American Revolution | Page 3 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

December 12, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

About 250 Years Ago … John Kendrick – American Patriot Who Died in Honolulu

Sea Captain John Kendrick was born in 1740 in Cape Cod; he followed his father and went to sea by the time he was fourteen.

Kendrick fought in the French & Indian War in 1762. Like most Cape Codders of the time, he served for only eight months and did not re-enlist.

Family tradition holds that on the rainy night of December 16, 1773, John Kendrick had taken part in the Boston Tea Party band that boarded two East India Company ships at Griffin’s Wharf in Boston and dumped 342 chests of tea into the harbor.

Kendrick later fought in the American Revolutionary War and commanded three different ships, the Fanny, Count D’Estaing and Marianne.

After the victorious Revolution, an economic depression had settled across the new nation.

The US needed to turn to trade to raise the necessary funding and shipping was a critical component of early commerce.

Kendrick and Robert Gray were selected to lead an expedition to establish new trade with China, settle an outpost on territory claimed by the Spanish and find the legendary Northwest Passage.

In September 1787, Kendrick in the Columbia and Gray in the Lady Washington, along with fifty other men – sailors and tradesmen alike – set sail from Boston.

They became the first citizens of the new nation to sail into the Pacific and lay eyes on the lush and resource-rich Northwest Coast of North America.

The maritime fur trade focused on acquiring furs of sea otters, seals and other animals from the Pacific Northwest Coast and Alaska. The furs were to be mostly sold in China in exchange for tea, silks, porcelain and other Chinese goods that were sold in the US.

Trading ships crossing the Pacific needed to replenish food supplies and water; traders realized they could get these in Hawai‘i.

Within ten years after Captain Cook’s 1778 contact with Hawai‘i, the islands became a favorite port of call in the trade with China.

Kendrick provisioned in Hawai‘i a number of times and is also credited for initiating the sandalwood (‘iliahi) trade there (Hawai‘i’s first commercial export).

Sandalwood became a source of wealth in the islands, trade in Hawaiian sandalwood began as early as the 1790s; by 1805 it had become an important export item.

Unfortunately, the harvesting of the trees was not sustainably managed (they cut whatever they could, they didn’t replant) and over-harvesting of ‘iliahi took place. By 1830, the trade in sandalwood had completely collapsed.

On December 3, 1794, Kendrick returned to Fair Haven (Honolulu Harbor) Hawaiʻi aboard the Lady Washington; a war was waging between Kalanikupule and his half-brother Kaʻeokulani (Kaʻeo.)

Also in Honolulu were British Captain William Brown (the first credited with entering Honolulu Harbor) in general command of the Jackall and the Prince Lee Boo, Captain Gordon.

Kalanikupule sought and obtained assistance from Captain Brown. Brown furnished guns and ammunition, and, as Kaeo continued to advance, the mate of the Jackall, George Lamport, and eight sailors from the English ships volunteered to fight for the Oahu king.”

“In the final battle, between Kalauao and Aiea, the Englishmen were stationed in boats along the shore inside the eastern arm of what is now called Pearl Harbor. Kalanikupule gained a decisive victory and Kaeo was killed.” (Kuykendall)

On December 12, 1794, to celebrate the victory, Kendrick’s brig fired a thirteen-gun salute. (The tradition of rendering a salute by cannon originated in the 14th century as firearms and cannons came into use. Since these early devices contained only one projectile, discharging them rendered them harmless.)

Brown answered with a round of fire. Unfortunately, one of the saluting guns on Brown’s ship was loaded with shot, killing Kendrick.

“Kendrick was buried at the place where Captain Derby was interred in 1802 and Isaac Davis in 1810.” “[T]he chiefs designated a place for the burial of a foreigner in 1794 [so] it is likely that other foreigners who died in Honolulu would be interred in the same locations.” (Restarick)

On December 12, 2022, the Hawai‘i State Organization of the Daughters of the American Revolution installed a memorial plaque in honor of Captain John Kendrick. It was placed at a spot that would have been about the shoreline when Kendrick was killed.

