancock
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John Hancock’s Politics and Personality in Ten Quotes
byNearly every American knows the name of John Hancock, but often for little more than his signature on the Declaration of Independence. Hancock was…
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John Adams and Nathanael Greene Debate the Role of the Military
byNathanael Greene is rightly remembered as one of the great combat leaders of the American Revolution. But he was also a deep political thinker,…
This Week on Dispatches: J. L. Bell on the Secrets of Samuel Dyer, PART I
byOn 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,…
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The Secrets of Samuel Dyer
byAs recounted in a previous article, in October 1774 a sailor named Samuel Dyer returned to Boston, accusing high officers of the British army…
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The Return of Samuel Dyer: An Attempted Assassination in Revolutionary Boston
byOn 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…
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Insurrection and Speculation: A Farmer, Financier, and a Surprising “Sharper” Seeded the Constitution
byThe January 6, 2021 assault on the Capital rocked America, but it was by no means the largest, or even the most threatening, armed…
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The Frankford Advice: “Place Virginia at the Head of Everything”
bySince James Thomas Flexner’s 1974 Pulitzer recognition for his biography of George Washington, one of the axioms of the American founding is that the…
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Major Robert Rogers and the American Revolution
byAfter his exploits during the French and Indian War, Robert Rogers (1732-1795) was indisputably the most famous military leader born in the thirteen colonies;…
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Why Did the Signers of the Declaration Engage in this Treasonous Act?
bySpeaking on Independence Day, 1821, John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the Unites States and the son of John Adams, a signer of the…
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Contributor Question: Remembered for the Wrong Reason?
byWe asked our contributors: Which personality of the American Revolution or the founding era (other than Benedict Arnold) is remembered for the wrong reasons,…
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“That a General be Appointed to command”
byAfter the events at Lexington and Concord on April 19, it appeared that military force of some sort might be warranted in dealing with…
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Following Paul Revere Home: The Demolition and Preservation of Boston’s Landmarks
byHere’s one of the things I love most about Boston: If it were possible to drop Paul Revere in downtown today, he could, quite…
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If George Washington had not Run for President . . . ?
byThis month we asked our contributors: If George Washington had not run for President in 1789, who would you like to have had as…
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The First Efforts to Limit the African Slave Trade Arise in the American Revolution: Part 1 of 3, The New England Colonies
byThe American Revolution changed the way Americans viewed one of the world’s great tragedies: the African slave trade. The long march to end the…
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The Fall of Fort Washington: The “Bunker Hill Effect”?
byIt was the one of the worst defeats suffered by the Americans during the War for Independence, certainly the worst over which George Washington…
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Jacob Duché: Mixing Religion and Politics During the Revolution
byIn a country in which one of the main constitutional principles is separation of church and state, it is counter-intuitive to find that there…
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The Tragedy of Henry Laurens
byIt wasn’t really their fault, they said. Slavery, men of the founding generation liked to argue, was brought to the colonies by Britain. It…
The Declaration of Independence: Did John Hancock Really Say That about his Signature?—and Other Signing Stories
byWhen we picture the Declaration of Independence, most of us immediately think of the document handwritten on parchment and signed at the bottom by…
Resolutions Shared by Two Towns 300 Miles Apart
byThe year was 1773. On May 10, Parliament had passed the Tea Act allowed the East India Company to sell tea directly to the…
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How John Adams Won the Hancock Trial
byHistorian Oliver Morton Dickerson was studying American colonial newspapers when he noticed identical articles appearing in newspapers in New York, Pennsylvania, Boston, elsewhere in…
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Most Overrated Revolutionary?
byJohn Paul Jones. A good ship captain and tenacious fighter but an abysmally bad squadron commander and a tireless self-promoter and schemer, who was…