The Royal Wedding of 1736

A portrait of Augusta of Saxony-Gotha from the time of her wedding in 1736

Credit: National Portrait Gallery

Royal weddings have a way of drawing the attention of many dreaming of romance and a prince charming. Depending on the couple, millions of people watch today on televisions from all around the world. We in modern times are spared no detail to small of these affairs, almost every second of the happy couple's day is filmed and photographed. 


Who made the bride's dress? What crown will she wear? Those marrying into the British royal family or 'Firm' as they call it now, have a particular set of pressures to consider. Media attention focuses on the smallest of details and familial relationships are inevitably put under duress, not to mention security concerns.


Yes, for those at the heart of this week's Royal Wedding, that of H.R.H. Prince William of Wales to the lovely Miss Catherine Middleton, there are many different details to be concerned about. While the spotlight will fall on Kate Middleton this Friday, she is not the first royal bride to negotiate a complicated set of rules and customs in the run up to her big day. However, she is probably hoping for a more peaceful married life than some of her predecessors.


Beheadings are out, so she can relax a bit...


But that's where similarities end. Nothing of this weeks celebration can compare with the experiences of Augusta of Saxony-Gotha, daughter in law of George II.


At the end of April 1736, Augusta of Saxony-Gotha arrived in London to marry Frederick, Prince of Wales, eldest son of George II. Augusta and Frederick did not enjoy the luxury of an 8 year courtship – Augusta had met Frederick’s father on one of George II’s visits to Hanover and this was sufficient to seal the deal.


She had been chosen because the provisions of the Act of Settlement (1701) made it imperative for members of the royal family to marry Protestants to retain their inheritance rights. George II’s relations with some of the major protestant powers, like Prussia, were strained and therefore brides had to be sought from lesser German princely families.


Her first meeting with her future husband was a few days before the wedding. Augusta found herself in a foreign country, knowing virtually nobody and with little idea of what to expect.

"Her parents had told her that there would be no need to learn English as they assumed that after twenty years of rule by German princes, everyone in Britain would now be speaking German."


(Boy, was she in for a surprise.)

The wedding itself took place in the Chapel Royal in St James’s palace and featured a new work composed for the occasion by the royal family’s favourite composer, George Frederick Handel. Prints of the ceremony were produced and circulated widely – commemorative memorabilia is nothing new. Augusta, however, had little say in the decoration of the venue. Just as this year, Easter was very late in 1736 so there was little time between Easter services on 25 April and the wedding on 27 April to do much to the Chapel Royal.


Some two hundred seventy-five years after Augusta’s marriage, Catherine Middleton faces similar difficulties in her new role. She, at least, has had the chance to get to know her future husband in advance. Augusta’s marriage as many colonial weddings was not for love but for politics.

Her major task was to help perpetuate the royal line by providing an heir. It just so happens that this heir, the future King George III, born in 1738, would find himself in the most bitter fight with patriots wanting nothing more to do with royalty of any kind.


King George III died blind, deaf and mad at Windsor Castle on January 29, 1820. 


I invite you to read more about King George III, for there is a great story behind this man so few of us in America had regard for, but was dearly loved by his people of Great Britian. 






To learn more about his parent's wedding please take the link below as,


You are Invited to a Royal Wedding!

Thomas Jefferson by Ken Burns - Part 1

This is a beautiful telling of Thomas Jefferson by Ken Burns. To know the essense of a great man is a priviledge. There are several parts to this telling. I present the first for you here today.


"On matters of style, swim with the current, on matters of principle, stand like a rock."
— Thomas Jefferson

Today's Colonial Gift

Today's Colonial Gift from Whiskers is about finding female ancestors! Whiskers imparts the following advice for all of you who are working so hard to find your female ancestors. 


Many of you face this problem when working on your lines. Rub your whiskers, and dig in to this morsel here. The issue is that women usually change their names when they marry. However finding a maiden name is essential to the full development of a family line. The best place to locate a maiden name is on a marriage record. If that is not available, other vital records may have the information. In various times in history, the legal and social status of women has changed much.

So Whiskers suggests you look for the birth certificates of her children, her death certificate, even her husband's death certificate. You may also have luck with the marriage or death certificate of her children. In addition, Baptism records may also contain the mother's maiden name, even in older church records. Look for unual middle names for her children, as naming a child with the Mother's maiden name is often seen. For example, if her son is named, Robert Bolling Jefferson.

