On this day 250 years ago Daniel Boone led his family and five other families from their homes in North Carolina to travel on the Wilderness Road from Virginia into Kentucky. Their planned settlement in Kentucky was aborted two weeks later by an attack by a party of Indians in which his son and others were brutally killed, although Boone and his family did establish a settlement in Kentucky two years later. The westward expansion of White American settlements and Native American resistance to the settlements were factors that contributed to the American Revolution.
Category: Uncategorized
-
On this day 250 years ago, William Fitzhugh of Calvert County was appointed Commissary General of Maryland by the Royal Governor of the colony. Fitzhugh was a close friend of George Washington, and like Washington, chose the Patriot side in the Revolution. He continued in office as Commissary General after the Patriots effectively took control of the Maryland government in 1774, and later served in the Maryland state legislature.
Source: https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc2900/sc2908/000001/000662/html/am662–39.html
Note to readers: I am not an objective historian and make no apologies that I consider the Patriots to be the good guys (even if some them did some terrible things) and the British and the Loyalists to be the bad guys (even though I recognize that many of them were honorable people) of this history. I write this blog to celebrate the achievements and sacrifices of the Patriots as they overthrew British rule and created the independent United States of America.
-
Benjamin Franklin published in London his satire An Edict by the King of Prussia. The Edict points out the absurdity of London’s claims of entitlement to control and enjoy all benefits from the American colonies by inventing similar claims by the King of Prussia of dominion over England.
Source: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-20-02-0223
-
On this day 250 years ago, the Boston Committee of Correspondence wrote that “Our Enemies . . . are alarmed at the Union which they see is already established in this Province, and the Confederacy into which they expect the whole Continent of America, will soon be drawn, for the Recovery of their violated RIGHTS” and urged the Weymouth Committee of Correspondence (and presumably other Committees) to “communicate to us any Discoveries or just Suspicions of their sinister Designs; and also, that you will never be wanting in encouraging that Unity and Harmony in Councils, so essentially necessary to the obtaining the great End we have in View, the Salvation of Ourselves and Posterity from Tyranny & Bondage.”
-
On this day 250 years ago, Nathaniel Saunders of Orange County, Virginia was convicted in neighboring Culpeper County of unlawful preaching and sedition. Saunders was a Baptist preacher although it was against the law in Virginia and most of the colonies to conduct religious services not sanctioned by the established Church of England. Although there is no record that Saunders served in any capacity in the Revolutionary War, the members of the “Dissenting” churches such as the Baptists and especially the Presbyterians were later the backbone of the Patriot forces in Revolution. They were rebelling against both the Government of England and the Church of England. James Madison was from Orange County and was a neighbor of Saunders. Some scholars speculate that Madison’s advocacy of Freedom of Religion and Separation of Church and State stemmed at least in part from his familiarity as an idealistic 22-year old just graduated from college with the injustice of the conviction and imprisonment of Nathaniel Saunders.
Source: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2220338
-
On this day 250 years ago, George Washington wrote a letter to John West asking for his assistance in contacting veterans of the Virginia militia who had served under Washington in the French and Indian War to let them know that there would be an upcoming distribution of land in the Ohio River valley for veterans. American settlers in the Ohio valley encroaching on Indian lands, and Britain’s subsequent attempt to curtail settlements west of the Appalachians, were among the causes that precipitated the Revolution.
-
On this day (or actually yesterday, since I am writing this well after midnight), 250 years ago, the Providence Gazette published the last of its weekly advertisements for subscribers for a new edition of English Liberties, or, The free-born Subject’s Inheritance. This book had been written in the previous century by a Scottish journalist, but had been edited five times since to include more recent citations for legal arguments in support of liberty under English law. Many of the arguments that American lawyers used to oppose the Tea Act and other British infringements on the liberties of Americans were derived directly from this book. John Carter, the publisher of the Providence Gazette, used his paper to argue vociferously for American freedoms, and he had edited and published the sixth edition of English Liberties specifically to add the most recent precedents to support American arguments against Parliament.
Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1892182 (This 1952 historical journal includes an article that discusses the advertisement. I have been looking, but have not yet found a copy of the September 18, 1773 issue of the Providence Gazette online.)
-
The Maryland Gazette included on its front page a report from London dated July 3 that the British Ministry was planning to reappoint former Governor Thomas Pownal of Massachusetts because “nothing but discord, confusion, and the greatest dissatisfaction, have taken place in that province, since he resigned the government of it.” Pownal had been a popular governor in contrast to his successor, the widely-disliked Thomas Hutchinson. The British Government instead ended up replacing the unpopular Hutchinson in 1774 with General Thomas Gage and then abolished the civilian government of Massachusetts altogether.
Source: https://archive.org/details/mg09161773/page/n3/mode/2up
-
Benjamin Franklin published an anonymous letter in the Public Advertiser in London to bring attention to the “Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One” that had been published only three days earlier. Franklin did not need to be worried; his “Rules” were immediately noticed by British officials, and their overreaction to his criticism helped to spark the Revolution.
Source: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-20-02-0216
-
Couriers carrying the Resolution of the Georgia Assembly creating a Committee of Correspondence, as well as the initial correspondence from Georgia’s Committee would have been traveling by boat, or horse, or both to Williamsburg. Boston and other American cities. Undoubtedly, other correspondence among the seven Committees of Correspondence were also en route. I am sure one of our future Founding Fathers was writing a letter to another discussing plans for resistance to Parliamentary overreach. If I had dug into the primary sources of the records of the multiple Committees of Correspondence or the letters of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams or our other Founding Fathers, I am sure I would have found something specific dated September 12, 1773 that I could cite here.
However, I have not dug out anything from the multiple secondary sources I consulted that I can cite for today’s post, or for September 13 or 14. If anyone reading my blog is aware of something to mention for these dates, please pass along the reference!
On This Day In The Revolution 