18C Early American Timeline 1740-1749

December 11, 2017, 1:00 am

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1740
A great fire destroys half of Charleston, South Carolina.

Large numbers of women join churches during the Great Awakening of the 1740s. Some have called this the “feminization of the church.” Open-air preaching, the charismatic phenomena, and the involvement of the poor all gain more public attention for this movement. Support comes from most American Protestant denominations, but not from Anglicans.

Fifty black slaves are hanged in Charleston, South Carolina, after plans for a 1739 revolt are found.

Aaron Moses witnesses a will, becoming the first Jewish person on record in North Carolina.

South Carolina passes the comprehensive Negro Act, making it illegal for male and female slaves to move abroad, assemble in groups, raise food, earn money, and learn to read English. Owners are permitted to kill rebellious slaves if necessary.

Georgia and Carolina attempt to invade Florida in retaliation for the territory's policy toward runaway slaves.

War of the Austrian Succession begins after the death of Emperor Charles VI and eventually results in France and Spain allied against England. The conflict is known in the American colonies as King George's War and lasts until 1748.

1741
Elizabeth Lucas Pinckney introduces indigo cultivation in South Carolina; by 1742 she has a successful crop.

Elizabeth Pinckney sights a comet whose appearance was predicted by Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727).

American revivalism is inflamed by Jonathan Edwards' vivid sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God delivers at Enfield, Massachusettes.

The second slave uprising takes place in New York; 26 slaves are killed and 71 deported.

The first labor strike occurs in New York City when bakers protest the regulation of the price of bread.

A law is enacted requiring all newly freed slaves to leave North Carolina within 6 months.

1742
Moravians (Church of the United Bretheran) found a school in Germantown, Pa. (later Bethlehem); this will grow into the Moravian Seminary for Young Females (from 1805, the Young Ladies Seminary), one of the earliest American girls’ boarding schools.

Georg Frederic Handel’s (1685-1759) "The Messiah" is performed in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

The fishing industry grows in New England; there are nearly 1,000 fishing boats.

"COMPLETE HOUSEWIFE," an English cookbook by Eliza Smith, appears in Williamsburg. Virginia.

Cornelia Smith Bradford (c. 1700-1755) takes over the responsibilities for the AMERICAN WEEKLY MERCURY. From 1742 until 1744, she published the paper with the help of one assistant. After 1744, she became the sole editor and printer until the paper folded in 1746.

Printer Ann Franklin (1695-1763) of Newport, Rhode Island, printed on one sheet A SHORT NARRATIVE OF THE UNJUST PROCEEDINGS OF MR. GEORGE GARDNER OF NEWPORT DISTILLER, AGAINST ANN MAYLEM WIDOW AND ADMINISTRATRIX TO THE ESTATE OF JOHN MAYLEM (1695-1742) LATE OF NEWPORT DISTILLER DECEASED.

Isabella Marshall (Mrs. John Graham) 1742-1814, was born in Scotland. She moved to New York City where she opened a school for girls and formed relief societies for the destitute sick, widows, and orphans.

1743
The first American town meeting is held in Boston’s Faneuil Hall.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), 3rd U.S. President, is born in Virginia.

In Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin drafts the founding document for the American Philosophical Society.

A “pesthouse” is established in Philadelphia to quarantine immigrants.

1744
Benjamin Franklin publishes his design for an improved stove in Account of the New Invented Pennsylvania Fire Place (or Franklin Stove) which provides much more heat on much less fuel than regular fireplaces.

Abigail Smith (1744-1818), wife of John Adams, is born on November 11, in Weymouth, Massachusettes.

Elizabeth (Eliza) Pinckney (1722-1793) develops indigo as a commercial crop in the Carolinas.

Sarah Parsons Moorhead (fl. 1741-1742) writes "LINES... DEDICATED TO THE REV. MR. GEORGE TENNENT." Moorhead's poem sharply criticizes the Great Awakening evangelical clergyman: "O dear sacred TENNENT, pray beware. / Lest too much Terror, prove to some a Snare." She believed that the religious revivalism of the period had become an emotional "Drunkard's song." She lived in Boston during the 1740s.

1745
Thomas Cadwalader (1708-1779) publishes America’s first medical pamphlet describing the treatment of lead poisoning caused by drinking rum distilled in lead pipes.

Men and women make Whist a popular card game.

The first carillon in America is installed in the belfry of Christ Church, Boston.

Cadwallader Colden writes Explication of the First Causes of Action in Matter, and, of the Causes of Gravitation. In this scientific critique, Colden takes on Newtonian physics by claiming to have discovered the cause of gravity. Colden's contemporaries are baffled by his logic and subsequent scholars have dismissed his ideas. Plantae Coldenghamiae, a treatise on medicine, moral philosophy, and natural science, would follow it in 1749.

1746
Benjamin Franklin (1705-1790) explains weather patterns, pressure systems, and water spouts. He begins his experiments with electricity.

The College of New Jersey is founded; it becomes Princeton University in 1896.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) contracts for "A Dictionary of the English Language."

Lucy Terry (c. 1730-1821) writes "BARS FIGHT, AUGUST 28, 1746." Lucy Terry Prince was among the residents of Deerfield, Massachusetts, traumatized by an Abenaki raid on the village. Lucy, a slave, described the horrific event in "The Bars Fight," the earliest known poem by a black writer in North America. The work is also the most accurate account of what happened that day. Five colonists died, one was badly wounded, and another was taken captive.

1747
The first legal society, the New York Bar Association, is founded in New York City.

A measles epidemic sweeps through Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina.

In England, Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) publishes “A Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language.”

A new wave of Highlanders begins arriving in North Carolina after the failed revolt in Scotland in 1746. Forced from their Scottish homelands, these immigrants settle mainly in the Cape Fear Valley.

The Ohio Company is formed to extend colonial settlements of Virginia westward; rivalry for the West, especially for the upper Ohio Valley, increases between France and Great Britain.

1748
A circulating library opens in Charleston, South Carolina.

Martha Wayles (1748-1782), wife of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), is born on October 30 in Charles City County, Virginia.

Lucy Terry's (c. 1730-1821) "Bars Fight" is published.

Georgia becomes a Crown Colony and Trustees of Georgia colony revoke their prohibition on slavery in the colony, marking a legal recognition of slavery there.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) invents the lightning rod, installing one on his Philadelphia house.

The Philadelphia Academy is founded; it becomes the University of Pennsylvania in 1791.

The Ohio Company makes its first settlement around the forks of the Ohio River.

James Davis installs North Carolina’s first printing press in New Bern. His first publications are government documents.

Black slavery is legalized in Georgia.

First American repertory acting company established in Philadelphia; it opens with Thomas Keane in Richard III.

1749
Jewish Congregation Beth Elohim (The House of God) is founded in Charleston, South Carolina.

Georgia repeals its prohibition and permits the importation of black slaves.

See Burt, Daniel S., editor. THE CHRONOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE: AMERICA'S LITERARY ACHIEVEMENTS FROM THE COLONIAL ERA TO MODERN TIMES. Houghton Mifflin Internet.
HISTORY MATTERS. American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning (Graduate Center, CUNY) and the Center for History and New Media (George Mason University). Internet. http://historymatters.gmu.edu

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18C Women Across the Globe

December 3, 2017, 1:00 am

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1797 Jacques Grasset of Saint-Sauveur (France, 1757-1810), Woman of the Seed Coast. Costumes of Different Countries, Los Angeles County Art Museum

Across the 18C globe, dress varied widely. In the early 1700s, British & British American colonial women dressed similarly, but they could get an idea how women in far places also might dress from costume drawings, which were becoming more popular & more widely available.

18C Women Across the Globe

December 6, 2017, 1:00 am

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1797 Jacques Grasset of Saint-Sauveur (France, 1757-1810),  Costumes of Different Countries, Los Angeles County Art Museum

Across the 18C globe, dress varied widely. In the early 1700s, British & British American colonial women dressed similarly, but they could get an idea how women in far places also might dress from costume drawings, which were becoming more popular & more widely available.

18C Women Across the Globe

December 9, 2017, 1:00 am

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1797 Jacques Grasset of Saint-Sauveur (France, 1757-1810), Costumes of Different Countries, Los Angeles County Art Museum 

Across the 18C globe, dress varied widely. In the early 1700s, British & British American colonial women dressed similarly, but they could get an idea how women in far places also might dress from costume drawings, which were becoming more popular & more widely available.

From Freedom of the Press to St Elizabeth Seaton - The complicated life of Elizabeth Becker Curson 1731-1787

November 28, 2017, 1:00 am

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1757 Thomas McIlworth (fl 1757-67). Elizabeth Becker (Mrs. Richard Curzon or Curson) 1731-1787. 

Elizabeth Rebecca Becker was born into a family of strong women, but she certainly was not born into elite colonial society. Elizabeth Becker was born in New York City in 1731, the daughter of Frederick Becker & his wife, Anna Catharina Zenger.  Elizabeth Becker's mother Anna Catharina Zenger had sailed to New York City from Germany with her family in 1710. The Zengers hailed from the Rhine section of Germany called the Palatinate, which had been impoverished by a succession of wars & extravagant local rulers.  In 1710, England's Queen Anne sent 3,000 Palatinate refugees to the colonies to establish naval stores in New York. In return for 7 years of labor, the emigrants were promised grants of land. Unfortunately 25 % died during the 2 month voyage. Among the dead was the father of Anna Catharina Zenger. She survived the voyage with her newly widowed mother, older brother 13-year-old John Peter; & her younger brother Johannes. Anna Catharina's 33-year-old mother Johannah arrived in the new world a widow with 3 children to shelter & feed.  Anna Catharina married Frederick Becker in 1727, & their baby Elizabeth Becker would live through turbulent events that seemed to swirl about her throughout her life from the moment she was born.