You can smile....

Another possible source is her obituary, which might mention surviving brothers. Also look for obituaries of sisters or men you believe are her brothers. Continue to look for wills, as a woman may be mentioned in her father's or mother's will. 


Good Luck, with patience and methodical research, you will succeed!

Lexington and Concord - This Day in History

Historians do not always agree about the happenings of this day in colonial history. There are many accountings of what became the 'First Battles of the American Revolution.' I speak of course of the battles of Concord and Lexington. Many dispute the number of men present on the colonial side, if they were in fact militiamen at all. There is even dispute among scholars as to who fired the first shot. Some say the British, some say the colonist. That shots rang out between the men and forever changed our history is not disputed.


The issue of which side was to blame at Lexington and Concord grew during the early nineteenth century. For example, older participants' testimony in later life about Lexington and Concord differed greatly from their depositions taken under oath in 1775. All later said the British fired first at Lexington, whereas fifty or so years before, they weren't sure. All now said they fired back, but in 1775, they said few were able to. The "Battle" took on an almost mythical quality in the American consciousness. Legend became more important than truth. A complete shift occurred, and the Patriots were portrayed as actively fighting for their cause, rather than as suffering innocents. Paintings of the Lexington skirmish began to portray the militia standing and fighting back in defiance.


In the early dawn on April 19, 1775 according to one account approximately 70 armed Massachusetts men stood face to face on Lexington Green with the British advance guard. Another version states that the men of Massachusetts were not at all 70 in number, nor were they militiamen, but just residents of the small settlement of Concord.

That there was indeed a confrontation and that it had results in not in dispute. When I lecture on the Revolution, I always remind my audience that they are always two sides, sometimes more to every story in history. This historical event has it's legends too.


We know that a shot, some say unordered, the 'shot heard around the world' officially began the American Revolution. A volley of British rifle fire followed by a charge with bayonets leaves eight Americans dead and ten wounded. The British regroup and head for the depot in Concord, destroying the colonists' weapons and supplies. This they were ordered to do by General Gage. 

The engagement at Lexington has often been styled a battle, but in reading many sources the engagement at Lexington was just a minor brush or skirmish. As the regulars' advance guard under Pitcairn entered Lexington at sunrise on April 19, 1775, a Lexington "training band", emerged from Buckman Tavern and stood in ranks on the village common watching them, spectators watched from along the side of the road.


Their leader was Captain John Parker, a veteran of the French and Indian War, who was suffering from tuberculosis, and was said to be difficult to hear at times, a fact not left out. Interestingly, of the men who lined up, nine had the surname Harrington, seven Munroe (including the company's orderly sergeant, William Munroe), four Parker, three Tidd, three Locke, and three Reed; fully one quarter of them were related to Captain Parker in some way. This group of men were part of Lexington's "training band", a way of organizing local militias dating back to the Puritans, and not what was styled as a full minuteman company.


It is important to remember that Captain Parker was clearly aware that he was outmatched in the confrontation and was not prepared to sacrifice his men for no purpose. Captain Parker hoped that the Regulars would march to Concord, find nothing, and return to Boston, tired but empty-handed. He positioned his men carefully. He placed them in parade-ground formation, on Lexington Green. They were in plain sight (not hiding behind walls), as British accounts have it, and not blocking the road to Concord. They made a show of political and military determination, but no effort to prevent the march of the Regulars. Many years later, one of the participants recalled Parker's words as being what is now engraved in stone at the site of the battle:

"Stand your ground, don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here." 


According to Captain Parker's sworn deposition taken after the battle. Yes they took despositions even back then.

First Shot?
A British officer, probably Pitcairn, but accounts are uncertain, as it may also have been Lieutenant William Sutherland, then rode forward, waving his sword, and called out for the assembled throng to disperse, and may also have ordered them to "lay down your arms, you damned rebels!" Captain Parker told his men instead to disperse and go home, but, because of the confusion, the yelling all around, and due to the raspiness of Parker's tubercular voice, some did not hear him, some left very slowly, and none laid down their arms. Both Parker and Pitcairn ordered their men to hold fire, but a shot was fired from an unknown source.


