American Revolution | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

November 23, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

An Extraordinary ‘Happening’ – a Pre-Bicentennial Event in Hawai‘i

“Nichiren Shoshu Academy is a branch of Soka Gakkai of Japan, a lay organization made up of followers of a Japanese Buddhist sect called Nichiren Shoshu, whose own roots go deep into Japanese culture.”

“Soka Gakkai was founded as an educational society prior to World War II and after the war experienced a period of rapid growth. “In 1979, it claimed a membership of 7,880,000 households (Japan Times Weekly, May 12, 1979). It is not only the largest religious organization in Japan today, but the largest organization of any kind.” (Yoko Yamamoto Parks, 1980)

“Around 1970 NSA leaders adopted a further ‘Americanizing’ strategy by presenting the movement as a force for the revitalization of American revolutionary ideals. On the one hand, the American Revolution of 1776 was defined as an ‘ideal,’ conducted in a true ‘spirit of democracy’ and a ‘pioneer spirit.’”

“But on the other, NSA contended, this tradition of a democracy at the service of the interests of every individual had collapsed in America under the weight of problems of war, drugs, racial discrimination, and a pervasive sense of anomie.”

“NSA was presented as a movement to bring America back to the spirit of democracy, freedom, and happiness (NSA Quarterly, 1975 Special Summer Issue).” (Yoko Yamamoto Parks)

NSA “calls itself: ‘A non-profit organization aimed at building better communities through restoring hope and confidence among individual citizens, who often are discouraged and disillusioned by the complex problems facing modem society …’”

“‘NSA’s many activities are all an expression of renewed courage, determination and happiness in meeting the challenge of modem times.’” (Smyser, Star Bulletin)

“In 1969 the ‘Spirit of 1776’ was chosen as the theme of the NSA National Convention for that year.” (Yoko Yamamoto Parks) Then, in 1975, as part of Pre-Bicentennial activities, “A ‘HAPPENING’ took place in Waikiki last weekend that deserves understanding, but may defy it.”

“Twenty thousand white. black and yellow members of Nichirenshoshu Sokagakkai Academy (NSA for short) put on:

The most fantastic parade Kalakaua Avenue has ever seen.
From an offshore floating stage, a daytime International Show and Water Festival, and a dramatic nighttime Spirit of ‘76 Pre-Bicentennial Pageant.
Three nights of gigantic fireworks displays.
Three days of a Polynesian Village exhibit at Fort DeRussy.”

“They called their gathering a convention, but there were no business sessions, or debates, or resolutions, just the events staged and prepared by the members themselves, and free to the public as NSA’s ‘Bicentennial gift to the people of Hawaii.’” (Smyser, Star Bulletin)

On Saturday, July 26, 1975, Waikiki Beach became an outdoor arena for thousands of spectators attending the SGI-USA’s Twelfth US Nationwide General Meeting.

“Among the highlights for the 20,000 members were the International Show and Water Festival and the Spirit of ’76 Pre-Bicentennial Pageant, both held on an offshore floating stage.” (Star Adv)

There was entertainment from a floating island stage anchored in waters off Waikiki opposite the Surfrider Hotel. “The Multi-Million-dollar stage measures 100 by 150 feet and the volcano backdrop with its rear projection screen stands as high as a five-story building. The stage weighs more than 2,500 tons in addition to 20 tons of props.”

“Hidden behind the floating stage is a smaller barge area with a fresh water supply, dressing rooms, toilets, and rest areas for the several thousand performers and crew members.” (Hnl Adv, July 25, 1975)

“The floating stage was an amazing engineering challenge as fireworks were shot off from the volcano, there was a rear projection screen and hundreds of performers were shuttled by boat at night to perform on stage.”

“It was quite an amazing production to say the least. To bring a floating stage in required the EPA’s and Hawaiian Government’s approval.” (James C. Stephens)

“A Polynesian Village we constructed in the warehouse and moved in the middle of the night from the old Dole Pineapple warehouse to Fort DeRussy in downtown Waikiki.” (James C. Stephens)

“The Polynesian Village requires one hell of a lot of bamboo. I’m sure we’ve used well into 14,000 pieces of bamboo. Well, the Ranger let’s us cut in the bamboo forest reserve. They wouldn’t even let the Boy Scouts cut any during the big Jamboree.” (James C. Stephens)

“Virtually every aspect of the convention – from building the stage and props to writing the shows’ songs and dances to moving members’ luggage to the hotels – has been planned, organized and carried out by NSA members themselves.”