Elizabeth Becker's uncle John Peter Zenger & his wife fight for Freedom of Speech

In 1711, the widow Zenger apprenticed her 14 year-old son John Peter to New York's only printer, William Bradford (1663-1752).  Completing his indenture in 1718, young Zenger moved to Chestertown, Maryland, to make his living as a printer. Though he was named to print the session laws of the Maryland state legislature, he did not prosper there; & in 1722, he returned to New York. The industrious young Zenger entered into a partnership with his old master Bradford in 1725, leaving just the next year to start his own print shop, only the second in the city of New York.  For several years, Zenger was active printing mostly German religious tracts until, in 1733, he was approached by James Alexander with the opportunity to print America's first political party newspaper, the New York Weekly Journal. James Alexander, a native of Scotland, had emigrated to New York, where he practiced law & became a leading member of the popular party.

The same year that Elizabeth Becker was born, the English appointed William Cosby as Governor of New York after removing him from a similar post in the Leeward Islands amid serious controversies. New York was faction-ridden. A brief period of peace ended in 1732, with the arrival of the tainted new governor, who intended to use the post to enhance his own fortunes. Shortly after arriving in New York, the new English Governor fired the Chief Justice, Lewis Morris, for having the grit to decide against him in a lawsuit. After the new governor removed the Chief Justice, attempted to fix an election, & accepted questionable honorariums, John Peter Zenger agreed to print anonymously James Alexander's attacks on Cosby's administration.  These newspaper revelations so enraged the colonial governor, that he had Zenger imprisoned. Zenger was formally accused of libeling the Governor. Zenger endured nearly 9 harrowing months in New York City's jail refusing to identify Alexander or any of his sources for the offending articles.

Trial of John Zenger

Elizabeth Becker's aunt, Zenger's wife Anna, took over publishing the newspaper. With her husband in jail & young children underfoot, Anna Zenger somehow managed to keep the New York Weekly Journal publishing, missing only one issue.  Because of her stubborn determination, the uninterrupted publication of the newspaper helped build public support for Zenger's plight. In 1735, Zenger's lawyer, Andrew Hamilton, argued that the newspaper articles could not be libelous, because the accusations against Governor Cosby were true. Zenger's attorney Hamilton challenged the constitutionality of the crimes for which his client was being prosecuted. It was one of the first times in American history in which a lawyer challenged the laws rather than the innocence of his clients.  The jury found Zenger not guilty, & the acquittal set an important precedent for American freedom of the press. Released from jail, Zenger immediately wrote A Brief Narrative of the Case and Tryal of John Peter Zenger telling the story of the court case.

Elizabeth Becker's Marriage
When Zenger's neice, Elizabeth Becker turned 16, she met an exciting young Londoner Richard Curson (1726-1805) soon after he immigrated to New York City in 1747. Curson was 21; & after a whirlwind romance, they married in December of 1747. Newlyweds Richard & Elizabeth sailed back to England, so that the new bride could meet his family. His father, Samuel Curson III, was a successful London wine merchant with extensive business contacts in Italy & Spain. While young Elizabeth was in England with her new groom, she survived a vicious attack of smallpox leaving her severely permanently disfigured. Longing for the comfort of her family in the American colonies, Elizabeth & Richard returned to New York City in 1756, where Richard used his family's extensive contacts throughout England, Europe, the Atlantic region to became a prominent merchant & banker.  By 1763, when Elizabeth was 32, she had given birth to 4 children who lived to adulthood: Rebecca, Samuel, Anna Maria, & Richard. Her husband's mercantile career was flourishing by the early 1770s. One of his companies had offices in both New York City & St. Eustatius in the Dutch West Indies. He was trading silks, flour, corn, gunpowder, fish, wines, slaves, tobacco, & rice in ships he was having built as far away as India.  But the war & the arrival of the British interrupted Elizabeth & Richard's success in New York City. The Curson's took their youngest son Richard Jr. & fled New York City in June of 1776, to avoid possible capture by the British; because of their open sympathy for the revolution. By June, 1777, they had settled in the safer port of Baltimore, Maryland, where Richard established a new mercantile firm operating from 1777-1803.  While importing goods & wines from the Caribbean, Italy, & Spain, Richard, Sr., also used 8 of his ships as privateers to run the British blockade & attack the enemy vessels during the American Revolution. Elizabeth Becker & Richard Curson thrived in Baltimore, becoming friends with Thomas Jefferson, Light Horse Harry Lee, General Horatio Gates, & Daniel Dulany.

Elizabeth Becker Curson's Children
Elizabeth Becker Curson did not fret about finances, she worried about her children -- with good reason.  Because of his sympathy for the revolution, the family's oldest son Samuel had moved to St. Eustatius in the Dutch West Indies by March, 1776, establishing a mercantile company there. When it was safe in 1780, the young Corson returned to New York City.  In 1784, an uncle in England, left 3,000 pounds to his grandnephew Samuel Curson of New York City, who used his windfall inheritance to travel extensively throughout Europe & England. By July, 1785, Samuel had established his own business in New York. His American future looked bright; but in 1785, young Samuel Curson unexpectedly applied to the U.S. Congress for the position of U.S. Consul in London.  Apparently during his travels in England in 1784, he had fathered an illegitimate son with Betsy Burling who soon after married Richard John Whittell of England, a 1st cousin of Samuel Curson. Betsy's new husband tried to blackmail the wealthy American Curson family from England. Betsy's brother (or possibly her new husband posing as her brother) Walter Burling determined that he needed to be much closer to the situation, & he actually moved to Baltimore.  Walter Burling persistently continued to seek monetary satisfaction for the illegitimate child from young Samuel & from his parents.  He physically pursued Samuel Curson from the West Indies to London & finally back to America. In New York, on April 21, 1786, Burling challenged Curson to a duel, in which Samuel received a fatal wound dying 3 days later.  Elizabeth Becker's final living son, Richard Curson, Jr., was born on 1763 in New York, & fled to Baltimore, in 1777, with his parents. In 1784, he married Elizabeth Moale, had 3 children who lived to maturity, & lived at his parents' home until 1803. Elizabeth had worried about this son Richard for years. He was in ailing health & suffered from a spinal disease since early childhood.  In 1787, Elizabeth Becker Curson died & was buried at Old Saint Paul's Episcopal Church Cemetery in Baltimore. In 1805, Richard Curson Sr. died & was buried next to his wife.  The following year, their son Richard was declared a lunatic by the Chancery Court of Maryland. The custody of his person & property were given to Samuel Vincent, who had administered the estate for the elder Curson & his wife, Elizabeth Becker Curson. Richard Jr. died on June 14, 1808, & was buried next to his parents in Baltimore.  

Elizabeth Becker Curson's Granddaughter becomes a Saint

By 1786, Elizabeth Becker Curson had 13 grandchildren in America; one of her sons had been shot to death; one of her grown daughters died from childbearing; & the remaining daughter was married & raising both her own 7 children plus the 6 children of her deceased sister. Daughter Rebecca Curson had married William Seton (1746-1798) in 1767 in New York; & when she died in 1775, the newly widowed William Seton married her sister Anna Maria Curson in 1776.

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (1774-1821)

Elizabeth Becker's grandson, her deceased daughter Rebecca Courson Seton's firstborn son William Seton (1768-1803), married another strong, determined woman, Elizabeth Ann Baley (1774-1821). She converted to Roman Catholicism; founded the American Sisters of Charity (the first sisterhood native to the United States); & was a wife, mother, widow, single parent, & educator. Elizabeth Bayley Seton was the first person born in the United States to become a canonized saint.

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1797 Jacques Grasset of Saint-Sauveur (France, 1757-1810), Costumes of Different Countries, Los Angeles County Art Museum 

Across the 18C globe, dress varied widely. In the early 1700s, British & British American colonial women dressed similarly, but they could get an idea how women in far places also might dress from costume drawings, which were becoming more popular & more widely available.

18C Early American Timeline 1750-1759

December 14, 2017, 1:00 am

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1750
Over a million people live in colonial America.

The British Parliament passes The Iron Act, limiting the growth of the iron industry in the American Colonies

The word "bluestocking," is used as a put-down for learned women.

Neoclassicism as a reaction against baroque and rococo styles spreads over Europe.

The first American coal mine opens on the James River in Virginia.

The river flatboat and the Conestoga wagon first appear in Pennsylvania.

The first playhouse opens in New York City.

The first Great Awakening ends when Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) is forced to resign from his church in Northampton, MA because of his emphasis on the sinful nature of man. He rejects the liberal "halfway covenant." He becomes pastor of a church in the frontier settlement of Stockbridge, in western Massachusetts.

The Currency Act is passed by the English Parliament, banning the issuing of paper money by the New England colonies.

Charlotte Ramsay Lennox (1720-1804) writes the first novel by an Ameican-born writer, The Life of Harriet Stuart. Lennox, born in New York and sent to England at the age of fifteen for schooling, remained there for the rest of her life. It is also the first novel with American settings, such as the Hudson River, Albany, and the Mohawk Valley.

1751
Britain passes the British Calendar Act, which places England and its colonies on the Gregorian Calendar beginning in 1752.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1791) publishes "Experiments and Observations on Electricity," using the terms positive and negative for the first time. And he helps found the first “English Academy” in Philadelphia.

James Madison (1751-1836), fourth President of the U.S., is born in Port Conway, Virginia

The Ohio Company actively colonizes in the Ohio Valley.

Sugar cane grown in America is introduced in Louisiana by Catholic missionaries; it is used to make a kind of rum.

The minuet becomes Europe’s fashionable dance.

George II repeals the 1705 act, making slaves real estate in Virginia.

James Davis begins publishing the North Carolina Gazette, the colony’s first newspaper, in New Bern. He also prints North Carolina’s first book.

The first cricket match is held in New York City.

1752
French and Indian: The French begin building forts across Pennsylvania and into Ohio to stop British invasion of their territory.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) performs his famous kite experiment, proving that lightning is electricity.

Thomas Bond (1712-1784) establishes the first general hospital in the colonies in Philadelphia, treating all except those with incurable or infectious diseases.