Here are some copies of articles on the account taken from the June Edition of Gentleman's Magazine in 1775. It gives a richer perspective of the happenings of this day.

Take This Link To Read

When I speak today as a historian, I bring copies of paintings with me to show my audience. Some paintings portrayed the Lexington fight as an unjustified slaughter. The issue of which side was to blame grew during the early nineteenth century. My audiences all refect on what they see, and make comment that in one picture the patriots are small and seeming to be running away from the British. In another picture of a painting, quite the opposite in strength and resolve is seen in the colonial men and the the 'militiamen' are taking the upper hand.

One must remember that too often legend become more important than the truth. Understand that a complete shift may have occured in the telling of this famous day in our countries history. Nobody except the person responsible knew then, nor knows today with certainty, who fired the first shot of the American Revolution.


I respectfully leave you with the imortalized words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, written about the events at the North Bridge in his 1837 "Concord Hymn". This is how generations of Americans have learned our history in the 19th century No one will dispute that it helped to forge the identity of our nation.

"By the rude bridge that arched the flood
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world."


Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Concord Hymn"








References
Bradford, Charles H (1996). The Battle Road: Expedition to Lexington and Concord. Eastern National. ISBN 1-888213-01-9.
Brooks, Victor (1999). The Boston Campaign. Combined Publishing. ISBN 9780585234533.
Chidsey, Donald Barr (1966). The Siege of Boston: An on-the-scene Account of the Beginning of the American Revolution. Crown. OCLC 890813.
Coburn, Frank Warren (1922). The Battle of April 19, 1775: In Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Arlington, Cambridge, Somerville, and Charlestown, Massachusetts. The Lexington historical society. OCLC 2494350.
Dana, Elizabeth Ellery (1924). The British in Boston: Being the Diary of Lieutenant John Barker of the King’s Own Regiment from November 15, 1774 to May 31, 1776. Harvard University Press. OCLC 3235993.
Davis, Kenneth C. (2009). America's Hidden History. London: Collins. ISBN 0061118192.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1837). "Emerson's Concord Hymn". National Park Service. Retrieved 2008-10-02.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1875). Proceedings at the Centennial Celebration of Concord Fight, April 19, 1875. Town of Concord. OCLC 4363293.

The Ride of Paul Revere - When Poetry and History Conflict

 We continue today to teach our elementary school children about "Christopher Columbus wanting to prove the Earth was round," and George Washington's having wooden teeth.  I was in the company of two Scottish friends a while back, who were commenting on my knowledge of not only American history, but Scottish history as well. It seemed I knew theirs better than they did, much to their delight! I will never forget being asked, whether George Washington did indeed have"wooden teeth?" To which my answer was, "noooo... they were not wooden at all." They had been taught the very same thing as school children in Scotland, as many of us have.


The question of what to teach our children about the history of our country comes into conflict particularly with the esteemed writing of Henry Wadsworth Longfellows and his of the famous ride of Paul Revere.


Thanks largely to a famous poem by Mr. Longfellow, which was written April 19, 1860, and first published in 1863 as part of "Tales of a Wayside Inn," most people believe that Revere was the lone hero who rode through Middlesex County, Massachusetts alerting everyone that the British soldiers were invading. The truth however, is that there were actually multiple riders that night delivering news, including the likes of Israel Bissell and Sybil Ludington, both of whom, it is said, actually traveled much further than Revere did (Ludington actually doubled the distance that Revere covered). Perhaps, Midnight Riders will finally set the record straight.


I am a rider and a writer, so I will humbly apply for clarifications here.


In  a celebration of April's National Poetry Month, Historian, Jayne Triber passionately reads Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Paul Revere's Ride." Triber also discusses the background of Revere's fabled ride, and the historical inaccuracies in Longfellow's poem.

TAKE A LISTEN TO A READING ON NPR HERE"


This poem literally transformed a nation's perception of an event and a man who had a very minor roll, into almost a founding Father. Longfellow wrote this written some 80 years after the actually ride. The poem was published just before the American Civil War. It was to inspire to come together in patriotism by having them reflect on a telling of history from the American Revolution. Longfellow's attempt succeeded in inspiring his countrymen before the civil war. 

