Category: Uncategorized

While Pennsylvania and Virginia were bickering about which colony Pittsburgh was in, there was even more serious trouble between the colonists and some of the local Native Americans. The tribes involved included the Shawanese (or Shawnees), the Mingoes, the Cherokee, and the Delawares. The Virginia House of Burgesses mentioned the Indian “disturbances” as one of their main concerns when they met in May 1774, and they urged the governor, Lord Dunmore, to take action “to repel the hostile and perfidious attempts of those savage and barbarous enemies.”

Both Virginians and Pennsylvanians were united in their fear of and hostility toward the Indians. Some Virginian colonists petitioned Lord Dunmore to protect them. Other settlers blamed the Virginians for provoking the Indians. At any rate, it was some settlers or traders who evidently started the trouble, or at least helped to start it, by killing some Indians.

In their settlement on the Muskingum River, in present-day Ohio, the members of the United Brethren Mission were especially worried about the Indian troubles. They were there to convert the Indians to Christianity, and they had friends among the Indians, but the different tribes didn’t agree among themselves, and while some were friendly, others were not. The mission’s journal noted:

May 8. In the evening arrived an express from Gekelemuckepuck, with the disagreeable news that the white people on the Ohio had killed nine Mingoes, and wounded two; the messenger arrived, making a terrible noise as it is usual in war time. He had also a message from the Shawanese, which the Chief of Gekelemuck sent to us to take notice of “that their grandfather, the Delaware Nation, should not be concerned, but be easy and quiet; let the traders traffic among them, and not hurt them, or any other white people in that quarter…. This seems to signify as if they intended to keep the road to Pittsburg clear, and not hurt the Pennsylvanians, but only to contend with the Virginians.

A council among the Indians didn’t solve the problem, though some of them urged the others to make peace. David Zeisburger, a missionary at a place called Schonbrunn, wrote to the brethren at Muskingam on May 24:

We then were in hopes that the dark cloud would pass over soon, and peace be re-established, as the Shawanese in the Council at Woaketameka, had given seemingly a pretty favourable answer. But it appears now that they were only afraid of the Delaware party in the Council, for we heard since that a party of twenty warriors were gone to make an incursion [i.e. an attack] where the Mingoes have been killed.

Another of the United Brethren, known as “The COSH, alias JOHN BULL,” wrote at the same time:

We heard that three Cherokee Indians going down the river had killed one trader and wounded another, and plundered the canoe: the traders had imprudently shewn their silver things they had for trading. In the Fort [Fort Pitt] we heard that the Mingoes had stolen that night fifteen horses, and that they were all gone off from below Logtown. The white people began to be much afraid of an Indian war. We hastened to get home again, and after our return received the news that a company of Virginians, under one Cresap, enticed some of the Mingoes, living at the mouth of Yellow Creek, to the other side of the river, and gave them rum to make them drunk, and then they killed five; two others crossing the river to look after their friends were shot down as soon as they came ashore. Five more were going over the river whom they also waylaid, but the Indians perceiving them, turned their canoe to make their escape, but being immediately fired at, two were killed and two wounded. The day following they killed one Shawanese and one Delaware Indian, in a canoe down the river with two traders The same party killed John Gibson’s wife, a Shawanese woman; they further pursued a canoe, killed a Shawanese Chief, and wounded another man. They said they would kill and plunder all that were going up and down the river. But they soon fled and left the poor settlers as victims to the Indians; many are fled and left all their effects [i.e. belongings] behind…

We are in great distress and don’t know what to do; our Indians keep watch about us every night, and will not let us go out of town, even not into our corn fields. If there should be more bad news, we will be forced to move from here, for we are in danger from both sides.

The tension and violence grew worse and eventually led to what became known as Dunmore’s War, as the Virginian governor mobilized a few thousand men to fight the Indians. It was several months before the Indians were conclusively defeated and agreed to peace.

---

Sources

American Archives, 4th Series, Volume 1, pages 276, 283-7.