“Convention planners estimate that about 350,000 work hours – almost all voluntary – have gone into the design and production of the stage. Hundreds of members have been working for months in Hawaii and elsewhere”.

“In this way NSA members believe the convention serves to ‘tap the unknown potential’ in themselves. Or, as the convention booklet says: …”

“‘In challenging themselves to do what’s never been done before, people find that by working together they can conquer their limitations and discover new capabilities.’” (Hnl Adv, July 25, 1975)

November 15, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

About 250 Years Ago … Gerrymandering

It seems we have been pronouncing Gerrymandering incorrectly. More often than not, we pronounce it with a soft “g” (as in sounding like Jerry); we should be pronouncing it with a hard “g” (as in Gary).

The word was a concoction from 1812, and the namesake for the word – Declaration of Independence signer Elbridge Gerry – pronounced his name with a hard “g” – his name sounds like ‘Gary’.

“Acting on the request of a former Marblehead schoolteacher, the town’s board of selectmen sent a letter to [US Supreme Court] Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr [in 2018] asking the justices to use the hard “g” pronunciation”. (ABA Journal)

Elbridge Thomas Gerry [1837-1927], grandson of Founder Elbridge Gerry, was a prominent and influential Gilded Age New York trial lawyer, philanthropist and bibliophile whose library became the foundation of the United States Supreme Court Library. (Shelley Dowling)

US Supreme Court staff, “assured the selectmen that ‘not only do we tend carefully to our Gerry collection, but we pronounce it with a hard “g”.

In a follow-up statement to the Boston Globe, a public information officer said there is ‘a solid consensus’ on the pronunciation of Gerry, but the pronunciation of gerrymandering “remains ‘sub judice.’”

Here is Elbridge Gerry explaining a little about himself: https://imagesofoldhawaii.com/wp-content/uploads/Gerry-Elbridge-MA-White-House-Founders-Museum.mp4

The legend of the gerrymander came into being in 1812 at a meeting of Federalist political leaders and newspapermen in Boston.

Gerrymandering was coined from a political cartoon published in 1812. The cartoon bashed Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry for signing a bill that redrew state senate districts to disadvantage Federalists. (ABA Journal)

“The term for the political tactic of manipulating boundaries of electoral districts for unfair political advantage derives its name from a prominent 19th-century political figure — and from a mythological salamander. The term, originally written as “Gerry-mander,” first was used on March 26, 1812, in the Boston Gazette.”

“Though the redistricting was done at the behest of his Democratic-Republican Party, it was [Massachusetts’s Governor] Gerry who signed the bill in 1812. As a result, he received the dubious honor of attribution, along with its negative connotations. Gerry, in fact, found the proposal “highly disagreeable.’”

“He lost the next election, but the redistricting was a success: His party retained control of the legislature. One of the remapped, contorted districts in the Boston area was said to resemble the shape of a mythological salamander.” (LOC)

Complaints about the efforts of their Jeffersonian Republican opponents to rig state elections by altering voting districts led artist Elkanah Tisdale to add a head and wings to an outlined map of a new senatorial district in Essex County and name it the “gerrymander” after the leader of the Jeffersonians, Governor Elbridge Gerry.

The cartoon shocked the public and proved very effective. (Massachusetts Historical Society)

Elbridge Gerry was a merchant, politician, and diplomat who served as the fifth vice president of the United States. Born on July 17, 1744, in Marblehead, Massachusetts, Gerry came from a family of successful merchants. He graduated from Harvard College and worked closely with Samuel Adams.

After a brief time in commerce, he entered public service as a member of the Massachusetts Legislature and General Court. In 1775, Gerry was elected to the Second Continental Congress, where he signed the Declaration of Independence, and continued to serve until 1780.

In response to Shays’ Rebellion, Gerry was selected to attend the Constitutional Convention in 1787. He chaired the committee that helped forge the Great Compromise, which created a bicameral legislature with popular representation in the U.S. House of Representatives and equal representation for each state in the Senate.

Concerned about centralized power, Gerry – along with Edmund Randolph and George Mason – refused to sign the Constitution without a Bill of Rights. After ratification, he served two terms in Congress, retiring in 1793.

He later served as Governor of Massachusetts beginning in 1810, where the state legislature’s redistricting decisions led to the term “gerrymandering.” In 1813, he became vice president under James Madison, serving until his death in 1814 at age 70. (Founders Museum)

Elbridge Gerry left us a message … “It is the duty of every man, though he may have but one day to live, to devote that day to the good of his country.”