However, Longfellow also doesn't mention in "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" that British troops captured all three men at a site near Hanscom Air Force Base in present-day Bedford. You can see a marker commemorating the capture site in Minute Man National Historic Park on the route to the Old North Bridge.
Fortunately, they managed to escape. 


I hope I didn't spoil some of the romantic aspects of that night for you. It still was very important to the telling of the whole story of the American Revolution. But remember it was a poem taking creative license with the intent to inspire. It did inspire, when it was published and still does today. We need to remember that creative license often takes history down alternative paths, and this includes movies made about the same subject, but that is a post for another day.


TAKE THIS LINK TO READ THE POEM HERE




Reference:
A True Republican: The Life of Paul Revere (University of Massachusetts Press; Written By Jayne Triber, ISBN: 1558492941).

On This Day in History - Thomas Jefferson was Born

Thomas Jefferson -- Author of the Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, third President of the United States, and founder of the University of Virginia -- voiced the aspirations of a new America as no other individual of his era. As public official, historian, philosopher, and plantation owner, he served his country for over five decades.

Born: April 13, 1743. Birthplace: Shadwell, Virginia. Now for you historians that really keep track. His birthday was actually April 2nd under the old calender. You will see this notated as 'O.S.' When you see the earlier date. Look for my post on the change of the Gregorian to Julian calenders and how that effects many of our dates in history.
His father Peter Jefferson was a successful planter and surveyor and his mother Jane Randolph a member of one of Virginia's most distinguished families. Having inherited a considerable landed estate from his father, Jefferson began building Monticello when he was twenty-six years old. Three years later, he married Martha Wayles Skelton, with whom he lived happily for ten years until her death. Their marriage produced six children, but only two survived to adulthood. Jefferson, who never remarried, maintained Monticello as his home throughout his life, always expanding and changing the house.

Here is my Daughter, Lindsay giving her Uncle Thomas a hug. We are descendants from his sister Mary Jefferson. Ironically, Lindsay did not know this when this picture was taken as the developement of this line of our family had not been done yet. It does makes it more sweet to me that she felt some admiration and kinship to this great man.


There are many wonderful books on Thomas Jefferson. Please look to read a few, he was a remarkable thinker and writer.


Incidently, Jefferson's obelisk gravemarker is at Monticello, as he died on July 4, 1826, just hours before his close friend John Adams, on the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. He was eighty-three years old, the holder of large debts, but according to all evidence a very optimistic man.


It was Jefferson's wish that his tomb stone reflect the things that he had given the people, not the things that the people had given to him. It is for this reason that Thomas Jefferson's epitaph reads:

HERE WAS BURIED

THOMAS JEFFERSON

AUTHOR OF THE

DECLARATION

OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE

OF THE

STATUTE OF VIRGINIA

FOR

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

AND FATHER OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

BORN APRIL 2, 1743 O.S.

DIED JULY 4. 1826

Happy Birthday Sir.

A Post-Colonial Myth - Name Changes at Ellis Island

If there is one common myth I run into often as a genealogist, it is someone believing that their last name was changed by a clerk at Ellis Island. Often the person telling the story feels some sense of violation and loss of identity. I want to expound on this today.

Did name changes happend according to this popular lore?

Actually, it is highly unlikely that this happened. To begin with the clerks at Ellis Island didn't write down names. They worked from lists that were created by the shipping companies. What usually happened was the emigrant bought a ticket from an office near his home. So, the seller probably spoke the same language and transcribed the name correctly. In cases where the name was recorded incorrectly, it likely occurred in the old country, not at Ellis Island.

There are several questions to consider when talking about the accuracy of name spellings on records:

• When the record was created, was there a standard ("correct") way to spell the name?
• Did the individual know how to spell the name himself? (Was he or she literate?)
• If he did not write the name himself, did the recording clerk ask him his preferred spelling? 

So much of the time, the answer to at least one of these questions was "no." However, let us assume that your immigrant knew how to spell his name and it was written correctly on the list created by the shipping company and used by the inspectors at Ellis Island. When he arrived at Ellis Island, he was checked against the list. With all the immigrants coming through the facility, many translators were employed so language problems were rare.

Bear in mind that name changes were often made by the immigrants themselves.