Martha Daniell Logan (1704-1779) writes a "Gardener's Kalendar." The Charleston, South Carolina, widow, plantation owner, schoolteacher, and horticulturist's publishes it in the South Carolina Almanack, published by John Tobler. Her work is significant as the first American treatise on gardening.

Charlotte Ramsay Lennox writes The Female Quixote; or, The Adventures of Arabella satirizing the idealized conventions of French romances. Ramsay would dramatize the novel as Angelica; or Quixote in Petticoats in 1758.

1753
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) and William Hunter are appointed as postmasters general for the American Colonies.

George Washington undertakes a difficult and ineffectual journey to persuade the French to withdraw from the Ohio valley

French troops from Canada seize the Ohio Valley in action leading up to the French and Indian War.

Moravians from Pennsylvania purchase a 100,000-acre tract in present-day Forsyth County in North Carolina from Earl Granville. They name the area Wachovia, which means “peaceful valley.” They establish the settlement of Bethabara in November.

Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778) publishes "Species Plantarum," establishing the names of plant species.

Elizabeth Sampson Ashbridge (1713-1755) writes an autobiography of her spiritual development Some Account of the Fore Part of the Life of Elizabeth Ashbridge. An ordained Quaker minister, she hints that the ability to free herself from male authority depends on her ability to accept God's authority. The work would be first published in 1774.

1754
George Washington kills ten French troops at Fort Duquesne, in the first violent clash of the French and Indian war. Washington leads a small group of American colonists to victory over the French, then builds Fort Necessity in the Ohio territory. In July, after being attacked by numerically superior French forces, Washington surrenders the fort and retreats.

The French and Indian War begins. France and Britain fight for seven years over the territory from Canada down the west side of the Mississippi River to New Orleans. In Europe, the conflict is called the Seven Years' War. Albany Plan of Union; June

King’s College in New York City is founded; it becomes Columbia University in 1784.

Benjamin Franklin's chopped-up snake, urging union of the colonies with the caption 'Join or Die', is the first American political cartoon. And he proposes to the Albany Congress that the colonies should unite to form a colonial government.

Esther Edwards Burr (1732-1758) begins writing her Journal. Burr chronicles daily life from 1754 to 1757, giving information on topics such as the founding of Princeton College, religious revivals, childbearing practices, the French and Indian War, and women's roles during the period. It would be published in several editions by Jeremiah Eames Rankin (1828-1904) as Esther Burr's Journal.An account of the kidnapping by Indians of Elizabeth Hanson (1648-1737), wife of John Hanson of Dover, New Hampshire was published posthumously in Philadelphia as God's mercy surmounting man's cruelty, exemplified in the captivity and redemption of Elizabeth Hanson, wife of John Hanson, of Knoxmarsh at Kecheachy, in Dover township, who was taken captive with her children, and maid-servant, by the Indians in New-England, in the year 1724.

1755
British General Edward Braddock (c.1695-1755) takes command of all English forces in America during the French and Indian War. In April, Gen. Braddock and Lt. Col. George Washington set out with nearly 2000 men to battle the French in the Ohio territory. In July, a force of about 900 French and Indians defeat those English forces in an ambush near Ft. Duquesne in Western Pennsylvania. Braddock is mortally wounded. Massachusetts Governor William Shirley then becomes the new commander in chief.

The first Conestoga wagons made in Pennsylvania are acquired by George Washington for an expedition through the Alleghenies.

Sarah Haggar Osborn (1714-1796) writes a series of emotional letters on her spiritual awakening The Nature, Certainty, and Evidence of True Christianity. This work begins as a series of letters to a friend and represents a look back on Osborn's spiritual awakening. In 1799, Osborn would expand her letters into Memoirs of the Life of Mrs. Sarah Osborn.

1756
French under General Louis Montcalm (1712-1759) capture and destroy British colonial Fort Oswego in New York.

England declares war on France, as the French and Indian War in the colonies now spreads to Europe.

The governor of Pennsylvania, in response to Indian attacks, offers a bounty for Indian scalps. This act of war forces those remaining Quakers to resign from the Assembly, as it goes against the pacifist beliefs . This marks the true onset of the Age of Quietism within the Quaker community.

1757
William Pitt becomes England's Secretary of State and escalates the French and Indian War in the colonies by establishing a policy of unlimited warfare.

The first street lights—whale-oil lamps designed by Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)—are used on a few streets in Philadelphia.

The first public concert is held in Philadelphia.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) is sent to London as a representative of the Pennsylvania legislature to negotiate for the heirs of William Penn and remains there for 5 years.

Martha Wadsworth Brewster (fl. 1725-1757) of Lebanon, Connecticut, writes Poems on Divers Subjects, containing poems, letters, & some prose works. Brewster tackles radical subject matter for an 18th century woman, including military events & the brutality of war. When the book first appears, Brewster has to demonstrate her authorship to a public skeptical that a woman could write poetry by publicly paraphrasing a psalm into verse.

1758
James Monroe (1758-1831) 5th President of the U.S., is born on April 28, in Westmoreland County, Virginia.

English forces at Lake George, New York, lose nearly two thousand men during a frontal attach against well-entrenched French forces at Fort Ticonderoga; French losses are 377. General Montcalm and his French troops are defeated and colonials begin settling there.

George Washington (1732-1799) and General John Forbes (1710-1759) take Fort Duquesne, later renamed Pittsburgh.

A school for Negroes is established in Philadelphia by the Anglican missionary group.

Molly (Mary) Brant (c.1736-1796), a Mohawk woman, becomes the partner of Sir William Johnson. She is largely responsible for the alliance between the Iroquois and the British.

A raiding party consisting of French and Shawnee warriors takes Mary Jemison (1743-1833) captive. She adopts Native American customs, which she retains all her adult life.

Jonathan Edwards becomes president of the College of New Jersey, later Princeton University.

The first North American Indian reservation is established on 3,000 acres in New Jersey.

Elizabeth Sandwith Drinker (1734-1807) begins writing her diary, which later becomes an in-depth portrait of an elite urban woman from Philadelphia in the late eighteenth century. Excerpts of the diary would be first published in 1889.

Charlotte Ramsay Lennox writes Henrietta, a novel concerning an orphaned French girl's adventures. It would be adapted by the author as the drama The Sister in 1769.

Annis Boudinot Stockton (1735-1801) writes "Epistle to Mr. S." This is one of Stockton's earliest poems and possibly the first poetry published by a New Jersey woman. The poem originally appeared in the New York Mercury and reveals a period of great sadness in Stockton's life--the time of her husband's extended and final illness. Stockton would become one of the most published American women poets of the century, with at least twenty-one of her poems appearing in prestigious newspapers and magazines.

Martha Brewster publishes Poems on divers subjects…A word of advice reserv'd for my two grand-sons, being yet babes. By Martha Brewster, of Lebanon.

Pennsylvania Quakers forbid their members from owning slaves or participating in the slave trade.

1759
The French surrender to the British at Quebec. Ft. Niagara is captured by the British.

A measles epidemic breaks out all over North America, wherever white people live.

Martha Dandridge Custis (1731-1802) marries George Washington (1732-1799).

Abigail Smith (1744-1818) is received into her father’s Congregational Church in Weymouth on June 24. Later that summer, she meets John Adams (1735-1826) in her father’s parsonage.

Colonial shipbuilders are producing nearly 400 vessels each year.

Thomas Penn (1702-1775) and Richard Penn establish the first recorded life insurance company, the Presbyterian Ministers fund, in Philadelphia.

Peter Harrison (1716-1775) designs the first U.S. synagugue, the Touro synagogue in Newport, RI.

War erupts between Cherokee Indians and southern colonists.

See
Yale Law School, The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy. New Haven, CT.Burt, Daniel S., editor. THE CHRONOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE: AMERICA'S LITERARY ACHIEVEMENTS FROM THE COLONIAL ERA TO MODERN TIMES. Houghton Mifflin Internet.
HISTORY MATTERS. American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning (Graduate Center, CUNY) and the Center for History and New Media (George Mason University). Internet. http://historymatters.gmu.edu/

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1792 Unmarried woman of HIndeloopen. Plate II of Letters over the united Netherlands by J. Grabner, a lieutenant in the service of the republic. 1792

Across the 18C globe, dress varied widely. In the early 1700s, British & British American colonial women dressed similarly, but they could get an idea how women in far places also might dress from costume drawings, which were becoming more popular & more widely available.

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18C Early American Timeline 1760-1769

December 17, 2017, 1:00 am

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1760
George III becomes king of England, Ireland and the colonies

1.5 million colonists living in America.

British General Lord Jeffrey Amherst (1717-1797) captures Montreal and ends French resistance in Canada.

New York requires that all physicians and surgeons pass a test and be licensed to practice medicine.

Benjamin Franklin invents the first bifocal lenses for eye glasses.

New Jersey prohibits the enlistment of slaves in the militia without their master's permission.

The Bray School for African-American children is established in Williamsburg.

College of William and Mary students petition for better food; they ask for salt and fresh meat for dinner, and desserts 3 times a week.

Thomas Jefferson (1723-1826) enters the College of William and Mary in Virginia.

Much of Boston is destroyed by a raging fire.

1761
George Washington inherits the plantation Mount Vernon in Virginia from his half-brother Lawrence.

The first liturgy for the Evening Services for Rosh-Hashanah and Yom Kippur are published in New York.

Abigail Adams (1744-1818) keeps her correspondence and the Letters of Mrs. Adams, the Wife of John Adams, which would be published in the 1840s. Her letters, starting in 1761 and ending in 1814, span the Revolutionary and Early Federal eras. Adams displays a rather strong feminist bent throughout.

1762
England declares war on Spain, which had been planning to ally itself with France and Austria. The British then successfully attack Spanish outposts in the West Indies and Cuba.