With respect to the legality of politically-based gerrymandering, the US Supreme Court concluded, “Excessive partisanship in districting leads to results that reasonably seem unjust.”

“But the fact that such gerrymandering is ‘incompatible with democratic principles,’ … does not mean that the solution lies with the federal judiciary. We conclude that partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts.”

“Federal judges have no license to reallocate political power between the two major political parties, with no plausible grant of authority in the Constitution, and no legal standards to limit and direct their decisions.”

“‘[J]udicial action must be governed by standard, by rule,’ and must be ‘principled, rational, and based upon reasoned distinctions’ found in the Constitution or laws. … Judicial review of partisan gerrymandering does not meet those basic requirements. …”

“No one can accuse this Court of having a crabbed view of the reach of its competence. But we have no commission to allocate political power and influence in the absence of a constitutional directive or legal standards to guide us in the exercise of such authority.”

“‘It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.’ … In this rare circumstance, that means our duty is to say ‘this is not law.’”

“The judgments of the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina and the United States District Court for the District of Maryland are vacated, and the cases are remanded with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.” (Decision of the US Supreme Court, Rucho et al. v. Common Cause et al.)

November 10, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

250 Years Ago … Marines are Formed

“At no period of the naval history of the world, is it probable that marines were more important than during the war of the Revolution.” (Cooper)

On November 10, 1775, the Second Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia passed a resolution stating that “two Battalions of Marines be raised” for service as landing forces with the fleet.

This resolution, written by John Admas, established the Continental Marines and marked the birth date of the United States Marine Corps.

The historic Tun Tavern, opened in 1686 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, stands as a legendary birthplace of American history.

The building once stood as a vital gathering place in early America, where influential leaders convened, lively debate ensued, and the vision of the nation was shaped. (Tun Legacy Foundation)

On November 10, 1775, Robert Mullan, the proprietor of the Tun Tavern and an acquittance of Captain Samuel Nicholas, was commissioned as a first lieutenant of the new force, was commissioned by an act of Congress “to raise the first two battalions of Marines”, under the leadership of Captain Samuel Nicholas, the first appointed Commandant of the Continental Marines.

According to tradition, Tun Tavern was where the Continental Marines held their first recruitment drive. This resulted in the Tun Tavern being acknowledged as the birthplace of the United States Marine Corps. Each year on November 10th, around the world Marines toast the Marine’s birthplace on the most significant date in the history of the Corps. (Tun Tavern)

A Marine is a soldier who serves at sea on a vessel of war either as part of its crew or as part of a military expedition under naval supervision.

At various times a Marine has been called a ‘maritime soldier,’ a ‘sea soldier,’ and a ‘soldier of the ocean.’

In early January 1776, Continental Marines would board her and six other ships and within two months, land and occupy the British island of New Providence in the Bahamas.

In the Continental Marines’ first battle encounter, ships of the Continental Fleet under Esek Hopkins rendezvoused north of Nassau harbor in the early morning hours of Sunday, March 3, 1776.

A short time before noon, 230 Marines and 50 seamen under the command of Marine Captain Samuel Nicholas jumped from longboats into the surf, about two miles east of the fort.

Later, of Washington’s force of about twenty-four hundred men with whom he crossed the Delaware on that momentous Christmas Eve, 1776, more than six hundred were Marines.

In many instances [Marines] preserved the vessels to the country, by suppressing the turbulence of their ill-assorted crews, and the effect of their fire, not only then, but in all the subsequent conflicts, under those circumstances in which it could be resorted to, has usually been singularly creditable to their steadiness and discipline.”

“The history of the navy, even at that early day, as well as in these later times, abounds with instances of the gallantry and self-devotion of this body of soldiers, and we should be unfaithful to our trust, were we not to add, that it also furnishes too many proofs of the forgetfulness of its merits by the country.”

With the Treaty of Paris, ending the American Revolutionary War, and the discharge of Marine Lieutenant Thomas Elwood in September 1783, Continental Marines passed from the scene.

For more than seven years, this small force did its part to achieve final victory against the British, but the years took their toll.

Following the Revolutionary War and the formal re-establishment of the Marine Corps on July 11, 1798, Marines saw action in the quasi-war with France, landed in Santo Domingo, and took part in many operations against the Barbary pirates along the “Shores of Tripoli”.