Remember Ellis Island was called Gibbet Island, after a few pirates that were hung there in Colonial Days! Ellis Island officially opened as an immigration station on January 1, 1892 and closed in November 1954.


Here is a story on the pre-colonial story, I feel is worth telling.

Whether your family came to this country during the Ellis Island period or the Colonial Period... 

I wish to welcome you to this great country. 


There truly is no other place like it in the world!

Visit the DAR on Flickr

Visit the Site Here

The NSDAR is a genealogical lineage society of women who can trace their ancestry to one or more patriots who fought in the American Revoution. In addition the NSDAR is an non-profit organization which works to preserve our nations great history. Enjoy and visit it often, as new photos will be posted!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/todaysdar/

This Day in History

"On April 7th 1778 The U.S.S. Lexington becomes the first American ship to capture a British warship (the HMS Edward)"

The Colonial Octant

Octant, attributed to John Hadley ( British 1682-7744) ca 1740 Wood, Brass, Ivory. 17 1/8 inch radius, Photo courtesy of Seaport Museum, Philadephia. Gift by Austin B. Hepburn

This octant is believed to have belonged to John Barry (1745-1803), the first naval captain appointed by President Washington and remembered as the Father of the American Navy. Made before he was born, the octant would have come to Barry secondhand; either purchased by him on the cheap as a budding captain or gifted by a mentor. It is said to have been used by him while a Continental Navy captain aboard the ships Lexington and Alliance, among others, and also on a voyages he subsequently made to China.


Octants were used for celestial navigation and measured the angles of the sun above the horizon to find the latitude position of the ship. Almost simultaneously invented by Philadelphian Thomas Godfrey (in 1730) and Englishman John Hadley (in 1731), both of whom were recognized by the Royal Society, the octant allowed for a greater degree of navigational accuracy than its predecessor, the quadrant, and increased the reliability of ship arrivals.

Today's Colonial Gift

Today's Colonial Gift from Whiskers

Today's byte is especially tasty. It comes from his friend Mortimer who works with a NSDAR Genealogist, most wise. Mortimer told Whiskers that when you are looking to connect family members, look at land records. For in these records you will learn often, that a piece of land was willed to, or sold to a family member. Often times family member will also live nearby as well. Patriots of the American Revolution were often granted 'Land Patents' for their service. Anyone else would have a land deed. So if you are having trouble connecting people as relations, look for their land holdings! Thanks Mortimer!

Remember The Ladies - Abigail Adams

Abigail Adams's rich extant correspondence extends from 1761, her seventeenth year, to just before her death in 1818. In this half century she exchanged letters with a wide variety of correspondents, and turned her pen to an even wider variety of subjects. Men and women, sons and daughter, sisters, uncles, aunts, nieces, cousins, in-laws, friends from childhood, and a handful of non-related but brilliant public figures from several states were all treated to her acute observations and strong opinions upon matters of particular interest to her family, events in her hometown, issues that agitated all of Massachusetts, and major questions of national politics and international diplomacy. Interspersed with this commentary on the news were her general thoughts on education, history, and literature, and her insightful descriptions and comparisons of religion and social customs, and the staging of public events--festivals and parades, concerts and the theater--in Boston, London, and Paris.

At the center of this extraordinary woman's letter-writing career was her voluminous correspondence with her husband, John Adams. And the central theme of this correspondence was the Adamses' mutual concern for the political--and moral--state of their country. In the spring of 1776, after eighteen months of unusually voluminous correspondence with John, who was serving in the Continental Congress, Abigail was reaching the peak of her powers as a political analyst. Dazzled by her unexpected talents, John Adams wrote to her on 27 May 1776: "I think you shine as a Stateswoman of late, as well as a Farmeress. Pray where do you get your Maxims of State, they are very apropos [?]"1

Nothing Abigail ever wrote better exemplifies this gift than her celebrated "Remember the Ladies" letter of 31 March 1776. The full passage shown here is worthy of quotation:

"I long to hear that you have declared an independency—and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited powers into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If perticuliar care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.