“Pittsburg is at least probably within the charter limits of this Province,” wrote John Penn, governor of Pennsylvania, to Lord Dunmore, governor of Virginia. There was a minor border war going on between the two colonies, and Penn was trying to reach a settlement. The problem was that the western parts of many of the colonies were not very well-defined; hence, different colonies laid claim to the same areas: New Hampshire and New York squabbled over what is now Vermont; there was friction between Pennsylvania and Connecticut (I haven’t figured that one out yet, since they didn’t share a border — at least, not on the map); and in early 1774, things were getting pretty heated in western Pennsylvania.

Lord Dunmore sent a man named John Conolly to establish Virginia’s authority in Pittsburgh and the surrounding area. Governor Penn sent Arthur St. Clair to deal with the situation. Conolly called for the people to organize as a militia (which, if they would recognize his authority, would enable him to carry out his plans). St. Clair had him arrested. Some of the locals, however, gathered all the same — with their guns. St. Clair wrote that they marched through town and then to Fort Pitt, “where a cask of rum was produced on the parade, and the head knocked out. This was a very effectual way of recruiting.” When St. Clair and some other Pennsylvania officials tried to get them to disperse, “they replied they had been invited there, but came with peaceable intentions, and would go home again without molesting any one; on which we left them; however, towards night, their peaceable disposition forsook them, and I should probably have felt their resentment had I not got intimation of their design. I thought it most prudent to keep out of their way.” (That last part was well put.)

Conolly didn’t stay in jail for long, but Lord Dunmore was outraged that the Pennsylvanians had dared to arrest someone who was acting under his authority. He wrote to governor Penn in March:

I do insist upon the most ample reparation being made for so great an insult on the authority of his Majesty’s Government of Virginia; and no less can possibly be admitted than the dismission of the clerk (St. Clair) of Westmoreland county, who had the audacity, without any authority, to commit [i.e. imprison] a Magistrate in the legal discharge of his trust, unless he (St. Clair) can prevail, by proper submission, on Mr. Conolly, to demand his pardon of me.

Penn was somewhat more diplomatic, but still firm, in his reply:

You must excuse my not complying with your Lordship’s requisition of stripping him [St. Clair], on this occasion of his offices and livelihood, which you will allow me to think not only unreasonable, but somewhat dictatorial.

Some people, governor Penn included, called for a temporary boundary line to be agreed upon — a sort of truce — while the two colonies worked at getting the King to settle the matter with an official survey. But there was more than one hothead involved, and the conflict went on even while the troubles between the colonies and Britain continued to grow.

---

Sources

American Archives, Series 4, Volume 1, pages 254-55, 260, 267.

Here’s another member of Parliament speaking out against changing the boundaries and government of Quebec, which was mostly populated by French Catholics and hadn’t been long under British control. George Johnstone, who had formerly been governor of the colony of West Florida (there were two Floridas at that time), said that he thought the Quebec Bill promoted the following ideas:

That a state of Slavery is better than a state of Freedom:

That the Popish Religion is better than the Protestant:

That Juries are unnecessary, and therefore to be disused:

That Monopolies are useful to Trade:

That French Laws and Commercial Regulations are preferable to English:

And that the Constitution which our ancestors had framed with so much wisdom, and established at the expense of so much blood and treasure, is to be destroyed by their wiser sons.

Ouch.

You may wonder why I’m bringing up Quebec again, but you can’t ignore it when studying the American Revolution. And the Quebec Bill in particular, coming as it did at the same time as the Intolerable Acts, and coinciding with fears and prejudices born of past wars with the French, was seen by many Americans as a tyrannical measure.

---

Source

American Archives, Series 4, Volume 2, page 204.

Sometimes, it seems that people in the 1700s were speaking a different language than what we speak today; other times, what they said seems just like what you heard on the news yesterday.

There are some interesting statements and arguments to be found among the debates in Parliament in the spring of 1774, when the focus was on tightening Britain’s control over the American colonies — Massachusetts in particular — in retaliation for the Boston Tea Party. I don’t recommend that you read all of the debates and proceedings, unless you really like that sort of thing; you’ll probably get bored after the first page. But here and there you find bits and pieces that enlightening and even entertaining.

For example, while the House of Commons was debating the Boston Port Bill, which stopped all shipping in and out of Boston, a member of Parliament named Henry Herbert supported the bill by saying that “the Americans were a strange set of People, and that it was in vain to expect any degree of reasoning from them; that instead of making their claim by argument, they always chose to decide the matter by tarring and feathering.” Therefore, he implied, the use of force was the proper way to deal with them.

