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Coercive (Intolerable) Acts

By 1774, there had been almost a decade of revolutionary fervor in Boston. British taxation policies, such as the Stamp Act of 1765, had sparked a debate in the North American colonies over the constitutional meaning of representation.

Leading radicals like Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, and John Hancock argued that because the colonists weren’t represented in Parliament, that legislative body had no right to tax them.

The stationing of British troops in Boston had infuriated townspeople, setting the stage for the Boston Massacre in 1770.  On December 17, 1773 Boston radicals led by the Sons of Liberty boarded British ships filled with thousands of pounds of East India Company tea. They dumped nearly 350 crates into the harbor.

After the Boston Tea Party, the British adopted a divide-and-conquer strategy that sought to isolate troublemaking Boston from the other colonies, which leaders in Parliament believed were merely tagging along with Boston’s radicals.  (Khan Academy)

After news of the Boston Tea Party in December 1773 reached England, the members of Parliament passed several acts designed to punish the misbehaving colonists and force them to submit to the government’s authority.  (Cal State Long Beach)

In London, response to the destruction of the tea was swift and strong. The violent destruction of property infuriated King George III and the prime minister, Lord North, who insisted the loss be repaid. Though some American merchants put forward a proposal for restitution, the Massachusetts Assembly refused to make payments.

Massachusetts’s resistance to British authority united different factions in Great Britain against the colonies. North had lost patience with the unruly British subjects in Boston.

Lord North declared: “The Americans have tarred and feathered your subjects, plundered your merchants, burnt your ships, denied all obedience to your laws and authority;”

“yet so clement and so long forbearing has our conduct been that it is incumbent on us now to take a different course. Whatever may be the consequences, we must risk something; if we do not, all is over.”

The cumulative effect of the reports of colonial resistance to British rule during the winter of 1773–74 was to make Parliament more determined than ever to assert its authority in America. The main force of its actions fell on Boston, which seemed to be the center of colonial hostility. (Britannica)

Both Parliament and the king agreed that Massachusetts should be forced to both pay for the tea and yield to British authority.

In early 1774, leaders in Parliament responded with a set of four measures designed to punish Massachusetts, commonly known at the Coercive Acts.

  • The Boston Port Bill (March 31, 1774) shut down Boston Harbor until the East India Company was repaid. The act authorized the Royal Navy to blockade Boston Harbor because “the commerce of his Majesty’s subjects cannot be safely carried on there.” The blockade commenced on June 1, 1774, effectively closing Boston’s port to commercial traffic. Additionally, it forbade any exports to foreign ports or provinces. The only imports allowed were provisions for the British Army and necessary goods, such as fuel and wheat.
  • The Massachusetts Government Act (May 20, 1774) abolished the colony’s charter of 1691, reducing it to the level of a crown colony, replacing the elective local council with an appointive one, enhancing the powers of the military governor, Gen. Thomas Gage, and forbidding town meetings without approval.
  • The Administration of Justice Act (May 20, 1774) was aimed at protecting British officials charged with capital offenses during law enforcement.  It allowed the royal governor to unilaterally move any trial of a crown officer out of Massachusetts, a change designed to prevent hostile Massachusetts juries from deciding these cases.
  • The Quartering Act (June 2, 1774) revived the indignation that surrounded the earlier Quartering Act, which had been allowed to expire in 1770.  The new Quartering Act applied to all of British America and gave colonial governors the right to requisition unoccupied buildings to house British troops. However, in Massachusetts the British troops were forced to remain camped on the Boston Common until the following November because the Boston patriots refused to allow workmen to repair the vacant buildings General Gage had obtained for quarters.

The most important of them was the first passed, the Boston Port Act, because it was news of its passage that led to the call for the First Continental Congress. Within a year, the British government’s attempt to enforce the bundle of legislation tipped a constitutional crisis into the Revolutionary War. (Colonial Williamsburg Foundation)

Rather than isolating rebellious colonists in Boston from the rest of the American populace, acts which closed the port to commerce and undercut representative government inspired colonists outside of Massachusetts to support the beleaguered Bostonians. (Cal State Long Beach)

The Coercive Acts closed the port of Boston, unilaterally changed the government of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to centralize British authority, permitted colonial leaders accused of crimes to be tried in another colony or in England, and sanctioned the billeting of British troops in unused buildings.