That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend. Why then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the Lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity. Men of Sense in all Ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your Sex. Regard us then as Beings placed by providence under your protection and in immitation of the Supreem Being make use of that power only for our happiness." 2


In his reply to this remarkable letter, on April 14, John displayed both his embarrassment at Abigail's telling criticism, and his wit in deflecting it:

"As to your extraordinary Code of Laws, I cannot but laugh. We have been told that our struggle has loosened the bands of Government every where. That children and apprentices were disobedient--that schools and Colleges were grown turbulent--that Indians slighted their guardians and negroes grew insolent to their masters. But your letter was the first intimation that another tribe more numerous and powerfull than all the rest were grown discontented. --This is rather too coarse a compliment but you are so saucy, I wont blot it out. depend upon it, We know better than to repeal our masculine systems. Altho they are in full force, you know they are little more than theory. We dare not exert our power in its full latitude. We are obliged to go fair, and softly, and in practice you know We are the subjects. We have only the Name of Masters, and rather than give up this, which would compleatly subject Us to the Despotism of the Peticoat, I hope General Washington, and all our brave Heroes would fight."3 (JA)

Abigail's celebrated plea has drawn more serious attention from modern scholars, and has placed her, in the minds of many, in the role of a pioneering feminist. If by feminist one means a person convinced of the fundamental equality of women with men, and committed to improving the position of women in society and removing all inequalities before the law, then Abigail qualifies. The twentieth-century reader, however, should note that her concern was not with equality of political participation, which she did not advocate for women, but for equality before the law, particularly with respect to property rights and the right to the protection of the law within marriage. In this concern she anticipated the principal objectives of those who would campaign for women's rights in America in the several decades following the American Revolution. She was truly a woman ahead of her time. I respect Abigail Adams so very much.

Endnotes
1. Adams Family Correspondence. L.H. Butterfield et al., eds. Cambridge, Mass., 1963-1973, 1:420.
2. Ibid., 1:369-370.
3. Ibid., 1:382. John Adams considered and justified the exclusion of women from voting in a letter to James Sullivan, 26 May 1776, in Adams 1977, 4:208-213.

The Sons of Liberty

Patriots or Terrorists?

How A Society of Rebel Americans

Made Its Mark on Early America

SONS OF LIBERTY? or Sons of something altogether different? I suppose it all depends on a particular individual's point of view. To some, Sons of Liberty was a generic label for any opponent of the stamp tax. To others it was an intercolonial network of organized resistance groups that eventually evolved from structured resistance into revolution.

Raising the Freedom Pole in New York

For many Americans this American Revolutionary organization is as confusing as it is mysterious. But, what of this "secret" organization that played such an integral part in advancing the idea of American independence from Great Britain? What were the Sons of Liberty? Who were its members and how widespread was its support among the thirteen colonies comprising British America? What was the ideology and degree of political affiliation within the organization?

Shrouded in secrecy, the origins of the Sons of Liberty are in dispute. Some historical sources claim that the movement began in New York City in January 1765. A more popular claim is that the movement began in Boston, Massachusetts through the leadership of one Samuel Adams (a well known American Revolutionary firebrand) in early 1765. It is quite likely that the Boston and New York City chapters of the Sons of Liberty were organized and developed simultaneously.

Tradition has it that the Boston chapter gathered beneath the Liberty Tree for meetings while the New York City chapter met beneath the Liberty Pole for its meetings. For reasons of safety and secrecy, Sons of Liberty groups tended to meet late at night so as not to attract attention and detection of British officials and the American Loyalist supporters of the British Crown.

This patriotic society had its roots in the Committees of Correspondence. The "Committees" were colonial groups organized prior to the outbreak of the American War for Independence and were established for the purpose of formally organizing public opinion and coordinating patriotic actions against Great Britain. These original committees were loosely organized groups of private citizens formed in the New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island colonies from 1763-1764.

It was the Boston Committee of Correspondence that directed the Boston Tea Party action of December 16, 1773. Upset with the lack of redress concerning the new tax on tea established by the British government for importation of tea to Boston, a small band of the Boston Committee of Correspondence members (approximately fifty in number) led by Samuel Adams, proceeded to empty three ships worth and 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor in protest.

Was this an early terrorist action or a patriotic action. Surely, the answer lies with perspective. If you were a British official, this action was treasonous and punishable by death. If you were an American colonial citizen, this event would be seen as a glorious action of the freedom fighters worthy of praise, pride, and acclaim.