And when Parliament was debating how to reorganize the government of Massachusetts, in order to help the governor (who was appointed by the King) to maintain order, George Byng commented that he was “not…at all surprised at hearing that the Governor of Boston had no power, when he had not a single place in his gift” (meaning that he didn’t have rewards, in the form of government positions and other favors, to dispense to those who supported or followed him). “Men look up to their superiors, and obey their directions according to the emoluments received from them; and when once there is no dependence in it, there will be no obedience.”

In other words: If you’re getting paid, then you’ll listen to your boss; otherwise, you won’t. And if you think you might get a bonus, then you’ll listen to your boss even more.

But perhaps most surprising to people of today would be the debate that took place over the Quebec Bill, which extended the boundaries and changed the government of the province of Quebec. This province had been under English control for just over a decade — since the end of the French and Indian War — and most of the people there were French, and Roman Catholic. This bill was not intended as a punishment to the other American colonies, but to many in both England and America, expanding a French-speaking territory and increasing the authority of its Catholic clergy seemed like a threat. One Thomas Townshend spoke in apparent horror of the bill:

Little did I think that, that a country as large as half of Europe, and within the Dominions of the Crown of Great Britain, was going to have the Romish religion established in it, as the religion of the State.

Little did I think, that so many thousand men, entitled and born to the rights of Englishmen, settling on the faith of the King’s proclamation, should, contrary to that assistance, contrary to the idea of the constitution, be subjected to French Papists [i.e. supporters of the Pope], and French laws.

That sounds like religious intolerance to us, and I suppose it is. But it must be remembered that the people of England and America were mostly Protestant, that religious wars between Catholics and Protestants were part of the not-too-distant past, and that Britain and France had been bitter rivals for generations.

Even though they talked a bit differently, and even though the current events on their minds were different than the ones we’re worried about, can you see anything similar between the arguments used in the 1770s and the 2010s?

---

Sources

Henry Herbert, speech in Parliament, 21 March 1774; American Archives, Series 4, Volume 1, 42.

George Byng, speech in Parliament, 28 March 1774; American Archives, Series 4, Volume 1, 68.

Thomas Townshend, speech in Parliament, 18 May 1774; American Archives, Series 4, Volume 1, 180.

A short passage from the Parliamentary record from June 1774 goes a long way toward illustrating the political climate in Britain at that time. A motion had been made and seconded to summon an additional witness to provide information about Canada (Parliament was debating a bill about Quebec). The Prime Minister, Lord North, was against the motion, not least because it would delay the bill, which he supported:

Mr. Dempster, Governor Johnstone, Mr. Burke, Mr. Baker, Mr. Turner, &c., spoke in favour of the motion, and none but Lord North against it.

When the question was put, the House divided: Yeas, 36; Nays, 90.

So it passed in the Negative.

Even before that, four other people had spoken in support of the motion. But it didn’t matter. They could talk all they wanted. Their opponents, on the other hand, didn’t need to talk much; they had numbers on their side, so all they had to do was vote.

The Quebec Bill wasn’t one of the “Intolerable Acts,” aimed at punishing Boston for the Tea Party — though many Americans saw it that way — but the same sort of thing happened in many of the debates regarding those acts. If you read the debates, the arguments of the opposition seem eloquent, forceful and persuasive; but the votes fell on the other side. You can argue all you want, but actions speak louder than words.

---

Source

American Archives, Series 4, Volume 1, page 203.

On the 25th of January [1774] a great number of rioters in the town of Boston, committed a most inhuman act of violence upon the person of John Malcolm.

Parliament was considering how to “better [secure] the execution of the Laws, and the just dependence of the Colonies upon the Crown and Parliament of Great Britain” — that was what the King had asked them to do — and in the process, they were reviewing a number of letters, newspapers and reports about the American colonies. This particular account came from a letter from Thomas Hutchinson, governor of Massachusetts, and it wasn’t the sort of thing that would inspire the members of Parliament to be lenient toward the people of Boston in the aftermath of the Tea Party.