Click the links below for general summaries that helps explain it – the file ending with ‘SAR–RT’ is a formatting used by the Sons of the American Revolution for presentations by its members under its Revolutionary Times program:

Click to access John-Kendrick-American-Revolutionary-War-Patriot.pdf

Click to access John-Kendrick-–-American-Patriot-Who-Died-in-Honolulu-SAR-RT.pdf

December 6, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

250 Years Ago … Hawai‘i at the Time of the American Revolution

On April 19, 1775, the Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. The battles marked the outbreak of open armed conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and its thirteen American colonies.

“The shot heard round the world” was fired just as the sun was rising at Lexington. Following this, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, and it was signed by 56-members of the Congress (1776.)

The next eight years (1775-1783,) war was waging on the eastern side of the continent. The main result was an American victory and European recognition of the independence of the United States (the war ended in 1783 with the signing of the Treaty of Paris.)

In Hawai‘i, over the centuries, the islands weren’t unified under single rule. Leadership sometimes covered portions of an island sometimes covered a whole island or groups of islands. Island rulers ascended to power through family successions or warfare.

At the time of the start of the American Revolution, the Hawaiian Islands were divided into four kingdoms: (1) the island of Hawaiʻi under the rule of Kalaniʻōpuʻu, who also had possession of Hāna in east Maui; (2) Maui (except Hāna) Molokai, Lanai and Kahoʻolawe, ruled by Kahekili; (3) Oʻahu, under the rule of Kahahana; and (4) Kauai and Niʻihau, Kamakahelei was ruler.

In 1775, war between Hawaiʻi and Maui Chiefs broke out at Kaupō on the island of Maui; it was the first battle that the rising warrior Kamehameha took part in.

Kalaniʻōpuʻu’s army was routed and retreated, and barely a remnant escaped and returned to Hāna. (Although often defeated, Kalaniʻōpuʻu managed to hold the famous fort in Hāna for more than twenty years.)

Kalaniʻōpuʻu returned to Hawaiʻi, met with Captain Cook on January 26, 1779, and exchanged gifts.

Following Kalaniʻōpuʻu’s death in April 1782, his kingship was inherited by his son Kīwalaʻō; Kamehameha (Kīwalaʻō’s cousin) was given guardianship of the Hawaiian god of war.

In the Islands, about the time of the Treaty of Paris, war broke out between Kīwalaʻō’s forces and chiefs under Kamehameha. Kīwalaʻō was killed.

War in the Islands continued into the 1790s. After solidifying his rule of the Island of Hawai‘i, Kamehameha invaded/conquered Maui, Molokai & O‘ahu.

Then, Kamehameha looked to conquer the last kingdom, Kauai (under the control of Kaumualiʻi).

In 1804 (the time of the Lewis and Clark expedition of lands in the Louisiana Purchase), King Kamehameha moved his capital from Lāhainā, Maui to Honolulu on O‘ahu, and planned an attack on Kauai.

Weather and sickness thwarted the invasions. However, in 1810 (just before war broke out on the continent again (War of 1812)), Kaumuali‘i peacefully joined the rest of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi under the rule of Kamehameha.

Click the following link to a general summary about Hawai‘i at the Time of the American Revolution:

Click to access Hawaii-at-the-Time-of-the-American-Revolution-SAR-RT.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

August 15, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

250 Years Ago … Minute Men

“ … to march at a Minute’s Warning, to the Relief of any Place that may be attacked, or to the Support of our Army …”

The American militias established in the colony of Massachusetts were based on an English militia model – every man over age sixteen was required to join and bring his own weapon to the mandatory musters (training meetings).

The governor had authority over the groups. As European settlers spread into Native American territories, conflicts increased. To increase the colonial fighting units’ flexibility, power was decentralized.

The Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1631 ordered that, “every man with a musket shall have ready one pound of powder, twenty bullets and two fathome of match, and that every captain shall traine (drill) his company on Saturday in every week. General training days once a month at one o’clock in the afternoon.”

In 1637, general training days were reduced to eight times in a year. In 1636, the General Court held at Boston, ordered that the military companies be divided into three regiments and that all freeman be allowed to vote for officers of a trained band.

In 1645, company commanders were ordered, “to appoint out and to make choice of thirty soldiers of their companies in ye hundred, who shall be ready at half an hour’s warning upon any service they shall be put upon by their chief military officers.”

The organization of these emergency men was continued for generations, and later they became the famous minute men of the Revolutionary War. (The Connecticut Magazine, 1906)

By the mid-17th Century, militia commanders began organizing smaller companies of men, taken from the ranks of the town militias, who could act as first responders in times of danger. Commanders were ordered, “to make a choice of thirty soldiers of their companies in ye hundred, who shall be ready at half an hour’s warning.”

Later, on the verge of hostilities with the Wampanoag people led by King Phillip, militia regiments were ordered to “be ready to march on a moment’s warning, to prevent such danger as may seem to threaten us.” Eventually, these smaller units would come to be known as “minute companies.”

Generally, minute companies were comprised of young citizen-soldiers, 30 years of age or younger, who were quick, agile, and kept ready for deployment “in a minute’s notice.” Like most militia forces, they were armed and equipped at their own expense.

By the 1750s during the French and Indian War, some companies began calling themselves “minute men.” While all minute men were part of the militia, not all militia troops were minute men.

Despite their designation, local troops were never held in high esteem by most regular officers of the British Army or political statesmen, who considered them at best, ill-trained amateurs and at worst, country bumpkins.

On October 26, 1774 they recommended that towns recruit volunteers and “that the field officers, so elected, forthwith endeavor to enlist one quarter, at least, of the number of the respective Companies, and form them into companies of fifty Privates, at the least who shall equip and hold themselves in readiness to march at the shortest notice …”

“… and that each and every company, so formed, choose a captain and two lieutenants to command them on any necessary and emergent service … form them into Companies of fifty Privates at the least, who shall equip and hold themselves in Readiness to march at the shortest Notice.” (LOC)

Minutes of the Provincial Congress, Watertown, June 17, 1775 notes it was “recommended to the Militia in all Parts of this Colony, to hold themselves in Readiness to march at a Minute’s Warning, to the Relief of any Place that may be attacked, or to the Support of our Army ….” (LOC)

Because they were expected to be ready quickly, “at a minute’s warning…” they became known as “minute men.” (NPS)

In December 1774, the town created a company of minute men who were instructed to “hold themselves in readiness at a minute’s warning, complete in arms and ammunition; that is to say a good and sufficient firelock, bayonet, thirty rounds of powder and ball, pouch and knapsack.”

While each town’s process for establishing minute companies could certainly differ from others, most towns within the colony complied with the request of the Provincial Congress. Minute companies would, however, comprise only about a quarter of each town’s militia force.

Overall, these elite, highly mobile companies were very well trained in the art of maneuver, usually the first to arrive at the scene of action, and in the use of their flintlock weapons, mainly smoothbore muskets, and fowling pieces.

On the morning of April 19, 1775, despite the myths and fireside stories that would be passed from one generation of Americans to the next, some suggest that the truth is that there were no Lexington minute men standing on the Village Green to witness the first shots of the American Revolution.

Rather, standing on the Green with Captain Parker that fateful morning were men who made up, not a minute company, but a traditional New England training band. They were friends, neighbors, and kinsmen; they were the militia and brave men, all. (American Battlefield Trust, Wilcox) (Note: Spelling of Minute Men (2-words) is based on how they spelled that name in the mid-1770s.)

Click the following link to a general summary about the Minute Men:

Click to access Minute-Men-SAR-RT.pdf

Click to access Minute-Men.pdf