Elizabeth Eliza Lucas Pinckney’s letters are collected into The Letterbook of Eliza Lucas Pinckney, 1739-1762, containing details of her life, including her changing politics; ideas on slave education; voracious reading habits; an happy marriage; and her devotion to her children. As a married woman, Eliza manages her father's large plantation holdings, pioneers large-scale cultivation of indigo in South Carolina, and develops into a fervent patriot. The collection would be published in 1972.

1763
The Treaty of Paris is signed by France and Britain, ending the French and Indian War. England now owns all the territory from the eastern coastline west to the Mississippi.

In Virginia, Patrick Henry presents the theory of a mutual compact between the governed and the ruler.

In North Carolina, A group of white men from Edgecombe, Granville, and Northampton Counties petitions the General Assembly to repeal a 1723 law that heavily taxes free African Americans upon marriage. The petitioners state that the tax leaves blacks and mixed-race people “greatly impoverished and many of them rendered unable to support themselves and families with the common necessaries of life.”

Ottawa Native Americans under Chief Pontiac begin all-out warfare against the British west of Niagara, destroying several British forts and conducting a siege against the British at Detroit. In August, Pontiac's forces are defeated by the British near Pittsburgh. The siege of Detroit ends in November, but hostilities between the British and Chief Pontiac continue for several years.

The Proclamation of 1763, signed by King George III of England, prohibits any English settlement west of the Appalachian mountains and requires those already settled in those regions to return east in an attempt to ease tensions with Native Americans.

The synagogue building of Congregation Jeshuat Israel of Newport, Rhode Island, (later known as the Touro Synagogue), the oldest synagogue building still in use in America, is dedicated.

1764
The Sugar Act is passed by the British, forbidding American importation of foreign rum and taxing imported molasses, wine, silk, coffee, and a number of other luxury items. Parliament, desiring revenue from its North American colonies, passed the first law specifically aimed at raising colonial money for the Crown. The act increased duties on non-British goods shipped to the colonies. It doubles the duties on foreign goods reshipped from England to the colonies and also forbids the import of foreign rum and French wines. Great Britain : Parliament - The Sugar Act; September 29

The English Parliament passes a measure to reorganize the American customs system to better enforce British trade laws, which have often been ignored in the past. A court is established in Halifax, Nova Scotia, that will have jurisdiction over all of the American colonies in trade matters.

Currency Act. This act prohibited American colonies from issuing their own legal tender, paper money. This act threatens to destabilize the entire colonial economy of both the industrial North and agricultural South, thus uniting the colonists against it.Great Britain : Parliament - The Currency Act; April 19

American colonists responded to the Sugar Act and the Currency Act with protest. In Massachusetts, participants in a town meeting cried out against taxation without proper representation in Parliament, and suggested some form of united protest throughout the colonies. By the end of the year, many colonies were practicing nonimportation, a refusal to use imported English goods. Petition from the Massachusetts House of Representatives to the House of Commons; November 3

Boston lawyer James Otis publishes The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved. And Boston merchants begin to boycott British luxury goods.

Petition of the Virginia House of Burgesses to the House of Commons: December 18, 1764

1765
The Stamp Act is passed by the British, taxing all colonial newspapers, advertisements, leases, licenses, pamphlets, and legal documents. This was Parliament's first direct tax on the American colonies, this act, like those passed in 1764, was enacted to raise money for Britain. It taxed newspapers, almanacs, pamphlets, broadsides, legal documents, dice, and playing cards. Issued by Britain, the stamps were affixed to documents or packages to show that the tax had been paid. For the first time in 150 years, the Americans will pay tax not to their own local legislatures in America, but directly to England. Great Britain : Parliament - The Stamp Act, March 22

The British further angered American colonists with the Quartering Act, which required the colonies to provide barracks and supplies to British troops. Great Britain : Parliament - The Quartering Act; May 15

Patrick Henry presents seven Virginia Resolutions to the House of Burgesses claiming that only the Virginia assembly can legally tax Virginia residents, saying, "If this be treason, make the most of it."

Resolves of the Pennsylvania Assembly on the Stamp Act, September 21

Resolutions of the Congress of 1765; October 19

New York Merchants Non-importation Agreement; October 31

Connecticut Resolutions on the Stamp Act: December 10

Growing resentment amongst the predominantly Scottish frontier settlers in Pennsylvania is turned towards the Indians and those Quakers still on good terms with them. The Paxton Boys, a vigilante group, kill the remaining Conestoga Indians of Lancaster County and then march on Philadelphia. The Quakers had removed a band of Moravian Indians there and many of the citizens of Philadelphia came to their defence. Many Quakers took up arms, forgetting their scruples about violence, and the meetinghouse was used as a barracks. Peaceful solutions prevail, however, and Benjamin Franklin heads a delegation which manages to mollify the Paxton Boys sufficiently that they leave without the Indian scalps.

1766
In North Carolina, the Moravians establish Salem in present-day Forsyth County.

The first medical school in America is founded, in Philadelphia.

Mary Katherine Goddard and her widowed mother become publishers of the Providence Gazette newspaper and the annual West's Almanack, making her the first woman publisher in America. In 1775, Goddard became the first woman postmaster in the country (in Baltimore), and in 1777 she became the first printer to offer copies of the Declaration of Independence that included the signers' names. In 1789 Goddard opened a Baltimore bookstore, probably the first woman in America to do so.

Sons of Liberty, an underground organization opposed to the Stamp Act, is formed in a number of colonial towns. Its members use violence and intimidation to eventually force all of the British stamp agents to resign and also stop many American merchants from ordering British trade goods.
A mob in Boston attacks the home of Thomas Hutchinson, Chief Justice of Massachusetts, as Hutchinson and his family narrowly escape.

The Stamp Act Congress convenes in New York City, with representatives from nine of the colonies. The Congress prepares a resolution to be sent to King George III and the English Parliament. The petition requests the repeal of the Stamp Act and the Acts of 1764. The petition asserts that only colonial legislatures can tax colonial residents and that taxation without representation violates the colonists' basic civil rights.

In New York City, violence breaks out as a mob burns the royal governor in effigy, harasses British troops, then loots houses.

King George III signs a bill repealing the Stamp Act after much debate in the English Parliament, which included an appearance by Ben Franklin arguing for repeal and warning of a possible revolution in the American colonies if the act was enforced by the British military. Great Britain : Parliament - An Act Repealing the Stamp Act; March 18 And on the same day, it repealed the act, the English Parliament passes the Declaratory Act stating that the British government has total power to legislate any laws governing the American colonies in all cases whatsoever.

 Great Britain : Parliament - The Declaratory Act; March 18

Violence breaks out in New York between British soldiers and armed colonists, including Sons of Liberty members. The violence erupts as a result of the continuing refusal of New York colonists to comply with the Quartering Act. In December, the New York legislature is suspended by the English Crown after once again voting to refuse to comply with the Act.

1767
The Townshend Act, named for the British secretary of the treasury, are passed, taxing the colonists on imported paper, glass, lead, and tea. Items taxed also included imports such as paints. The Act also establishes a colonial board of customs commissioners in Boston. Great Britain : Parliament - The Townshend Act, November 20

Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon complete a four-year survey to establish the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland—The Mason Dixon Line.

The Virginia House of Burgess boycotts the British slave trade in protest of the Townsend Acts. Georgia and the Carolinas follow suit.

Anonymous: The Female American; or, The Adventures of Unca Eliza Winkfield. An adventure story depicting Virginia settlers, relations with the Indians, and the heroine's education in England, shipwreck, and work as a missionary.Anne Catherine Hoof Greene begins publishing The Maryland Gazette. Following the death of her husband, widow Anne Green (c. 1720-1775) quickly takes over the printing of the weekly newspaper of the colony, with the help of her son, William. The masthead reads "Anne Catharine Green & Son," and, by the end of the year, she would be acknowledged as the "printer to the province of Maryland"--a position formerly held by her late husband.

1768
Samuel Adams of Massachusetts writes a Circular Letter opposing taxation without representation and calling for the colonists to unite in their actions against the British government. The letter is sent to assemblies throughout the colonies and also instructs them on the methods the Massachusetts general court is using to oppose the Townshend Acts. England's Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord Hillsborough, orders colonial governors to stop their own assemblies from endorsing Adams' circular letter. Hillsborough also orders the governor of Massachusetts to dissolve the general court if the Massachusetts assembly does not revoke the letter. By month's end, the assemblies of New Hampshire, Connecticut and New Jersey have endorsed the letter.  Massachusetts Circular Letter to the Colonial Legislatures; February 11, 1768and Circular Letter to the Governors in America; April 21, 1768

British warship armed with 50 cannons sails into Boston harbor after a call for help from custom commissioners who are constantly being harassed by Boston agitators. In June, a customs official is locked up in the cabin of the Liberty, a sloop owned by John Hancock. Imported wine is then unloaded illegally into Boston without payment of duties. Following this incident, customs officials seize Hancock's sloop. After threats of violence from Bostonians, the customs officials escape to an island off Boston, then request the intervention of British troops.

The governor of Massachusetts dissolves the general court after the legislature defies his order to revoke Adams' circular letter. In August, in Boston and New York, merchants agree to boycott most British goods until the Townshend Acts are repealed. Boston Non-Importation Agreement, August 1, 1768

In September, at a town meeting in Boston, residents are urged to arm themselves. Resolutions of the Boston Town Meeting; September 13, 1768 Later in September, English warships sail into Boston Harbor, then two regiments of English infantry land in Boston and set up permanent residence to keep order.

Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson (1737-1801) writes a poem "The Dream of the Patriotic Philosophical Farmer." arguing for an American embargo on British goods. The Philadelphian was the hostess of the most distinguished literary salon in colonial America.

Milcah Martha Moore writes "The Female Patriots. Address'd to the Daughters of Liberty in America, 1768"

1769
A set of resolutions written by George Mason is presented by George Washington to the Virginia House of Burgesses. The Virginia Resolves oppose taxation without representation, the British opposition to the circular letters, and British plans to possibly send American agitators to England for trial. Ten days later, the Royal governor of Virginia dissolves the House of Burgesses. However, its members meet the next day in a Williamsburg tavern and agree to a boycott of British trade goods, luxury items and slaves.

