On this day 250 years ago , the Massachusetts Spy published on its front page radical arguments that would underpin a Revolution to establish a democratic government:

“The people at large, are . . . the only safe repository of the power of framing, amending and repealing laws. . . .

“The province was from its foundation intended a free and sovereign state; that is, a state having all the powers of ruling, ordering and governing, as well as . . . defending itself. . . .

“For any man, or number of men, on earth to declare themselves entitled to make laws which shall be of sufficient validity to bind whole provinces, without consulting said provinces . . . or obtaining the consent of one individual intended to be governed by them, is such an open usurpation, such a direct violation of the fundamental laws of nature and nations, of the Magna Carta of Great-Britain, and the charter of this province . . . Laws they are not, say the whole body of constitutional writers, to which the people do not consent . . . .”

Source: https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83021194/1773-11-11/ed-1/?sp=1&st=image

On this day 250 years ago, Moses Brown of Providence, Rhode Island, one of the four Brown brothers who were the leading Patriots in that colony, freed his slaves with this letter of manumission:

“Whereas I am clearly convinced that the buying and selling of men of what color soever is contrary to the Divine Mind manifest in the conscience of all men however some may smother and neglect its reprovings, and being also made sensible that the holding of negroes in slavery however kindly treated has a tendency to encourage the iniquitous practice of importing them from their native country and is contrary to that justice, mercy, and humanity enjoined as the duty of every christian, I do therefore by these presents for myself, my heirs etc. manumit and set free the following negroes being all I am possessed of or any ways interested in.”

Unfortunately, Moses Brown’s brothers did not recognize the hypocrisy of fighting for their own Liberty while enslaving others, and they continued to own and trade slaves.

Source: https://slaveryandjusticereport.brown.edu/sections/slavery-the-slave-trade-and-brown/

On this day 250 years ago the Essex Gazette in Salem, Massachusetts republished a reply by the commissioners who would receive the East India Company’s tea in Boston indicating that they were not intimidated by the threats issued by the Sons of Liberty. It was becoming clear to the Patriots that rallies, pamphlets and warnings would not be sufficient to deter their fellow Americans who were willing to assist Britain’s plan to impose taxation without representation on the American colonies.

Source: https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/bitstream/handle/1808/6975/Neville_ku_0099M_11002_DATA_1.pdf;jsessionid=5C813ECFBB9B1A5897523DA4CE69F91F?sequence=1 at p. 30 & n. 26

On this day 250 years ago The Boston-Gazette, and Country Journal published on its front page a letter from “A Countryman” from Chester County, Pennsylvania that had previously been published in Philadelphia. The letter argued that “Surely there is not a man in North America so lost to virtue and common sense as to doubt whether the revenue acts [which imposed taxes on the colonists without their consent] are destructive of liberty [and] whether they should be opposed by every man who loves his country.”

Source: https://www.masshist.org/dorr/volume/4/sequence/471

On this day 250 years ago, George Washington was visiting the home of his sister-in-law Anna Maria Dandridge Bassett (Martha Washington’s sister) and her husband Burwell Bassett Sr. Burwell Bassett was a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses with Washington and would join his brother-in-law as a member of the First and Second Virginia Conventions that took control of Virginia after Royal Governor Dunmore dissolved the House of Burgesses and continue as an elected member of the Virginia legislature throughout the Revolution.

Source: https://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/default.xqy?keys=GEWN-print-01-03-02-0003-0022-0007

Today in Virginia we are again electing our State legislators. I hope you exercise your right to vote for the representatives of your choice, the right that our Patriot antecedents risked all to gain for themselves and future generations of Virginians and Americans. Please choose the candidates who honor the legacy of the Patriots who founded our Nation by showing their commitment to protecting the right to vote of all Americans now and in the future.

On this day 250 years ago George Washington was authorized to survey 10,000 acres along the Kanawha River in western Virginia (now in West Virginia) by the Virginia Governor’s Council. He had been granted 5000 acres for his service in the French and Indian War and purchased the remaining acreage from other officers who had been granted land for their service. Within a year Native Americans would be fighting Virginia militia in this area and the combat would continue throughout the Revolution.

Source: https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/the-kanawha-tracts/

On this day 250 years Patriots in both Boston and New York City held public meetings to organize opposition to the importation of East India Company tea. The Sons of Liberty in New York organized a huge crowd outside of the King’s Arms coffeehouse to protest the tea then on its way to New York. In Boston,  Samuel Adams called a town meeting at Faneuil Hall that elected John Hancock as moderator and then declared anyone who aids or abets the “unloading receiving or vending the tea is an enemy to America!” 

Sources: https://www.onthisday.com/date/1773/november/5; https://www.bostonteapartyship.com/faneuil-hall; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuccotti_Park

On this day 250 years ago Elizabeth Griscom of Philadelphia ran off to New Jersey to elope with John Ross. You will recognize her and her contributions to American independence under the name “Betsy Ross”.

Source: https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/betsy-ross

On this day 250 years ago, citizens of Boston met under the Liberty Tree and adopted the Resolutions of the Town of Boston written by Sam Adams that resolved

“That a virtuous and steady opposition to the Ministerial Plan of governing
America, is absolutely necessary to preserve even the shadow of Liberty, and is a duty which every Freeman in America owes to his Country to himself and to his Posterity [and]

That whoever shall . . . in any wise aid or abet in unloading receiving or vending the Tea sent or to be sent out by the East India Company while it remains subject to the payment of a duty here is an Enemy to America”

Source: http://www.samuel-adams-heritage.com/documents/resolutions-of-town-of-boston.html

On this day 250 years ago the Sons of Liberty in Boston delivered the following letter to one of the consignees of the tea then on ships on their way to Boston:

The Freemen of this Province understand, from good authority, that there is a quantity of tea consigned to your house by the East India Company, which is destructive to the happiness of every well-wisher to his country. It is therefore expected that you personally appear at [the] Liberty Tree, on Wednesday next, at twelve o’clock at noon day, to make a public resignation of your commission…

Fail not upon your peril.

Source:

Click to access AP-US-History-I-Lesson-4-Steeping-Tea-in-Boston-Harbor.pdf