First Continental Congress

Word of the Intolerable Acts led to an unprecedented outbreak of public dismay and disaffection throughout British America (including the Caribbean) and directly resulted in the creation of the First Continental Congress in September 1774, compromised of delegates from 13 of the mainland colonies. (Colonial Williamsburg Foundation)

Instead of isolating Boston from the other North American colonies, the Intolerable Acts had the opposite result. Delegates from all of the colonies except Georgia gathered in Philadelphia for the First Continental Congress in the autumn of 1774.

The purpose of the Congress was to show support for Boston and to work out a unified approach to the British.

On October 14, 1774, the First Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Colonial Rights and Grievances. The declaration denied Parliament’s right to tax the colonies and lambasted the British for stationing troops in Boston.

It characterized the Intolerable Acts as an assault on colonial liberties, rejected British attempts to circumscribe representative government, and requested that the colonies prepare their militias. Despite its harsh tone, the declaration did affirm Parliament’s right to regulate trade, and did not challenge colonial loyalty to the British monarch, King George III.

Although some of the more radical delegates, particularly Samuel Adams, already believed that war was inevitable, the congress did not seek or declare independence from Britain at this time. The delegates agreed to meet again the following May if relations did not improve. (Khan Academy)

Click the following link to a general summary about the Coercive (Intolerable) Acts:

Click to access Coercive-Intolerable-Acts.pdf

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Tea Act – Boston Tea Party

The practice of tea drinking arrived with colonists from both England and the Netherlands and was already established by the mid-seventeenth century, evidenced by the number of tea wares recorded in household inventories.

When he visited Boston in 1740, Joseph Bennett observed that “the ladies here visit, drink tea and indulge every little piece of gentility to the height of the mode and neglect the affairs of their families with as good grace as the finest ladies in London.”

At another time, Kalm stated: “With the tea was eaten bread and butter or buttered bread toasted over the coals so that the butter penetrated the whole slice of bread. In the afternoon about three o’clock tea was drunk again in the same fashion, except that bread and butter was not served with it.”

This tea-drinking schedule was followed throughout the colonies. In Boston the people “take a great deal of tea in the morning,” have dinner at two o’clock, and “about five o’clock they take more tea, some wine, madeira [and] punch.” (Baron Cromot du Bourg) The Marquis de Chastellux confirms his countryman’s statement about teatime, mentioning that the Americans take “tea and punch in the afternoon.”

During the first half of the 18th century the limited amount of tea available at prohibitively high prices restricted its use to a proportionately small segment of the total population of the colonies.  About mid-century, however, tea was beginning to be drunk by more and more people, as supplies increased and costs decreased.

Tea Act

America was becoming a country of tea drinkers.

However, due to debt due to the costs associated with the French and Indian Wars, Parliament imposed new taxes.  In the 1760s, the British government began to impose a tax on tea, first through the Stamp Act of 1765 and later with the Townshend Acts of 1767.

Dissatisfied colonists took to smuggling tea or drinking herbal infusions. Outraged merchants, shippers, and colonists staged a number of demonstrations.

Then, the Tea Act of 1773 was imposed.

It was an “act to allow a drawback of the duties of customs on the exportation of tea to any of his Majesty’s colonies or plantations in America; to increase the deposit on bohea tea to be sold at the India Company’s sales; and to impower the commissioners of the treasury to grant licenses to the East India Company to export tea duty-free.”  (Tea Act)

The act contained a number of provisions:

  • The East India Company was granted a license to export tea to North America.
  • They were no longer required to sell their tea at the London Tea Market.
  • The duties on tea shipped to North America and other foreign parts were not imposed nor refunded when the tea was exported.
  • Anybody receiving tea from the East India Company was required to pay a deposit upon receipt.

The Tea Act was intended to bail out the struggling East India Company, which was very important for the British economy, and the Tea Act would raise revenue from the 13 colonies.

The Tea Act allowed the East India Company to directly ship tea to the colonies without passing England. This way, duties were reduced and resulted in the cheaper price of English tea in the colonies. The Tea Act received royal assent on May 10, 1773.

By reducing the tax on imported British tea, this act gave British merchants an unfair advantage in selling their tea in America. American colonists condemned the act, and many planned to boycott tea.

Boston Tea Party

The colonists resisted the Tea Act more because it violated the constitutional principle of self-government by consent than because they could not afford the tax, which had existed since the passage of the 1767 Townshend Revenue Act.

As George Washington explained, “What is it we are contending against? Is it against paying the duty of [three pence per pound] on tea because [it is] burdensome? No, it is the right only … that, as Englishmen, we could not be deprived of this essential and valuable part of our constitution.”