Click to access Marines-SAR-RT.pdf

Click to access Marines.pdf

November 7, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

250 Years Ago … Slaves in the Revolutionary War

In the 15th century, Portugal became the first European nation to take significant part in African slave trading. By the 1480s, Portuguese ships were already transporting Africans for use as slaves on the sugar plantations in the Cape Verde and Madeira islands in the eastern Atlantic. (Britannica)

By the 16th century, the Portuguese dominated the early trans-Atlantic slave trade on the African coast. As a result, other European nations first gained access to enslaved Africans through privateering during wars with the Portuguese, rather than through direct trade.

When English, Dutch or French privateers captured Portuguese ships during Atlantic maritime conflicts, they often found enslaved Africans on these ships, as well as Atlantic trade goods, and they sent these captives to work in their own colonies. (LDHI, College of Charleston)

When Portuguese, and later their European competitors, found that peaceful commercial relations alone did not generate enough enslaved Africans to fill the growing demands of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, they formed military alliances with certain African groups against their enemies. This encouraged more extensive warfare to produce captives for trading. (LDHI, College of Charleston)

The Portuguese developed a trading relationship with the Kingdom of Kongo, which existed from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries in what is now Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Civil War within Kongo during the trans-Atlantic slave trade would lead to many of its subjects becoming captives traded to the Portuguese. (LDHI, College of Charleston)

The first Africans in Virginia in the 17th century came from the Kongo/Angola regions of West Central Africa. They were part of a large system established by the Portuguese in Africa to capture and supply slaves to the Spanish colonies in Central and South America. (Marks)

The first Africans in English North America were those pirated in 1619 by the White Lion and the Treasurer from the Spanish frigate San Juan Bautista in July, and delivered to Jamestown six weeks later at the latter end of August.

American Revolution

Slave resistance escalated along with colonial struggles for liberty.

In Georgia, a group of enslaved men, women and children took advantage of the confusion created by the Stamp Act by fleeing into the swamps and managed to elude capture for four years – prompting the Georgia assembly to send a detachment of militia after them. (PBS)

By 1775 more than a half-million African Americans, most of them enslaved, were living in the 13 colonies. Both the British and the colonists believed that slaves could serve an important role during the revolution.

African American soldiers served with valor at the battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill.

In April 1775, Lord Dunmore (1732-1809), the royal governor of Virginia, threatened that he would proclaim liberty to the slaves and reduce Williamsburg to ashes if the colonists resorted to force against British authority.

In November, he promised freedom to all slaves belonging to rebels who would join “His Majesty’s Troops … for the more speedily reducing the Colony to a proper sense of their duty….”

Some eight hundred slaves joined British forces, some wearing the emblem “Liberty to the Slaves.” (University of Houston)

In November 1775, the American Congress decided to exclude blacks from future enlistment out of a sensitivity to the opinion of southern slave holders. But Lord Dunmore’s promise of freedom to slaves who enlisted in the British army led Congress reluctantly to reverse its decision, fearful that black soldiers might join the redcoats. (University of Houston)

When the Declaration of Independence was written in 1776, people of African descent made up approximately one-fifth of the population of the new United States of America.

The vast majority of them were enslaved, many by Revolutionaries. Other Revolutionaries, while not holding people as property themselves, profited indirectly from the system. (Museum of the American Revolution)

African Americans played an important role in the revolution. They fought at Fort Ticonderoga and the Battle of Bunker Hill.

A slave helped row Washington across the Delaware.

Altogether, some 5,000 free blacks and slaves served in the Continental army during the Revolution. By 1778, many states, including Virginia, granted freedom to slaves who served in the Revolutionary war. (University of Houston)

Most black soldiers were scattered throughout the Continental Army in integrated infantry regiments, where they were often assigned to support roles as wagoners, cooks, waiters or artisans. Several all-black units, commanded by white officers, also were formed and saw action against the British. (Jamestown)

Unlike the Continental Army, the Navy recruited both free and enslaved blacks from the very start of the Revolutionary War – partly out of desperation for seamen of any color, and partly because many blacks were already experienced sailors, having served in British and state navies, as well as on merchant vessels in the North and the South.

Although Black seamen performed a range of duties, usually the most menial ones, they were particularly valued as pilots. Others served as shipyard carpenters and laborers.

Both Maryland’s and Virginia’s navies made extensive use of blacks, even purchasing slaves specifically for wartime naval service. Virginia’s state commissioner noted that it was cheaper to hire blacks than whites, and that whites could get exemption from military service by substituting a slave.