John Malcolm (or Malcom) was a customs officer, and he wasn’t very well liked. Not only was his job the sort that could easily make a man unpopular (since he enforced trade regulations), but he had a nasty temper. He had been tarred and feathered a few months before when he evidently pushed his authority too far, but apparently that hadn’t taught him to be more diplomatic. Here’s the account of his second run-in with a mob, as a Parliamentary committee recorded it:

This unfortunate man having afterwards been hooted at in the streets, was provoked on the 25th, by a tradesman, who, he alleged, had several times before affronted him, to strike him with his cane; in consequence of which a warrant was issued against him, but the constable not being able to find him, a mob gathered about his house in the evening, and having broke his windows, he pushed through the broken window with his sword, and gave a slight scratch to one of the assailants; soon after which the mob entered his house, lowered him by a rope from an upper chamber into a cart, tore his clothes off, tarred his head and body, feathered him, and dragged him through the main street into King Street, from thence to Liberty Tree, and from thence to The Neck, as far as the gallows, where they whipt him, beat him with sticks, and threatened to hang him. Having kept him under the gallows above an hour, they carried him back in the same manner, to the extremity of the north end of the town, and returned him to his own house, so benumbed by the cold, having been naked near four hours, and so bruised, that his life was despaired of.

The man that Malcolm hit with a cane was none other than George Hewes, one of the “Indians” who had destroyed the tea in Boston harbor a month earlier (see his account in my previous post). Hewes reportedly came upon Malcolm threatening to hit a boy with his cane; he tried to stop him, and Malcolm decided to hit him instead. That was the spark that started the mob on fire that day, but they wouldn’t have gone so far if Malcolm hadn’t already been so unpopular. As the Parliamentary record put it, “Mr. Malcolm [had] for some time before been threatened by the populace with revenge for his free and open declarations against the late proceedings [such as the Boston Tea Party, and] had occasionally indiscreetly given them provocation.” That was putting it a bit mildly; but to Parliament, it was just one more stick on the fire; it encouraged them all the more to punish Boston harshly for the Tea Party.

For more on Malcolm’s tarring and feathering, see The Annotated Newspapers of Harbottle Dorr (an odd name but a valuable resource) or The Epic Tarring and Feathering of John Malcom.

---

Source

American Archives, Series 4, Volume 1, p. 31.

I suppose I should take a step back and say something more about the Boston Tea Party. It’s one of the most important events leading up to the American Revolution, so it’s certainly worth talking about. And it makes a great story — after all, who would have thought that dumping a bunch of tea in the ocean would eventually lead to an eight-year war?

The problem with the tea was NOT taxes. Taxes were one of the main things that the colonies and the British government had been fighting about for years, but this time it was different. The Tea Act didn’t change the tax on tea; in fact, it made it so the colonists could buy tea cheaper than before. But in doing so, it gave the East India Company an unfair advantage — a monopoly, really — in the tea market. Not surprisingly, colonial merchants weren’t too fond of that. And the idea that Parliament might do the same thing for other types of goods was just too much. That was why the radicals succeeded in uniting so many colonists to oppose this law.

The East India Company sent shiploads of tea to four cities in America. At New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston, South Carolina, mass meetings and protests prevented the tea from being unloaded and sold. But in Boston, things came down to a standoff: the governor (who was appointed by the King) wouldn’t let the tea ships leave, and the rebellious citizens (led by Samuel Adams and others) wouldn’t let them unload their cargo. On December 16th, 1773, the issue came to a head.

George Hewes, who participated in the Boston Tea Party, recalled many years later:

It was now evening, and I immediately dressed myself in the costume of an Indian, equipped with a small hatchet, which I and my associates denominated the tomahawk, with which, and a club, after having painted my face and hands with coal dust in the shop of a blacksmith, I repaired to Griffin’s wharf, where the ships lay that contained the tea. When I first appeared in the street after being thus disguised, I fell in with many who were dressed, equipped and painted as I was, and who fell in with me and marched in order to the place of our destination.

The “tea party” had been well planned and was carried out in an orderly manner. The “Indians” split into three groups, boarded the three ships, and asked the captains for the keys to the cargo holds.