Daniel Boone (1734-1820) was born near Reading, Pennsylvania. After moving through Virginia into North Carolina, Daniel Boone agreed with the Transylvania Company to establish a road for colonists to travel into Kentucky and beyond. On a hunting trip over the Cumberland Mountains in 1769, Boone found a route which came to be known as theCumberland Gap.

Charleston Non-Importation Agreement; July 22

See
Yale Law School, The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy. New Haven, CT.Burt, Daniel S., editor. THE CHRONOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE: AMERICA'S LITERARY ACHIEVEMENTS FROM THE COLONIAL ERA TO MODERN TIMES. Houghton Mifflin Internet.
HISTORY MATTERS. American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning (Graduate Center, CUNY) and the Center for History and New Media (George Mason University). Internet. http://historymatters.gmu.edu

18C Women Across the Globe

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1797 Jacques Grasset of Saint-Sauveur (France, 1757-1810), Costumes of Different Countries, Los Angeles County Art Museum 

Across the 18C globe, dress varied widely. In the early 1700s, British & British American colonial women dressed similarly, but they could get an idea how women in far places also might dress from costume drawings, which were becoming more popular & more widely available.

18C Early American Timeline 1770-1779

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1770
Population of the colonies is 2,210,000

Boston Massacre. British troops fire point blank into an unruly crowd in Boston, Massachusetts, killing five and injuring 6. Escaped slave, Crispus Attucks, is killed & is one of the first colonists to die in the war for independence. After the incident, the new Royal Governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson, at the insistence of Sam Adams, withdraws British troops out of Boston to nearby harbor islands. The captain of the British soldiers, Thomas Preston, is then arrested along with eight of his men & charged with murder.

27-year-old Thomas Jefferson begins constructing a mansion on a hilltop in Charlottesville, calling it Monticello ('little mountain')

The Townshend Acts are repealed by the British. All duties on imports into the colonies are eliminated except for tea. Also, the Quartering Act is not renewed.

Trial begins for the British soldiers arrested after the Boston Massacre. Colonial lawyers John Adams & Josiah Quincy successfully defend Captain Preston and six of his men, who are acquitted. Two other soldiers are found guilty of manslaughter, branded, then released.

Phillis Wheatley writes "An Elegiac Poem, on the Death of That Celebrated Divine, and Eminent Servant of Jesus Christ, the Reverend and Learned George Whitefield." Wheatley's moving tribute to the leading minister of the religious revivalist movement of the 1740s-1750s, known as the Great Awakening, earns her the attention of Boston's literary elite and establishes her as a literary prodigy.

Jane Fenn Hoskens (1694-c. 1750) writes The Life and Spiritual Sufferings of that Faithful Servant of Christ. Jane Hoskens is a public preacher among the Quakers. Like other traveling ministers, Hoskens believes her mission is to share the Quaker gospel with the largest possible audience, and she depends on other Quaker women for a female support network.

1772
British customs schooner, the Gaspee, runs aground off Rhode Island in Narragansett Bay. Colonists from Providence row out to the schooner & attack it, set the British crew ashore, then burn the ship. In September, a 500 pound reward is offered by the English Crown for the capture of those colonists, who would then be sent to England for trial. The announcement that they would be sent to England further upsets many American colonists.

A Boston town meeting assembles, called by Sam Adams. During the meeting, a 21 member committee of correspondence is appointed to communicate with other towns & colonies. A few weeks later, the town meeting endorses three radical proclamations asserting the rights of the colonies to self-rule.

James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw's writes the first autobiographical slave narrative.

Samson Occom (1732-1792) writes "A Sermon Preached at the Execution of Moses Paul, an Indian Who Was Executed at New Haven." The first publication in America by a Native American is a sermon warning of the evils of alcohol, based on an incident in which an Indian killed a white man while drunk. Occom also condemns racial intolerance, which he says corrupts the minds of both whites & Indians.

1773
About 8000 Bostonians gather to hear Sam Adams tell them Royal Governor Hutchinson has repeated his command not to allow the ships out of the harbor until the tea taxes are paid. That night, the Boston Tea Party occurs as 50 colonial activists disguise themselves as Mohawk Indians then board the ships & dump all 342 containers of tea into the harbor. These colonials are also angered by the East India Company's monopoly on the tea trade.

Virginia House of Burgesses appoints an eleven member committee of correspondence to communicate with the other colonies regarding common complaints against the British. Members of that committee include, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry & Richard Henry Lee. Virginia is followed a few months later by New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut & South Carolina.

Virginia Resolutions Establishing A Committee of Correspondence; March 12

Resolutions of the Massachusetts House of Representatives Agreeing to the Virginia Proposal; May 28

The Philadelphia Resolutions; October 16

Association of the Sons of Liberty in New York; December 15

Frontiersman Daniel Boone leaves his Yadkin River North Carolina home to begin exploring Kentucky & within the next 2 years, with a party of thirty men, Boone constructed a nearly 300 mile passage, aptly called the "Wilderness Road," through a natural gap in the Cumberland Mountains. Until the middle of the next century, almost 100,000 pioneers would migrate into the new territories of Kentucky, western Tennessee,

New England Yearly Meeting directs that Quakers owning slaves will be disowned.

The first separate black church in America is founded in South Carolina.

Bridget Richardson Fletcher (1726-1770) writes Hymns and Spiritual Songs. This posthumously published collection, presumed to be written by a Massachusetts woman, includes verses in uniform ballad stanzas that are suitable for singing but unimpressive as poetry. The book's editor condescendingly asks readers "to make allowances for the many inaccuracies of a female pen."

Mercy Otis Warren (1728-1814) writes The Adulateur. The Boston poet, dramatist, and historian makes her most noted contribution as a writer of political satires in dramatic form. Published in the manner of all her plays--anonymously in newspapers or as broadsides & not meant to be performed--the drama attacks the colonial government & especially Thomas Hutchinson. To avoid libel & sedition laws, Warren writes anonymously & masks her targets with thinly veiled pseudonyms.

Slaves in Massachusetts unsuccessfully petition the government for their freedom.

Phillis Wheatley writes Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. After being freed by the Wheatley family in 1772, the poet takes a trip financed by her former owners to England, where she is celebrated by the nobility & in literary circles. Though she had not been able to secure a publisher for her work in America, a British publisher is eager to print this defining collection of her poems. It is the first published poetry collection by an African American. Included is "On Being Brought from Africa to America."


1774
Boston Port Act causes British forces to occupy the town & close the port. Great Britain : Parliament - The Boston Port Act : March 31, 1774

English Parliament passes the first of a series of Coercive Acts (called Intolerable Acts by Americans) in response to the rebellion in Massachusetts.

The Boston Port Act effectively shuts down all commercial shipping in Boston harbor, until Massachusetts pays the taxes owed on the tea dumped in the harbor & also reimburses the East India Company for the loss of the tea.

Bostonians at a town meeting call for a boycott of British imports in response to the Boston Port Bill. May 13, General Thomas Gage, commander of all British military forces in the colonies, arrives in Boston & replaces Hutchinson as Royal governor, putting Massachusetts under military rule. He is followed by the arrival of four regiments of British troops.

The English Parliament enacts the next series of Coercive Acts, which include the Massachusetts Regulating Act and the Government Act virtually ending any self-rule by the colonists there. Instead, the English Crown & the Royal governor assume political power formerly exercised by colonists. Also enacted; the Administration of Justice Act which protects royal officials in Massachusetts from being sued in colonial courts, & the Quebec Act establishing a centralized government in Canada controlled by the Crown and English Parliament. The Quebec Act greatly upsets American colonists by extending the southern boundary of Canada into territories claimed by Massachusetts, Connecticut & Virginia.

The English Parliament passes a new version of the 1765 Quartering Act requiring all of the American colonies to provide housing for British troops in occupied houses & taverns and in unoccupied buildings. In September, Massachusetts Governor Gage seizes that colony's arsenal of weapons at Charlestown.

Circular Letter of the Boston Committee of Correspondence; May 13

Proceedings of Farmington, Connecticut, on the Boston Port Act; May 19

Great Britain : Parliament - The Administration of Justice Act; May 20

Great Britain : Parliament - The Massachusetts Government Act; May 20

Letter from the New York Committee of Fifty-One to the Boston Committee of Correspondence; May 23

Letter from Lieutenant-Governor Colden to the Earl of Dartmouth; June 1

Great Britain : Parliament - The Quartering Act; June 2

Proceedings of the Inhabitants of Philadelphia; June 18

The Association of the Virginia Convention; August 1-6

Great Britain : Parliament - The Quebec Act: October 7

The First Continental Congress of fifty-five representatives (except from the colony of Georgia) meets in Philadelphia to discuss relations with Britain, the possibility of independence, & the hope of a peaceful solution. King George III scorns the thought of reconciliation & declares the colonies to be in a state of open rebellion. Attendees include George Washington, Patrick Henry, Sam Adams, & John Hancock.

Many Quakers feel great sympathy for the democratic, if not revolutionary, sentiments of their fellow colonists. They are constrained, however, because many view their stance on peace as extending to opposing revolution. Quakers at this time tend to believe that when one's conscience does not force one to oppose a government, one should be obedient to it. This extends not just to a refusal to serve in the militias but also to refusing to use the currency printed by the new American government. This leads their fellow Americans to view Quakers as British sympathizers.

Janet Schaw (c. 1735-c. 1801) keeps a journal as she travels which becomes Journal of a Lady of Quality; Being a Narrative of a Journey from Scotland to the West Indies, North Carolina, and Portugal, in the Years 1774 to 1776. Published in 1921, this collection of letters by the Scottish-born travel writer includes a travel account, diary, & literary opinions.

Mercy Otis Warren writes "The Squabble of the Sea Nymphs; or, The Sacrifice of the Tuscaroroes." The poem commemorates the Boston Tea Party while critiquing the role of the British and the colonial government.