Many royal naval vessels were piloted by blacks – some of them runaways, other enslaved to loyalist masters, and still others pressed into service.

During the Revolutionary War, most enslaved Africans believed that a British victory would bring them freedom. An estimated 100,000 took advantage of the disruption caused by the war and escaped from bondage, many of them making their way to the British forces. Others fled to Canada, Florida, or Indian lands. Thomas Jefferson believed that Virginia lost 30,000 slaves in one year alone. (PBS)

Possibly a quarter of the slaves who escaped to the British made their way onto ships, some signing onto the ships’ crews or joining marauding expeditions of bandits commonly referred to as “Banditti.” (PBS)

Others ran away to join the patriot militias or Continental army. Washington and other military officers received numerous requests to recover runways who had enlisted.

The American Revolution had profound effects on the institution of slavery.

Several thousand slaves won their freedom by serving on either side of the War of Independence. As a result of the Revolution, a surprising number of slaves were released from slavery, while thousands of others freed themselves by running away.

In the late 1770s, dwindling manpower forced George Washington to reconsider his original decision to ban Black people from the Continental Army. So in 1778, a Rhode Island legislature declared that both free and enslaved Black people could serve. To attract the latter, the Patriots promised freedom at the end of service. (history-com)

In October 1781, as Patriot and French ground forces and the French fleet surrounded Cornwallis’ men at Yorktown, Virginia, the British sent their black allies to face death between the battle lines.

In November 1782, Britain and America signed a provisional treaty granting the former colonies their independence.

Although the rise of the free black population is one of the most notable achievements of the Revolutionary Era, it is important to note that the overall impact of the Revolution on slavery had negative consequences.

In rice-growing regions of South Carolina and Georgia, the patriot victory confirmed the power of the master class. Doubts about slavery and legal modifications that occurred in the North and Upper South never took serious hold among whites in the Lower South. Even in Virginia, the move toward freeing some slaves was made more difficult by new legal restrictions in 1792.

In the North, where slavery was on its way out, racism still persisted, as in a Massachusetts law of 1786 that prohibited whites from legally marrying African Americans, Indians, or people of mixed race.

The Revolution clearly had a mixed impact on slavery and contradictory meanings for African Americans. It failed to reconcile slavery with these new egalitarian republican societies, a tension that eventually boiled over in the 1830s and 1840s and effectively tore the nation in two in the 1850s and 1860s. (Lumen Learning)

Click the following link to a general summary about Slaves in the Revolutionary War:

Click to access Slaves-in-the-Revolutionary-War-SAR-RT.pdf

Click to access Slaves-in-the-Revolutionary-War.pdf

November 2, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

About 250 Years Ago … Committee of Correspondence

Until late 1772, political control of Massachusetts remained in the hands of the merchants, who as a class were largely satisfied with the state of relations with the mother country, and were most reluctant to jeopardize peace and prosperity for the sake of an abstract political principle.

As long as the radicals such as Samuel Adams tried to work within the normal political channels, the moderate Whigs were able to restrain them.

The British government provided the radicals with the issue they needed, but it proved to be one which only a separate radical organization could exploit effectively.

In the spring of 1772 rumors began to circulate in Boston to the effect that Great Britain was going to assume responsibility for the salaries of the Superior Court judges, thus making them independent of the people of Massachusetts.

The radicals were concerned about the issue, however, and expressed that concern when a town-meeting of May 14, 1772, chose a committee to prepare Instructions for the newly elected representatives.

The committee consisted of nine men: Joseph Warren, Benjamin Church, Josiah Quincy, William Mollineux, William Dennie, William and Joseph Greenleaf, and Thomas and Richard Oil Gray.

The failure of the committee to agree on any instructions raises interesting question. John Cary, in his biography of Joseph Warren, concludes that “Warren and the other radicals on the committee seem to have been outnumbered”, and that in the future “Warren and Samuel Adams avoided the mistake of allowing moderates to ruin their plans”. (McBride)

At the October 28 town meeting, after some debate, the attendees decided “by a vast majority” “that a decent and respectful Application … be made to his excellency the Governor … whether his excellency had received any advice. relative to this matter….” The meeting voted to petition the governor to permit the General Assembly to convene, so that “that Constitutional Body” might deliberate on the matter.