During a series of protests linked to the Sons of Liberty, colonists burn and sack the house of the Massachusetts Lieutenant governor, Thomas Hutchinson. Essentially, the Sons of Liberty organized into patriotic chapters. As a result of the heavy debt incurred from the French and Indian War (1754-1763) and the resulting burden of increased British possessions in the Americas gained as a result of victory in the war (Canada, Louisiana land area known as "New France," and several former French islands of the West Indies), British Parliament decided to station British "regular" troops in the American colonies to keep the French from attempting to recapture Canada and to defend the colonies against the Native American Indians. It should be noted that the vast majority of Native Americans sided with the French in the North American Theater of the Seven Years War (1756-1763) and had a notorious record of carrying out terrifying raids against British colonists in the frontier regions of the New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Virginia, Maryland, and Carolina colonies dating back to the middle seventeenth century. For example the Battle of Point Pleasant in Virginia.

With all this dbot the Stamp Act of March 1765 was instituted to help defray the costs of maintaining British troops in the American colonies by issuing tax stamps for a wide range of public documents including: customs documents, newspapers, legal papers, and licenses. The British government believed that this stamp tax passed specifically for the American colonies was quite fair and just as a means to help pay their share of the huge national debt incurred from the Seven Years War. After all, reasoned Parliament, had not the colonies directly benefited from the war and the expulsion of the French threat from Canada? The tax was heavy and did not sit well with American colonies The issue was just what was far? The colonists responded with outrage and indignation.

The Stamp Act, like the Sugar Act before it, reasoned the colonists, was yet another example of Parliament trampling on the colonial legislature's right to tax their own people. Actions and attitudes of colonists regarding perceived British monetary atrocities against their well being formed the foundation for the rallying cry of American patriots across the land namely, "no taxation without representation."

The Sons of Liberty organizations responded to the Stamp Act of 1765 in various ways. The New York Sons of Liberty declared in December 1765 that they would "go to the last extremity" with their lives and fortunes to prevent the enforcement of the Stamp Act. This declaration included the use of violence if necessary. Acts of rebellion against the Stamp Tax in New York City included an incident from January 9, 1766 in which ten boxes of parchment and stamped paper were delivered to City Hall and immediately confiscated, unpacked, and burned by secret leaders of the New York Sons group.5 Some merchants simply refused to pay the stamp excises. Printers, lawyers, laborers and small shopkeepers simply ignored paying the duty and carried on business as usual.

From November 1765 through March 1766, New York’s organized resistance aligned and opened communication channels with Philadelphia, New London, Boston, rural Massachusetts, Albany, Portsmouth, Newport, New Brunswick, Baltimore, Annapolis, Norfolk, by March 1766. The Sons of Liberty became an intercolonial network of great significance. The emergence of organized local resistance groups and their often simultaneous merger into an intercolonial organization of a new type and significance began only in the closing months of 1765, and never really caught on until February 1766.

Sometimes, the actions and reactions of the Sons of Liberty to the Stamp Act took a violent turn as recorded in a local New York City merchant's diary in April, 1765. Violence broke out with the arrival of a shipment of stamped paper to the Royal Governor's residence. Cadwallder Colden, the acting Royal Governor of the New York colony and scholarly correspondent of Benjamin Franklin and Dr. Samuel Johnson, was extremely frightened of the patriotic group and so locked himself up securely inside Fort George immediately after he received the stamped paper from British officials. A few hours after receiving the official papers, a raucous mob captured the governor's gilded and spectacular coach and reduced it to a pile of ashes. From here the mob (consisting largely of extremist elements of the New York Sons of Liberty) raced uptown to the home of Fort George's commander, smashing numerous windows and breaking into the wine cellar to sustain their "patriotism" before descending on the rest of the house in a convulsion of vandalism. Tarring and feathering Loyalists — those individuals who sympathized and were supportive of the British Crown, royal tax collectors, and other officials — was a common practice carried out by the more radical elements of the organizations.