We then were ordered by our commander to open the hatches and take out all the chests of tea and throw them overboard, and we immediately proceeded to execute his orders, first cutting and splitting the chests with our tomahawks, so as thoroughly to expose them to the effects of the water.

In about three hours from the time we went on board, we had thus broken and throws overboard every tea chest to be found in the ship, while those in the other ships were disposing of the tea in the same way, at the same time. We were surrounded by British armed ships, but no attempt was made to resist us.

While the tea was being thrown overboard, some people tried to sneak some of it into their pockets for their own use. Some of them were caught, but others doubtless went home with some free tea. The next morning, people went out in boats to destroy any tea that was still floating.

This unique demonstration was like a match that lit the fuse to a bomb. The King and Parliament were outraged, and they passed several laws that became known as the Coercive (or Intolerable) Acts. Those laws fired things up even more, especially in Massachusetts, until the bomb finally went off in April of 1775.

 

During the summer of 1774, political leaders throughout the American colonies debated on what to do about British policies. Some said they should try to put pressure on Britain by not buying merchandise from them. Others focused on preparing for war, in case that should ever happen. Others wanted to simply keep asking the King and Parliament to reconsider, to listen to reason, to take a different approach toward the colonies.

Bryan Fairfax was one of the latter. He was a close friend of George Washington, and while he strongly believed that American rights were being violated by British policies, and he was ready to stand firmly for what he believed, he favored the approach of asking: asking for justice, for the British government to changes policies — rather than trying to force them into it. He thought that a petition would be better than a boycott.

One reason he gave for this opinion was that while a lot of Americans talked big, they might not put their money where their mouth was. If the colonists decided to stop buying British goods, they would be making things harder for themselves; a lot of things weren’t manufactured much in America, and people would have to do without. You can understand that if you’ve ever gone on a diet: it’s not hard to say that you won’t eat any ice cream, but following through with that is another thing…

Fairfax wrote to George Washington, explaining his position and urging that they send another petition to the King, to ask for — rather than demand — a change in policies. Washington responded (it was on July 4th, of all days):

As to your political sentiments, I would heartily join you in them, so far as relates to a humble and dutiful petition to the throne, provided there was the most distant hope of success. But have we not tried this already? Have we not addressed the Lords, and remonstrated to the Commons? And to what end? Did they deign to look at our petitions? Does it not appear, as clear as the sun in its meridian brightness, that there is a regular, systematic plan formed to fix the right and practice of taxation upon us? Does not the uniform conduct of Parliament for some years past confirm this? Do not all the debates, especially those just brought to us, in the House of Commons on the side of government, expressly declare that America must be taxed in aid of the British funds, and that she has no longer resources within herself? Is there any thing to be expected from petitioning after this? Is not the attack upon the liberty and property of the people of Boston, before restitution of the loss to the India Company was demanded, a plain and self-evident proof of what they are aiming at? Do not the subsequent bills (now I dare say acts), for depriving the Massachusetts Bay of its charter, and for transporting offenders into other colonies or to Great Britain for trial, where it is impossible from the nature of the thing that justice can be obtained, convince us that the administration is determined to stick at nothing to carry its point? Ought we not, then, to put our virtue and fortitude to the severest test?

Washington wasn’t a flaming radical. If he were alive today, you wouldn’t find him as a TV or radio talk show host. He stood for ideals, but he was a realist. (Or, to irreverently borrow a phrase from Meredith Willson’s song “Shipoopi,” in The Music Man, he had his “head in the clouds, feet on the ground.”) His own virtue and fortitude would soon be put to a very severe test; almost exactly a year after he wrote this letter, he took command of the newly-formed, makeshift American army near Boston, and he spent the next eight years working and fighting for his ideals. Without a lot of virtue and fortitude, he wouldn’t have made it through that test. Fairfax wasn’t sure that the colonists would be able to carry through with their plan; Washington wasn’t sure either, but he saw no viable alternative, and he was determined to do what he could.

---

Source

“From George Washington to Bryan Fairfax, 4 July 1774,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified March 30, 2017, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/02-10-02-0075. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Colonial Series, vol. 10, 21 March 1774 – 15 June 1775, ed. W. W. Abbot and Dorothy Twohig. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1995, pp. 109–110.]