In order to bypass the moderates who were blocking his program, Adams created a separate radical organization based upon the radical control over the Boston town-meeting. Ultimately, the Committee of Correspondence, was formed. The purpose of the committee, according to the motion which created it, was,

“to state the Rights of the Colonists …; to communicate and publish the same to the several Towns in this Province and to the World as the sense of this Town, with the Infringements and Violations thereof that have been, or from time to time may be made — Also requesting of each Town a free communication of their Sentiments on this Subject….”

The committee thus had very flexible instructions; it was not restricted to dealing with any particular issue but was a standing committee which could communicate with anyone about practically anything, past, present , or future. (McBride)

With the participation of Samuel Adams and others, among them James Otis, Josiah Quincy, Joseph Warren, Thomas Young and Benjamin Church, the first action of the committee was the preparation of a “Statement of the Rights of the Colonists,” a list of infringements of those rights by Great Britain, and a covering letter to the other towns of Massachusetts.

The “statement of rights” was an effective and well-written piece of radical propaganda – it complained of infringements of liberties that many Massachusetts farmers had never before heard of – but the heart of the radical program lay in the covering letter.

In it the Boston town-meeting requested of the other towns “a free communication of your sentiments” and suggested that if the rights of the colonists were felt to have been stated properly, the towns should instruct their Representatives to support Boston.

By mid-February, 1773, seventy-eight out of approximately 240 Massachusetts towns, including most of the principal ones, had replied favorably.

Many of the remaining communities were actually not towns but groups of scattered farmers who for sound reasons of economy and convenience were delaying action on the Boston circular until their regular spring business-meeting. (McBride)

In response to what became known as the Boston Pamphlet, similar committees formed in towns across Massachusetts and in other American colonies, helping to create a network of colonial communication ultimately leading to independence from Great Britain. (NY Library Archives)

Towns, counties, and colonies from Nova Scotia to Georgia had their own committees of correspondence. (Battlefields) Men on these committees wrote to each other to express ideas, to confirm mutual assistance, and to debate and coordinate resistance to British imperial policy.

Committees of Correspondence were longstanding institutions that became a key communications system during the early years of the American Revolution (1772-1776). (Battlefields)

When the tea crisis developed on December 16, 1773, the system only functioned in the port-towns and around Boston. The appearance of strength which the system gave the radicals was sufficient, however, that they were able to direct events which resulted in a direct challenge to British rule. (McBride)

Once the Tea Party led to the Coercive Acts, the committee system quickly spread into most of the towns. (McBride)

The Committees were a way for colonial legislatures to communicate with their agents in London. In the 1760s, the Sons of Liberty used committees of correspondence to organize resistance between cities. The most famous and influential committees of correspondence, however, operated in the 1770s. (Battlefields)

Under a growing system of mutual advisement, the Committee informed towns and other colonies of British actions in Boston, notably the arrival of East India Company tea shipments in Boston in 1773 and the impact of Britain’s punitive Coercive Acts in 1774, especially the closing of the Boston’s harbor.

The Committee also sought ways to relieve Boston’s poor. As military action seemed increasingly likely, the Committee tried to prevent colonists from aiding the British army with their labor, skills or supplies, and asked nearby towns to monitor British military maneuvers, while local militias prepared to be called. (NY Library Archives)

In the late summer and autumn of 1774, the colonies, especially Massachusetts, became politically active on a very wide scale and at all political levels, from town-meetings and county conventions to a series of provincial and continental congresses.

Simultaneously, and on an equally wide scale, the colonists began active military preparations.

At this point the revolutionary movement unquestionably had the support of a large majority of the people of Massachusetts.

The Continental Congress established the Committee of Secret Correspondence to communicate with sympathetic Britons and other Europeans early in the American Revolution. The committee coordinated diplomatic functions for the Continental Congress and directed transatlantic communication and public relations. (State Department)

With the gradual establishment of self-government and the evacuation of the British from Boston in March 1776, the Committee of Correspondence attended to public safety activities in the Boston area until the end of the Revolutionary War.

The Committee monitored the actions of Loyalists and others, while continuing its communication with other towns to strengthen American interests. Now known as the Committee of Correspondence, Inspection and Safety, its meetings during this period were usually chaired by Nathaniel Barber. William Cooper, Town Clerk of Boston, was clerk of the Committee throughout its existence. (NY Library, Archives)

In the 1770s there were three consecutive systems of committees of correspondence:

The Boston-Massachusetts system
The Inter-colonial system
The post-Coercive Acts system

Click the following links to general summaries about the Committee of Correspondence:

Click to access Committee-of-Correspondence-SAR-RT.pdf

Click to access Committee-of-Correspondence.pdf