On this day 250 years ago, at Beaver Creek in what is now West Virginia, three traders were camped after canoeing down the Ohio from Pittsburgh in order to trade with the Shawnee for pelts. That morning the traders were attacked by party of four Cherokee without warning. One of the traders named Murphy was killed, and another trader named Stephens was wounded. This attack would soon lead to war between Virginians and the Shawnees and their allies, a war that continued throughout the Revolutionary War and for years afterward, with only intermittent periods of peace.

Source: Glenn F. Williams, Dunmore’s War at 56.

On this day 250 years ago in Savannah, Governor Wright of Georgia met with the Creek Indian Chiefs Emistisiguo, Alleck, and the second man of Little Tallassee. In this meeting Governor Wright urged Emistisiguo and the other Creeks not to attack British colonists, but Emistisiguo would later lead raids on the Georgia colonists at the request of the British and die in one such attackd near sSavannah in 1782.

Source: Edward J. Cashin, William Bartram and the American Revolution on the Southern Frontier at 93-94.

250 years ago in Williamsburg, Virginia, Clementina Rind, publisher of the Virginia Gazette, executed a Deed of Trust for her printing press and household items to secure a loan from the Mayor and three other prominent citizens of Williamsburg. This loan enabled Rind to continue publication of the Virginia Gazette as the favored publication for Patriots in Virginia and to become the official publisher for the Virginia House of Burgesses. Unfortunately, Clementina Rind would contract an illness and pass away before the end of the year. But her brief career showed that Patriot women, not just men, contributed to our nation’s Independence.

Sources: https://encyclopediavirginia.org/11815hpr-97374445406e0bc/

https://virginiahistory.org/learn/clementina-rind

On this day 250 years ago, the courts of Virginia closed. The law that set court fees expired, and Virginia courts need the fees to operate. Lord Dunmore will end up dissolving the Virginia Assembly before the Assembly can enact a new law in its upcoming session, all the courts remain closed until 1776. In the meantime, British creditors cannot force any action to recover debts in Virginia

Source: http://www.ouramericanrevolution.org/index.cfm/page/view/p0325 at

On this day 250 years ago the Newport Mercury in Rhode Island published the open letter condemning slavery that the formerly enslaved poet Phillis Wheatley had written to the Reverend Samson Occom, a member of the Mohegan tribe of Native Americans, who was similarly preaching abolition. The open letter had been published previously and I have already blogged on the anniversary of an earlier publication of the letter.

But Phillis Wheatley’s stirring words are worth repeating. They illustrate that the demand for freedom for African Americans and Native Americans was also a product of the Revolution that started 250 years ago, even if it has taken much longer to achieve than Independence from Great Britain, and in no small part, remains a work in process today:

“in every human Breast, God has implanted a Principle, which we call Love of Freedom; it is impatient of Oppression, and pants for Deliverance; and . . . the same Principle lives in us. . . . I desire . . . to convince them of the strange Absurdity of their Conduct whose Words and Actions are so diametrically, opposite. How well the Cry for Liberty, and the reverse Disposition for the exercise of oppressive Power over others agree, I humbly think it does not require the Penetration of a Philosopher to determine.”

Source:

History Bytes: Phillis Wheatley’s Newport Mercury Connection

On this day 250 years ago the Maryland General Assembly was in session in Annapolis but had adjourned for this Sunday so the Members of the Assembly could attend church. Nothing momentous was being considered in the Assembly, but the representatives of the people in Maryland, as in all the American Colonies, were engaged in the routine business of government.

Source: https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc2900/sc2908/000001/000064/html/am64–287.html

250 years ago in London Lord Dartmouth wrote a letter to Governor Thomas Hutchinson of Massachusetts informing him that General Thomas Gage had been appointed as Governor of Massachusetts. Dartmouth indicated that Gage’s appointment was temporary, and that Hutchinson should expect to resume office at a later date. However, when Hutchinson departed for England in June, he would never return to
Massachusetts.

Source: https://www.colonialsociety.org/publications/4959/appointment-general-gage

On this day 250 years ago in London Thomas Paine was fired from his job as an exciseman (i.e., tax collector) by the British Government for attempting to organize his fellow excisemen to demand higher wages. Before the end of the year Paine would be in America and soon thereafter causing much more trouble for the British Government than he did in London.

Source: https://www.thomaspaine.org/pages/resources/foner-s-introduction-to-the-collected-works.html

On this day 250 years ago Royal Governor William Tryon’s ship departed New York City for London. Tryon took a leave of absence as Governor of New York for personal health and financial reasons. When he returned to New York in June 1775 the Colonies would be at war with Britain.

Source: https://allthingsliberty.com/2021/05/william-tryon-and-the-park-that-still-bears-his-name/

On this day 250 years ago in London, Lord Dartmouth, the British Colonial Secretary, wrote a letter to Governor Dunmore ruling that Virginia veterans of the French and Indian War were not entitled to claim bounty land. The British Government’s denial of colonial claims for western lands infuriated Patriot leaders such as George Washington, George Mason and Thomas Jefferson and helped precipitate the Revolutionary War.

Source: Woody Holton, “The Ohio Indians and the Coming of the American Revolution”, The Journal of Southern History 453 at 472 found at https://www.jstor.org/stable/2210989?read-now=1&seq=20