In the ports of New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston, citizens prevented British tea from being unloaded, threatened tax collectors into resigning, and protested taxation without representation. In Boston, political organizer Samuel Adams oversaw the adoption of resolutions calling on the tea agents to resign, but they refused.

On November 28, 1773, however, the Dartmouth dropped anchor in Boston Harbor loaded with 114 crates of British tea. Its colonial owner, Francis Rotch of Nantucket Island, had a great deal of money invested in the cargo and wanted it unloaded, but Patriot leaders wanted to use the landing of the tea to galvanize the people against the British. They also feared that if the tea were landed and sold at cheaper prices, people would continue buying it and ruin the boycott.

The following day, a crowd of five or six thousand people warned Rotch that landing the tea would be at his “peril,” posted a guard around the ship, and demanded that it return to England.

But Thomas Hutchinson, a staunch Loyalist who now served as royal governor, refused to allow the Dartmouth‘s departure. With twenty days to either unload the cargo and pay taxes or forfeit both the tea and the ship, Rotch found himself in a terrible position.

Over the next week, two more ships laden with tea berthed beside the Dartmouth at Griffin’s Wharf. Many people predicted imminent violence.  As Abigail Adams wrote, “The flame is kindled … Great will be the devastation if not timely quenched or allayed by some more lenient measures.”

On December 14, thousands again demanded that Rotch seek clearance for a return voyage to England, but Hutchinson again refused the request. Three British warships now stood in the harbor ready to enforce his order. Matters were coming to a head.

On December 16, 1773, one day before the deadline for the landing of the tea, more than seven thousand gathered in the Old South Meeting House, Boston’s largest building.

When Samuel Adams announced that nothing more could be done to save their country, dozens of colonists, dressed like Indians as a symbol of American freedom and to disguise their identities from British authorities, entered the assembly with piercing war whoops.

The crowd went into a frenzy, screaming, “The Mohawks are come!”

John Hancock called on his countrymen to do their patriotic duty: “Let every man do what is right in his own eyes.”

Thousands of citizens spilled into the streets and watched as the band of Mohawk impersonators boarded the three ships and dumped into the harbor  342 chests of tea belonging to the British East India Company.  The crowd then slowly dispersed into the night while the disguised participants went home with their identities still concealed.

Although some colonists saw the Boston Tea Party as a destructive mob action, most praised the protest.  John Adams rejoiced, “This is the most magnificent Movement of all. There is a Dignity, a Majesty, a Sublimity, in this last Effort of the Patriots, that I greatly admire.”

“The People should never rise, without doing something to be remembered – something notable And striking. This Destruction of the Tea is so bold, so daring, so firm, intrepid and inflexible, and it must have so important Consequences, and so lasting, that I cant but consider it as an Epocha in History.”  (Adams, National Archives)

Click the following link to a general summary about the Tea Act – Boston Tea Party:

Click to access Tea-Act-Boston-Tea-Party.pdf

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Native Americans in the American Revolution

In the 1750s, the area west of the Allegheny Mountains was a vast forest.  American Indians primarily from three nations – the Seneca, the Lenape or Delaware, and the Shawnee – inhabited the upper Ohio River Valley.

About 3,000 to 4,000 American Indians were living there.  The population of all the Indian nations in northeastern North America was about 175,000.

A few French and British traders traveled through the area.

New France had three colonies: Canada (along the St. Lawrence River), the Illinois country (the mid-Mississippi Valley), and Louisiana (New Orleans and west of the Mississippi).  There were about 70,000 colonists throughout the French settlements. Their economy was based on trade with the American Indians. It was a weak economic system, and the colonies were not self-sustaining.

To the east of the Allegheny Mountains lived more than 1 million colonists in the 13 British colonies. They had a strong economy based on farming. Their population was expanding rapidly, both through immigration and population growth.  Although they had no settlers in the Ohio River Valley in 1750, the British colonies claimed the land.

The border between French and British possessions was not well defined, and one disputed territory was the upper Ohio River valley. The French had constructed a number of forts in this region in an attempt to strengthen their claim on the territory.

The American Revolution

The relationship between native peoples and the emerging United States during the era of the American Revolution was a complicated one. From the onset of Lord Dunmore’s War in 1774 to the Treaty of Paris in 1783, Indians in North America faced a dilemma on whether they would fight, for whom they would fight, and why they would fight.

Most Native Americans initially thought that the Revolution was an isolated disagreement between white colonists and their mother country.  However, the Revolutionary War evolved into a continent-wide struggle that the Indians could not avoid.