Elizabeth Sampson Ashbridge’s work Some Account of the Fore-Part of the Life of Elizabeth Ashbridge is published. She had died in 1755. Written from 1746 to 1753, it is one of the most readable & interesting of the Quaker journals & among the earliest autobiographies by an American woman.

"The Peculiar Circumstances of the Times" a letter from Mercy Warren, dated 29 December 1774, to Catharine Macaulay. Warren described the impact of the closing of the port of Boston and of the Coercive Acts.

October 25: Fifty-one "patriotic ladies" gather in Edenton to announce in writing their boycott of East Indian tea as long as it is taxed by the British. This protest, known as the Edenton Tea Party, is one of the first political activities in this country staged by women.

Flora MacDonald, famous for saving the life of Bonnie Prince Charlie, arrives in Wilmington, North Carolina. After urging her fellow Highland Scots to fight for England & then suffering financial & personal loss during the Revolutionary War, she leaves the state in 1778.

Anonymous. A dialogue, between a southern delegate, and his spouse, on his return from the grand Continental congress…inscribed to the married ladies of America, by their most sincere, and affectionate friend, and servant, Mary V .V. [pseud.]. This is a Tory satire in verse which may or may not have been penned by a woman. [New York]: [James Rivington?], 1774.

Connecticut, Rhode Island, & Georgia prohibit the importation of slaves. And Virginia takes action against slave importation.

1775
New England Restraining Act is endorsed by King George III, requiring New England colonies to trade exclusively with England & also bans fishing in the North Atlantic.

The first shot of the American Revolution is fired in a skirmish between redcoats & militiamen at Lexington, on the road to Concord resulting in the Battles of Concord & Lexington, Seige of Boston, & Bunker Hill. Black minutemen participate in the fighting.

Resolutions of the Provincial Congress of Virginia; March 23

Patrick Henry - Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death Speech to the Virginia General Assembly; March 23

The Mecklenburgh Resolutions; May 20

The Charlotte Town, North Carolina Resolves; May 31

A Declaration by the Representatives of the United Colonies of North-America, Now Met in Congress at Philadelphia, Setting Forth the Causes and Necessity of Their Taking Up Arms.; July 6

Resolution of Secrecy Adopted by the Continental Congress, November 9

Delegates from the states reassemble in Philadelphia, with hostilities against the British already under way in Massachusetts & select George Washington as commander of the army

Francis Salvador, the first Jew to hold elective office in America, is elected to the South Carolina Provincial Congress.

Take the Money and Run: April/May 1775 -- Rachel Revere to Paul Revere

An American Post Office is established with Ben Franklin as Postmaster General.

The slave population in the colonies is nearly 500,000. In Virginia, the ratio of free colonists to slaves is nearly 1:1. In South Carolina it is approximately 1:2.

Georgia takes action against slave importation.

The first abolition society is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery (PAS) is the world's first antislavery society and the first Quaker anti-slavery society. Benjamin Franklin becomes Honorary President of the Society in 1787. Thomas Paine speaks out against slavery & joins the PAS with Benjamin Rush.

In July, George Washington announces a ban on the enlistment of free blacks & slaves in the colonial army. By the end of the year, he reverses the ban, ordering the Continental Army to accept the service of free blacks.

In November, Virginia Royal Governor John Murray, Lord Dunmore, issues a proclamation announcing that any slave fighting on the side of the British will be liberated.

The American Navy is established by Congress. The next day, Congress appoints a secret committee to seek help from European nations.

Anna Young Smith (1756-1780) writes "An Elegy to the Memory of the American Volunteers." The Philadelphia poet's only published poem is a tribute to the American heroes at Lexington and Concord.

The Group, as lately acted, and to be re-acted to the wonder of all superior intelligences, nigh head-quarters at Amboyne. Boston: Edes and Gill, 1775. Mercy Otis Warren writes The Group which criticizes the Massachusetts Government Act, one of the Intolerable Acts, which suspended the existing provincial government.

In Salem, Massachusettes, E. Russell publishes A Cry for Boston by a Young lady, who was late a resident in that unhappy town, An humble intercession for the distressed town of Boston, now almost deserted by its former rightful inhabitants, many of whom have fled, chusing to take refuge in the woods and caves, for the sake of liberty, rather than to live in splendor and affluence among slaves and tyrants; which place is at present under the government of a lawless British soldiery ... who, under the sanction of martial law, exercise every cruelty that can possibly be invented by the most uncultivated savages or fiercest barbarians, on the remaining miserable inhabitants, who are obliged to dwell there contrary to the faith of that perfidious arch-traitor and truce-breaking T. Gage…Now published by the earnest request of a great number of its late inhabitants.

1776
Ann Lee founds the Shaker settlement in America in the woods of Watervliet, Niskeyuna, New York.

British evacuate Boston.

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) drafts the Declaration of Independence which is adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 4.

On 27 August, the colonial army suffers a serious defeat at the Battle of Long Island.

On 16 September, having already decided to remove the army from New York City, Washington repels the British forces of General Howe in the Battle of Harlem Heights.

On 21 September, fire spreads over New York, destroying from 300-1,000 buildings. Early in the morning of this day, Nathan Hale is captured by the British & executed as a spy the next day, September 22. According to an 1848 memoir by a friend, his last word were these: "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."

Abigail Adams'"Remember the Ladies" letter to John Adams, 31 March 1776. Massachusetts Historical Society. She declares that women, "will not hold ourselves bound by any laws which we have no voice."

In Common Sense Thomas Paine moved many to the cause of independence with his pamphlet. In a direct, simple style, he cried out against King George III & the monarchical form of government.

George Washington raises on Prospect Hill a new American flag, the British red ensign on a ground of thirteen stripes – one for each colony

Congress appoints Jefferson, Franklin & Silas Deane to negotiate treaties with European governments. Franklin & Deane then travel to France seeking financial & military aid.

In North Carolina, the Yearly Meeting of Friends (Quakers) denounces slavery & appoints a committee to aid Friends in emancipating their slaves. Forty slaves are freed, but the courts declare them still enslaved & resell them.

Jewish population: between 1,000 and 2,500 (.04-.10 percent of the total population.)

In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Society of Friends, also known as the Quakers, forbids its members from holding slaves.

Delaware prohibits the importation of African slaves.

July 2: New Jersey gives "all inhabitants" of adult age with a net worth of 50 pounds the right to vote. Women property holders have the vote until 1807, when the state limited the vote to "free, white males."

Friends from New England, the south & rural areas overwhelmingly supported the colonists' cause with the stronghold of British sympathy in the Society being in Philadelphia & New York. Six members of the Religious Society of Friends are disowned for joining the British forces, whilst between four & five hundred are expelled from their meetings for participating in the American cause.

Phillis Wheatley writes "To His Excellency General Washington" celebrating George Washington upon his appointment as the head of the army.

1776-1781
Virginia General Assembly restricts the vote to adult white men.

1777
The US Congress agrees the final version of the Articles of Confederation, defining the terms on which states join the Union. Under the Articles, Congress is the sole authority of the new national government.

Congress adopts a new flag for independent America – the stars & stripes.

Marquis de Lafayette, a 19 year old French aristocrat, arrives in Philadelphia & volunteers to serve without pay. Congress appoints him as a major general in the Continental Army. Lafayette will become one of Gen. Washington's most trusted aides.

Mary Katherine Goddard, the Baltimore printer publishes the first copy of the Declaration of Independence, including the names of all the signers.

Vermont is the first of the thirteen colonies to abolish slavery & enfranchise all adult males.

New York enfranchises all free propertied men regardless of color or prior servitude.

1778
On June 28, Mary McCauly (“Molly Pitcher”), wife of an American gunner, brings water to the troops at the Battle of Monmouth Court House. Legend claims that she takes her husband's place after he collapses.

Virginian Hannah Lee Corbin declares that widows should be allowed to vote & not be taxed without representation.

Ratification of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce with France 1778

Ben Franklin is appointed to be the American diplomatic representative in France.

Frances Slocum, a 5 year old Quaker girl, is kidnapped from her home in Pennsylvania, by Native Americans. (See her story in this blog.)

John Adams is appointed by Congress to negotiate peace with England.

Treaty With the Delawares; September 17

Rhode Island forbids the removal of slaves from the state.

Virginia prohibits the importation of slaves.

Sarah Wister (1761-1804) writes a journal, which becomes one of the most valued looks into the daily life of a typical Quaker teenager of the period.Molly Gutridge (fl. 1778) who lived in Marblehead, Massachusetts, writes A New Touch on the Times. This poetic broadside describes three things about American life during the Revolutionary War: the absence of men & the hardships borne by women as a result; the economic troubles of life during war; and the faith that God had placed these hardships on Americans but will someday reward the new nation

1779

Judith Sargent Murray (1751-1820) writes "On the Equality of the Sexes,"a description of women's involvement in history & literature. The essay traces women's contributions to public events in the world just as the new American nation debates the limitations of women's sphere. Murray finishes her essay before Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) completes her Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792); Murray's account would be published in 1790.


See
Yale Law School, The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy. New Haven, CT.
Burt, Daniel S., editor. THE CHRONOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE: AMERICA'S LITERARY ACHIEVEMENTS FROM THE COLONIAL ERA TO MODERN TIMES. Houghton Mifflin Internet.
HISTORY MATTERS. American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning (Graduate Center, CUNY) and the Center for History and New Media (George Mason University). Internet. http://historymatters.gmu.edu

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1797 Jacques Grasset of Saint-Sauveur (France, 1757-1810), Costumes of Different Countries, Los Angeles County Art Museum 

Across the 18C globe, dress varied widely. In the early 1700s, British & British American colonial women dressed similarly, but they could get an idea how women in far places also might dress from costume drawings, which were becoming more popular & more widely available.