Ironically, the Sons of Liberty ultimately took their name from a debate on the Stamp Act in Parliament in 1765. Charles Townshend, speaking in support of the act, spoke contemptuously of the American colonists as being "children planted by our care, nourished up by our indulgence...and protected by our arms." Isaac Barre, member of Parliament and friend of the American colonists, jumped to his feet in outrage in this same session to counter with severe reprimand in which he spoke favorably of the Americans as "these Sons of Liberty." American colonists had several friends supportive of their views on the tax situation including: William Pitt (the Elder), Charles James Fox, Edmund Burk, and others.

Typically, members of this organization were men from the middle and upper classes of American colonial society. Although the movement began as a secret society, for reasons of safety and anonymity, the organization quickly sought to build a broad, public base of political support among the colonists. Frequently, cooperation with undisciplined and extralegal groups (city gangs) set off violent actions. Even though the Sons seldom looked for violent solutions and eruptions, they did continue to elicit and promote political upheaval that tended to favor crowd action.

While British officials accused the Sons organizations of scheming to overthrow the true and legitimate government of the American colonies, the Sons of Liberty viewed their official aims in more narrow terms, organizing and asserting resistance to the Stamp Act. Outwardly, the Sons of Liberty proclaimed their unfaltering loyalty and allegiance to King George III of Great Britain and emphasized their support of the English Constitution against the usurpation of royal officials. For eleven years, 1765 to 1776, American colonists saw British Parliament as the collective "bad guy," not the king!

The Sons of Liberty as a viable movement first broke up with the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766. However, the organizational network was revived in 1768 in response to the Townshend Acts (a series of excise duties on glass, lead, paints, paper, and tea imported into the colonies.) From 1768 until the end of the American Revolution, Sons of Liberty groups remained in active correspondence with one another throughout the thirteen American colonies and each group took charge of organizing and effecting resistance movements against what they perceived as unfair British taxation and financial strangulation within their respective colonies. The Sons of Liberty as an active movement disbanded in late 1783.

Were they a terrorist organization?

The British certainly believed they were. After all, the Sons were advocating overthrow of the status quo government and independence for the thirteen colonies. Were they a patriotic organization? Many American colonists certainly believed they were. The Sons represented to them the American freedom fighter personified, fighting for their rights and ultimate independence. *It should be noted that the Loyalists also had their version of Committees of Correspondence and Sons of Liberty namely: the United Empire Loyalists.* (We will save that for another blog entry.)

Finally, the decision on the Sons of Liberty comes down to a variation on historians who say, "one man's terrorist is another man's patriot." The ultimate conclusion must be left to the individual.

Notes:

Microsoft (R) Encarta, "Committees of Correspondence" (New York: Funk & Wagnall's Corp. Pub., 1993) CD ROM.
CD Sourcebook of American History, "The Boston Tea Party" by Thomas Hutchinson (1773) America, vol.3, p. 96 (Provo, Utah: Infobase, Inc., Pub., 1995) CD ROM.
Division of Archives and History, The American Revolution in New York: Its Political, Social, and Economic Significance (Albany: The University of the State of New York, 1926) 15.
Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, eds., The Readers Companion to American History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1991) 1023.
The American Revolution in New York 18.
Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia. "Stamp Act" (New York: Compton's NewMedia, Inc. Pub., 1994) CD ROM.
Robert Leckie, George Washington's War (New York: Harper Collins, 1990) 49.
Leckie, 48.
Foner and Garraty, 1008.
American Revolution in New York 239

1. 
   

Too Late to Apologize: A Declaration

This is one of my favorite videos. I decided to share it with you today. It has nearly 2 million hits on Youtube. I see comment after comment from teachers who say they are searching the web for things that they can show their students to get them excited about American History.

(Note to Self - Project: Make good videos for school children and post them on Youtube.)

I had no such technical wonders to ignite my passion for American History growing up. Mine all came from my family, books and teachers who could tell history like it ought to be told...with passion and knowledge. If you are just such a student searching the web and find this posting. It is here for you. I invite you to read on, for in the postings of this entire blogsite are things that will not only help you in your studies but, help you become a good citizen of our country and hopefully inspire you to learn more. There is so much to tell. Let the the cries for liberty, and justice from the past ring in your continuing pursuit of knowledge about our great nation. I invite you to follow me, for you will find that I have a great history to tell you.

I confess, in find this video entertaining, and hope you do too. I am related to the gentleman from Virginia, Thomas Jefferson and many more wonderful patriots.

Enjoy.