Individual Indians joined both the Continental and British armies as regular soldiers or as scouts, guides, mariners, and diplomats.  History shows that Native Americans not only participated in the American Revolution, but also survived the long-term changes it produced.  (Merritt)

Native Americans in the Revolutionary War

Many Native American tribes fought in the Revolutionary War. The majority of these tribes fought for the British but a few fought for the Americans.  Many of these tribes tried to remain neutral in the early phase of the war but when some of them came under attack by American militia, they decided to join the British.

Other tribes joined the British in the hopes that if the British won, they would put a stop to colonial expansion in the west, as they had done with the Royal Proclamation of 1763.  Rebecca Beatrice Brooks provides a list of the various tribes who fought in the Revolutionary War:

Wabanaki Confederacy

The Wabanaki Confederacy was an alliance of five northern tribes: the Penobscot, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, Abenaki and Micmac.  They were situated generally in Maine and New Brunswick.

Stockbridge-Mohican Tribe

The Stockbridge-Mohican, a tribe who lived in Western Massachusetts, sided with the Americans in the Revolutionary War, even though they had been long-standing allies of the British and even served in militia units during King George’s War, the French and Indian War and Pontiac’s Uprising.

Shawnee Tribe

The Shawnee, a tribe who lived in the Ohio River Valley sided with the British during the Revolutionary War.  When the Revolutionary War first broke out, most Shawnee tried to remain neutral.  American encroachment on Shawnee land persisted though and the tribe soon became divided on the issue.

Delaware Tribe

Many Delaware chiefs argued that an alliance with the Americans was an opportunity to assert the tribe’s independence from the Six Nations and to challenge the Six Nations’ claims to lands west of the Ohio. In 1778, the United States signed its first treaty, the Treaty of Fort Pitt, with the Delaware tribe. The treaty allowed American troops to pass through Delaware territory.  In addition, the Delaware agreed to sell meat, corn, horses and other supplies to the United States and allow their men to enlist in the United States army.

Miami Tribe

The Miami, a tribe in the Great Lakes region, sided with the British during the Revolutionary War.  After the British lost the war, the Miami tribe continued to fight the Americans who began pouring into the Ohio country. Between the years 1783 and 1790, the Miami tribe killed 1,500 settlers.  This sparked a war between the Americans and the Miami tribe, the Miami War, which is also known as Little Turtle’s War, from 1790-1794.  The Miami tribe were defeated. Throughout the 19th century, the Miami continued to sign more treaties and ceded more land and the tribe eventually emigrated to Kansas in 1846 and were then removed to Oklahoma in 1867.

Wyandot Tribe

The Wyandot (Huron), a tribe in the Great Lakes region, sided with the British during the Revolutionary War.  After the war, the Wyandot continued to fight the Americans who encroached on their land. There was a brief lull in the fighting from 1783-1785, and the United States, Wyandot, Delaware, Chippewa, and Ottawa tribes signed the Treaty of Fort McIntosh in 1785.  In 1843, the Wyandots were forcibly removed from their remaining land and relocated to a reservation in Kansas. After the Civil War, the Ohio Wyandot were relocated to Oklahoma.

Iroquois Confederacy

The Iroquois Confederacy, also known as the Six Nations, was an alliance of six tribes in New York and Canada: the Mohawks, Oneidas, Tuscaroras, Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas.  The Iroquois Confederacy had been long-standing allies of the British. Yet, when the Revolutionary War broke out, the confederacy split in two when the Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas and Mohawks sided with the British, while the Tuscarora and the Oneida sided with the Americans.

Potawami Tribe

The Potawami, a tribe in the Great Lakes region, tried to remain neutral in the Revolutionary War but eventually sided with the Americans in 1778.  The Potawami had been long-standing trading partners and military allies with the French and fought alongside them in the French and Indian War but were reluctant to get involved in another war.  They were later convinced to join the American’s side.  The Potawatomi had ceded much of their lands to the United States by the mid-19th century and the tribe split up and relocated to various distant locations, such as Texas, Kansas, Iowa and Canada, although many stayed in Wisconsin.

Catawaba Tribe

The Catawaba, a tribe with a population of a few hundred that lived in the Piedmont area along the border of South Carolina and North Carolina, sided with the Americans in 1775.  The Catawaba fought in numerous key battles in South and North Carolina. In 1782, after General Charles Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, the Catawaba returned home and the South Carolinians paid them for their service.  The Catawbas also received a state-recognized reservation in South Carolina as a result of their support of the Americans, which they still occupy today.