18C Early American Timeline 1780-1789

December 23, 2017, 1:00 am

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1780

12 May. After 40 days of siege, General Benjamin Lincoln surrenders Charles Town (Charleston), South Carolina, to the British forces commanded by General Henry Lincoln.

2 October. After being captured with Benedict Arnold's plans for the surrender of West Point, the headquarters of the Continental army, British spy Major John Andre is hanged. Having escaped on 25 September after hearing of Andre's capture, Arnold later becomes a brigadier general in the British army.

Delaware makes it illegal to enslave imported Africans.

Pennsylvania passes an Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery - on March 1

A freedom clause in the Massachusetts constitution is interpreted as an abolishment of slavery.

Massachusetts enfranchises all men, but not women, regardless of race.

1781

17 January. At the battle of Cowpens, South Carolina, General Daniel Morgan defeats the British forces of Colonel Banastre Tarleton, an important victory for the Americans.

Articles of Confederation : March 1, 1781

10 June. Reinforced by troops under General Anthony Wayne, American forces under the Marquis de Lafayette help to fend off raids by Benedict Arnold and Cornwallis in Virginia.

6 September. Benedict Arnold and his troops attack and destroy parts of New London, Connecticut.

28 September After French Admiral de Grasse defeats the British fleet under Admiral Thomas Graves and gains control of Chesapeake Bay, the siege of Yorktown begins as 9,000 American and 7,000 French troops under General George Washington and Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, converge on the city.

General Cornwallis signs the surrender papers on October 19, thus ending the last major battle of the Revolutionary War.

 Articles of Capitulation; October 18, 1781

The Bank of North America is established by the Continental Congress to lend money to the fledgling Revolutionary government

Jury Decides in Favor of "Mum Bett" Freeman, August 22, 1781
Ann Lee leads her Shaker colleagues in a missionary tour of New England lasting two years

Slaves in Williamsburg, Virginia, rebel and burn several buildings

1782

Deborah Sampson, disguised as a man, enlists in the 4th Massachusetts Regiment as Robert Shurtleff. She is one of many women who fight in the American Revolution. Letter by Paul Revere in support of a military pension for Deborah Sampson Gannett.

Contract Between the King and the Thirteen United States of North America, signed at Versailles July 16, 1782

Mercy Otis Warren: "TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN, RESIDING IN FRANCE." An instructional poem in which Warren offers advice to her son about avoiding the temptations young men from America may encounter when they are away from home.

1782-83

Some 40,000 Loyalists flee from British America to the previously French colonies, in particular Nova Scotia

1783

Treaty of Paris ends the Revolutionary War.

The Supreme Court of Massachusetts abolishes slavery in that state.

Letitia Cunningham, worried about the public debt, published in Philadelphia, THE CASE OF THE WHIGS WHO LOANED THEIR MONEY ON THE PUBLIC FAITH FAIRLY STATED. INCLUDING A MEMENTO FOR CONGRESS TO REVIEW THEIR ENGAGEMENTS, AND TO ESTABLISH THE HONOUR AND HONESTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

1783-5

Noah Webster's "BLUE-BACKED SPELLER" (A GRAMMATICAL INSTITUTE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE) helps to standardize spelling and to distinguish British from American English that eventually will sell more than 60 million copies.

1784

Beginning of the China Trade, as the American Ship Empress of China, sailing from New York, arrives at Canton, China. The ship will return with exotic goods, including silks and tea, spurring large numbers of American merchants to enter the trade.

Hannah Adams (1755-1831) writes AN ALPHABETICAL COMPENDIUM OF THE VARIOUS SECTS. Boston: B. Edes and Sons, 1784. Adams, the first American woman to earn a living by writing, produces her most significant work, a reference to modern religions intended to "avoid giving the least preference of any denomination over another." Revised editions would appear in 1791, 1801, and 1817 as A DICTIONARY OF ALL RELIGIONS, and the work is an indispensable resource in registering the changes in religious views in America from 1784 to 1817.

Americanus, Ovid [pseud.]. LESSONS FOR LOVERS. TO WHICH IS ADDED THE THUNDERSTORM, A POEM. Supposed to be written by the late celebrated Miss A***, now Mrs. L***. Philadelphia: Robert Bell, 1784.

Treaty With the Six Nations : 1784.

Phillis Wheatley writes her final publication, "LIBERTY AND PEACE: A POEM." Wheatley had married John Peters, a free black Bostonian, in 1778. Their union was marked by constant financial difficulties, and after her husband was jailed for debt, Wheatley found herself without friends to help her. She supported herself and her family as a laundress in a boardinghouse that catered to blacks. This poem, her last attempt to regain public notice, was unsuccessful. Sick and overworked, Wheatley died on December 5.

1785

Martha Ballard begins her diary on January 1, 1785.

Congress relocates to New York City, temporary capital of the U.S.

Thomas Jefferson is appointed minister to France, replacing Benjamin Franklin.

Treaty With the Wyandot, etc.; January 21

Treaty With The Cherokee; November 28

Mercy Otis Warren writes SANS SOUCI, a biting satire of elite society in Boston after the Revolution. This social critique of fashion and manners uses many of Mercy Otis Warren's literary hallmarks, though she never claimed authorship.

1786

A Petition by Rachel Lovell Wells, 1786

Treaty With the Chocktaw; January 3

Treaty With the Chickasaw; January 10

Treaty With the Shawnee; January 31

Americans suffer from post-war economic depression including a shortage of currency, high taxes, nagging creditors, farm foreclosures and bankruptcies.

Congress adopts a decimal coinage system based on the Spanish milled dollar.

In Massachusetts, angry representatives from 50 towns meet to discuss money problems including the rising number of foreclosures, the high cost of lawsuits, heavy land and poll taxes, high salaries for state officials, and demands for new paper money as a means of credit. To prevent debtors from being tried and put in prison, ex-Revolutionary War Captain Daniel Shays, who is now a bankrupt farmer, leads an armed mob and prevents the Northampton Court from holding a session.

Susanna Haswell Rowson (c. 1762-1824) writes VICTORIA. Rowson's first novel is published by subscription. It is a tale of seduction, in which a woman is tricked into a sham marriage, becomes pregnant, is abandoned, and goes insane before dying.

Publication in London of An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African, by Thomas Clarkson. Quickly reprinted in the United States, it is the single most influential antislavery work of the late 18th century.

1787

The Federal Convention convenes in Philadelphia, although only seven states are represented. Several provisions of James Madison's Virginia Plan become part of the U. S. Constitution, including a bicameral legislature, a federal judiciary branch, and an executive branch. The Constitution is approved on 17 September and then is sent to the states for ratification. A large group of representatives from the newly independent colonies, including George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, and others meet at the Philadelphia State House to discuss the future of the country and to draft a document reflecting Revolutionary ideals. This becomes the Constitutional Convention.

Congress enacts the Northwest Ordinance which establishes formal procedures for transforming territories into states. It provides for the eventual establishment of three to five states in the area north of the Ohio River, to be considered equal with the original 13.

The Ordinance includes a Bill of Rights that guarantees freedom of religion, the right to trial by jury, public education and a ban on slavery in the Northwest. Quakers flocked to the new territory, believing their prayers had been answered.

Philadelphia free blacks establish the Free African Society in Philadelphia, the first independent black organization and a mutual aid society.

The ratifiedU.S. Constitutionallows a male slave to count as three-fifths of a man in determining representation in the House of Representatives. The Constitution sets 1808 as the earliest date for the national government to ban the slave trade. No vote is given to women.
Mercy Warren to Catherine Macaulay, 28 September 1787

October 1787-May 1788. The Federalist Papers appear in New York newspapers under the pseudonym Publius. The letters are written by James Madison (1731-1836), Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804), and John Jay (1745-1829).

Rhode Island outlaws the slave trade.

A pamphlet describing a public trial is published in Philadelphia, THE TRIAL OF ALICE CLIFTON, FOR THE MURDER OF HER BASTARD-CHILD, AT THE COURT OF OYER AND TERMINER AND GENERAL GAOL DELIVERY, HELD AT PHILADELPHIA, ON WEDNESDAY THE 18TH DAY OF APRIL, 1787.

1788

The constitution of the United States is ratified by the states, but it is immediately agreed that amendments will be desirable

Hannah More (1745-1833) publishes in Philadelphia, SLAVERY, A POEM.
Jews are permitted to hold federal office.

Pennsylvania amends law to forbid removal of blacks from the state.

1789

George Washington (1732–1799) is unanimously elected the first president of the United States on April 30. and is inaugurated on Wall Street in New York. He serves two consecutive four-year terms.

Gershom Mendes Seixas, prayer leader of New York's Jewish congregation, is invited to Washington's inaugural.

The first American novel, William Hill Brown's The Power of Sympathy, seeks "to expose the dangerous Consequences of Seduction and to set forth the advantages of female Education."
Alexander Hamilton becomes secretary of the treasury in the administration of George Washington, whose federalist views he shares

Olaudah Equiano (c. 1745-c. 1801): THE INTERESTING NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF OLAUDAH EQUIANO, OR GUSTAVUS VASSA, THE AFRICAN. This narrative is an autobiography about being forced from Africa as an adolescent into slavery. In one of the first slave narratives, Equiano transcends the inhumanity of bondage and writes an insightful narrative.

Mercy Warren. Letter signed, dated Plimouth [Massachusetts], 20 September 1789, to Catharine Macaulay

Georgetown University, the first Catholic college in the U.S., is founded by Father John Carroll.

The first inaugural ball occurs in honor of President Washington.

In France, the French Revolution begins with the fall of the Bastille in Paris, an event witnessed by the American ambassador, Thomas Jefferson.

The U.S. Army is established by Congress. Totaling 1000 men, it consists of one regiment of eight infantry companies and one battalion of four artillery companies.