Chickasaw Tribe

The Chickasaw, a southern tribe with a population of 4,000 who lived in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri, sided with the British during the Revolutionary War.  The Chickasaw had been trading partners and staunch allies of the British throughout the 18th century and continued their support for the British in the Revolutionary War.

Choctaw Tribe

The Choctaw, a southern tribe with a population of 15,000 who inhabited about 50 villages in a key strategic position of the lower Mississippi, were coveted by both the Americans and the British during the Revolutionary War but the tribe sided with the British.

Creek Tribe

The Creek, a southern tribe with a population of 15,000 that lived in Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and North Carolina, never officially joined the war effort, preferring instead to engage in cautious participation. The Creek tribe never engaged in significant sustained fighting during the war.

Cherokee Tribe

The Cherokee, a southern tribe with a population of about 8,500 who lived in the interior hill country of the Carolinas and Georgia, sided with the British during the Revolutionary War.  After initial successes in their attacks, the Cherokees soon witnessed four American armies from Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia invade nearly all their villages during the summer and fall of 1776.

Declaration of Independence and Native Americans

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson clearly described the role of American Indians in the American Revolution. In addition to his other oppressive acts, King George III had,

“endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”

Inscribed in the founding document of the United States, Jefferson’s words placed Indians on the wrong side of the struggle for liberty and the wrong side of history from the very beginning of the Revolution. Thus while Americans fought for their rights and freedoms, Jefferson argued that Native Americans fought against them, the vicious pawns of a tyrannical king.

Subsequent Indian Relocation (Trail of Tears)

Then, during the 1830s, there was a forced relocation of Eastern Woodlands Indians of the Southeast region of the United States (including Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole, among other nations) to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River – on the Trail of Tears.

Estimates based on tribal and military records suggest that approximately 100,000 indigenous people were forced from their homes during that period, which is sometimes known as the removal era, and that some 15,000 died during the journey west.

The term Trail of Tears reminds us of the collective suffering those people experienced, although it is most commonly used in reference to the removal experiences of the Southeast Indians generally and the Cherokee nation specifically.

The physical trail consisted of several overland routes and one main water route and, by passage of the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act in 2009, stretched some 5,045 miles across portions of nine states (Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Tennessee).

Click the following link to a general summary about Native Americans in the American Revolution:

Click to access Native-Americans-in-the-American-Revolution.pdf

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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 link to a general summary about the Committee of Correspondence:

Click to access Committee-of-Correspondence.pdf

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Gaspee Affair

The British government had a crushing debt incurred in winning the French and Indian War. It needed money, and collecting customs duties was one way of getting it.

In 1764, the British Parliament passed the Sugar Act, a tax on sugar, and the British Admiralty bought six ships ‘of Marblehead design’ to enforce it.

Among the first of these vessels was the schooner St. John, commanded by Lieutenant Hill. She arrived in 1764 and was immediately regarded as an enemy to the commerce of the Colony and her every movement watched.

Other war-ships became more or less embroiled with the Rhode Islanders, and the trouble increased as they persisted sending officers to board American ships, inspect the crew, and seize sailors from Rhode Island merchantmen.

A brig, just arrived at home after a long voyage, expected eagerly by those who had relatives and friends among her crew was stopped when in sight of land by the English war vessel Maidstone, and her entire crew seized.

In retaliation about five hundred men of Newport seized one of the Maidstone’s boats, dragged it through the streets of the town and burned it on the common in front of the court house, while a crowd, composed of the major part of the inhabitants of Newport, witnessed and applauded the deed.  The St. John and Liberty were burned.

The Gaspee, a schooner of eight guns, with Lieutenant Dudingston in command, arrived in Narragansett Bay in the spring of 1772 to carry on the work for which the St. John and the Liberty had proved ineffectual. 

By 1772 the Gaspee had become a daily nuisance in Narragansett Bay because her crew had an incentive to collect as much customs duty as possible: They shared in it.

A letter exchange began between Rhode Island’s elected Governor, Joseph Wanton, and the captain of HMS Gaspee, Lieutenant Dudingston. The earliest exchange of letters (April 6, 1772) reveals the colonists’ frustrations with Dudingston’s actions, as well as a dispute regarding whether he has the authority to operate in Narragansett Bay.

Rhode Island was fed up with the Gaspee; so much so that on May 20, 1772, Gov. Joseph Wanton wrote a letter to the British secretary of state complaining about her. He argued the Gaspee’s crew didn’t have the right to seize a quantity of rum and try the owner outside of the colony of Rhode Island. On top of that, they insulted the colonists with ‘the most abusive and contumelious language.’

Lieutenant Dudingston continued his harassment, infuriating merchants and threatening to cripple the economy. Eventually Governor Wanton appealed to the Earl of Hillsborough, England’s Secretary of State for the colonies, for assistance. However Dudingston had pushed Rhode Islanders too far.

Her captain’s persistent harassment of Rhode Island merchants led to a group of Rhode Islanders to retaliate. The attack is the first major armed act of rebellion against the British crown, and the subsequent investigation prompted the colonies to consider united action against England.

On  the morning of June 9, 1772, Hannah, a medium-sized packet boat captained by Benjamin Lindsey, began sailing north from Newport to Providence.

As expected, Lieutenant Dudingston aboard Gaspee gave chase and the two ships worked their way up Narragansett Bay. About six miles from Providence, Hannah tacked across shallow water, and Gaspee, a much larger ship, followed and ran aground.  Hannah continued on to Providence, leaving Gaspee stranded on Namquit Point.

They concluded the Gaspee would be grounded until well after midnight when the rising tide could free her and now saw a way to rid Rhode Island’s merchants of the ship commanded by the much-hated William Dudingston.

Brown ordered eight longboats delivered to Fenner’s Wharf, their oars and oarlocks muffled. He sent a drummer around town to announce the grounding of the Gaspee.  Anyone interested in destroying that troublesome vessel should go to James Sabin’s house, right next to Fenner’s Wharf.

Ephraim Bowen, about 19 years old, answered the call. He grabbed his father’s gun, powder and shot and found a crowd at Sabin’s. His friend, 18-year-old Joseph Bucklin, a tavern-keeper’s son, had arrived, too.  Later that evening, men gather at Sabin’s Tavern in Providence and plan an assault.

On that moonless night, more than 100 Sons of Liberty silently rowed out in a line of longboats to the Gaspee;

Dudingston leaned over the starboard gunwale in his white shirt and demanded, “Who goes there?”

Capt. Abraham Whipple replied, ‘I want to come on board.’

The return was, ‘Stand off, you can’t come on board.’

On which Capt. Whipple roared out, ‘I am the sheriff of the County of Kent; I am come for the commander of this vessel, and have him I will, dead or alive. Men, spring to your oars!’

Joseph Bucklin, standing on the main seat of the longboat, realized he had a shot at Dudingston.

“Ephe, reach me your gun and I can kill that fellow,’ he said to Ephraim Bowen. Bucklin then fired at Lt. William Dudingston, hitting him in the arm and lower abdomen. He exclaimed, “I have killed the rascal.” (Dudingston fell back, but was only wounded.)

Today, Rhode Islanders celebrate that shot as the ‘First Shot of the Revolutionary War.’

Soon after all the party were ordered to depart, leaving one boat for the leaders of the expedition, who soon set the vessel on fire and consumed her to the water’s edge.

The following morning, Sessions learned of the attack and began an investigation, taking testimony from two of the Gaspee crew.

On June 12, 1772, Governor Wanton issued a proclamation offering a reward to anyone who can offer information regarding the Gaspee burning.

In August 1772, with the investigation making little progress, King George III issued a proclamation offering rewards of up to £1000 to anyone who can supply the names of those responsible for the destruction of the ship and the injury to its commanding officer.

He names five officials from different colonies to carry out his orders. They are known as the Gaspee Commission.

With his proclamation, King George III also sends instructions for the Gaspee Commissioners. They include a command to send any accused attackers to England for trial.

From September 1772 to June 22, 1773, the Commission conducts its investigation, issuing warrants and taking testimony from Gaspee crew and people believed to have knowledge of the attack.

After ten months, the Commissioners end their investigation. In their final report to King George III, they explain that due to contradictory evidence and coerced testimony, they are unable to name any of the perpetrators of the crime.

The burning of the Gaspee is celebrated in Rhode Island as an important early strike against the tyranny of the crown. However it was the King’s threat to try the accused in England, rather than on native soil by a jury of their peers, that had the most lasting effect.

Soon after, understanding that the colonies’ many grievances are best addressed with a “unity of action,” a meeting of deputies from every colony is proposed. These deputies become the First Continental Congress.

Click the following link to a general summary about the Gaspee Affair:

Click to access Gaspee-Affair.pdf

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