Quakers reconcile with the American government by congratulating Washington on his election as president, at the same time reaffirming that they "can take no part in any warlike measures on any occasion or under any power"

Susanna Haswell Rowson writes "A TRIP TO PARNASSUS" criticizing in verse the contemporary stage. She also publishes POEMS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS AND THE INQUISITOR. In a loosely related collection of scenes from domestic life, Rowson expresses her opposition to the excessively contrived, idealized fiction of the day.

Treaty With the Wyandot, etc.; January 9

Treaty With the Six Nations; January 9

Susanna Haswell Rowson writes Mary; OR, THE TEST OF HONOUR. Rowson depicts a spirited heroine who demonstrates that her moral sense is superior to that of the wealthy aristocrat who refuses to let his son marry her.

See
Yale Law School, The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy. New Haven, CT.
Burt, Daniel S., editor. THE CHRONOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE: AMERICA'S LITERARY ACHIEVEMENTS FROM THE COLONIAL ERA TO MODERN TIMES. Houghton Mifflin Internet.
HISTORY MATTERS. American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning (Graduate Center, CUNY) and the Center for History and New Media (George Mason University). Internet. http://historymatters.gmu.edu

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December 24, 2017, 1:00 am

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1797 Jacques Grasset of Saint-Sauveur (France, 1757-1810), Costumes of Different Countries, Los Angeles County Art Museum 

Across the 18C globe, dress varied widely. In the early 1700s, British & British American colonial women dressed similarly, but they could get an idea how women in far places also might dress from costume drawings, which were becoming more popular & more widely available.

18C Early American Timeline 1790-1800

December 26, 2017, 1:00 am

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1790

A Census Act is passed by Congress. The first census indicates a total population of nearly 4 million persons in the U.S. and western territories. African Americans make up 19 percent of the population, with 90 percent living in the South. For white Americans, the average age is under 16. Most white families are large, with an average of eight children born. The white population will double every 22 years.

The largest American city is Philadelphia, with 42,000 persons, followed by New York (33,000) Boston (18,000) Charleston (16,000) and Baltimore (13,000). The majority of Americans are involved in agricultural pursuits, with little industrial activity occurring at this time.

Petition to Congress by Mary Katherine Goddard, January 29, 1790, to retain her position as the 1st postmistress in America. Her appeals to Congress & to George Washington failed.See entry on Mary Katherine Goddard in this blog.

 George Washington replies to Moses Seixas's letter on behalf of the Newport Hebrew Congregation using the off-quoted phrase that the USA government "gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance"

First American cotton mill.

Mother Bernardina Matthews establishes a Carmelite convent near Port Tobacco, Maryland, the first community of Roman Catholic nuns established in one of the original 13 states. (The Ursuline convent established in New Orleans in 1727 was still in French territory.)

Judith Sargent Murray writes "On the Equality of the Sexes"

A second great revival movement sweeps northeast America, inspired by the earlier example of Jonathan Edwards

George Washington and the Congress chose the Potomac as the navigable river on which the new US capital city will be sited.

Benjamin Franklin dies in Philadelphia at age 84. His funeral four days later draws over 20,000 mourners.

Sarah Wentworth Morton (1759-1846) writes Ouabi; or, The Virtues of Nature. An Indian tale by Philenia, a lady of Boston. Boston: I. Thomas and E.T. Andrews, 1790. The Boston writer known as the American Sappho treats a love triangle between an Illinois chief, his wife, and a European aristocrat. The narrative poem is notable for its researched representation of Indian life. It would be set to music by Hans Graham in 1793 and would inspire Louis James Bacon's play The American Indian (1795).

Mercy Otis Warren writes Poems, Dramatic and Miscellaneous, Boston: I. Thomas. and E.T. Andrews, [1790]. This is the first work printed under her own name. Warren produces verse tragedies & other poems extolling republican virtues & confirming women as moral authorities.

1791

The first ten amendments to the Constitution protecting individual rights are ratified. They are called the Bill of Rights.

First Bank of the United States is founded in Philadelphia under Alexander Hamilton and is granted a 20-year charter. Its charter is not renewed in 1811.

Susanna Haswell Rowson writes Mentoria; or, The Young Lady's Friend, a collection of letters, stories, and an essay wtih topics ranging from charity & the pitfalls of social ambition to obedience & moral conduct.

Anne Bailey rode to present-day Lewisburg to obtain ammunition for settlers at Fort Lee at present-day Charleston, which was being attacked by Native Americans. (More recent studies suggest this incident may never have occurred.)Source: Conley and Doherty, West Virginia History, 148-149.


An Indian raid on an American military camp beside the Maumee river leaves more than 600 US soldiers dead.

Haitian Revolution. an 1802 engraving of Toussaint L’Ouverture.

Slave insurrection in the French colony of St. Domingue begins the bloody process of founding the nation of Haiti, the first independent black country in the Americas. Refugees flee to America, many coming to Philadelphia, the largest & most cosmopolitan city in America with the largest northern free black community. Philadelphia has many supporters for Toussaint L'Overture.

Mary Kinnan was captured & her husband & daughter were killed by Shawnee Indians along the Tygart Valley River in Randolph County. Kinnan lived with her captors for 3 years.Source: Conley and Doherty, West Virginia History, 142.

1792

The cornerstone of the White House in at Washington City in The District of Columbia is laid.

Bunker Gay, A Genuine and Correct Account of the Captivity, Sufferings, and Deliverance of Mrs. Jemima Howe (captivity narrative).

The first political parties, Hamilton's Federalists and Jefferson's Republicans, emerge in the USA.

1793

The US Congress passes Fugitive Slave Laws, enabling southern slave owners to reclaim escaped slaves in northern states.

Hannah Slater receives the first U.S. patent granted to a woman, for a type of cotton thread. Her invention helps her husband build a successful textile business.

Eli Whitney (1765–1825) produces the cotton gin, which speeds the process of separating the cotton fibers from the seeds.

George Washington lays the cornerstone for the Congress building on Capitol Hill.

Suzanne Vaillande appears in The Bird Catcher, in New York, the first ballet presented in the U.S. She was also probably the first woman to work as a choreographer & set designer in the United States.

An epidemic of yellow fever kills 4,044 at Philadelphia. Believed by many to have been brought to the city by refugees from Santo Domingo The fever strikes nearly all of the 24,000 inhabitants who do not flee, and it kills 1 in every 6. Physican Benjamin Rush, 47, works round the clock to bleed more than 100 patients per day; he recruits free blacks who have not fled the city, training them to bleed & purge patients. The epidemic does not abate until autumn, when cold weather kills the mosquitoes.

Massachusetts repeals its Puritanical anti-theater laws after a fight led by Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton & her husband, Perez.

Anonymous: The Hapless Orphan; or, Innocent Victim of Revenge. Boston: Printed at the Appollo Press by Belknap and Hall, 1793. By an American Lady. This sentimental didactic novel concerns a self-centered Philadelphia girl whose attachment to another's fiancé leads to the hero's suicide & a vendetta by her rival.

Ann Eliza Bleecker (Schuyler) (1752-1783) is published in The Posthumous Works of Ann Eliza Bleecker. New York: T. and J. Swords, 1793. This collection of letters, poems, and prose published by Bleecker's daughter (the writer Margaretta Faugères (1771-1801), details life on the front lines of the American Revolution and the death of Bleecker's daughter Abella. As a poet, fiction writer, & correspondent, Bleecker provides firsthand accounts of women's life during the Revolution.

1794

Whiskey Rebellion breaks out in western Pennsylvania among farmers who oppose the collection of the tax on liquor & stills. George Washington uses military force to assert government authority on rebels in Pennsylvania refusing to pay a federal tax on whiskey.

Congress enacts the federal Slave Trade Act of 1794 prohibiting American vessels to transport slaves to any foreign country from outfitting in American ports.

Jay's Treaty provides for withdrawal of British forces from the Northwest Territory by 1 June 1796 in exchange for payments of war debts to British citizens. It is ratified on 24 June 1795.

Columbianum, first American art society, founded by Charles Willson Peale, Philadelphia

Anne Kemble Hatton (c. 1757-c. 1796) writes Tammany; or, The Indian Chief. The earliest drama about American Indians; the title character rescues his beloved from Spanish kidnappers.

The first independent black churches in America (St. Thomas African Episcopal Church and Bethel Church) established in Philadelphia by Absalom Jones & Richard Allen, respectively, as an act of self-determination & a protest against segregation.

Susanna Haswell Rowson writes Slaves in Algiers; or, A Struggle for Freedom. Philadelphia: Printed for the author by Wrigley and Berriman, 1794. The first play by a woman successfully produced in America & Rowson's only drama surviving in complete form utilizes the Barbary pirates' raids on American ships to demonstrate tyranny. The author would also perform in this play & in her subsequent dramas, including The FemalePatriot (1795), The Volunteers (1795),& Americans in England (1797).

Susanna Haswell Rowson writes Mrs. Charlotte, a Tale of Truth. [Philadelphia]: Mathew Carey, 1794. One of the first American bestsellers, this novel tells the story of an English girl seduced by a British officer, Montraville. Charlotte follows Montraville to New York, where he abandons her & she dies in childbirth. The supposedly true story exemplifies Rowson's argument for the importance of the education of young women. It had been published first in England in 1791. A sequel, Charlotte's Daughter, would be published in 1828. Also published by Rowson was, The Inquisitor; or, Invisible Rambler. 3 vols. Philadelphia: Mathew Carey, 1794.

Founding of the American Convention for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, a joining several state & regional antislavery societies into a national organization to promote abolition. Conference held in Philadelphia.

1795

Anne Parrish founds the House of Industry in Philadelphia, which provides employment to poor women. It is the first American charitable organization operated by women for women.

Two extra stars are added to the American flag for Vermont & Kentucky, two new states that have joined since the original union of thirteen.

Margaretta V. Bleecker Faugères (1771-1801) writes Belisarius: A Tragedy. Faugères's blank-verse tragedy is her major literary achievement, echoing Shakespeare's King Lear.

Susanna Haswell Rowson writes The Volunteers, a "musical entertainment" concerning the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania. The score, with Rowson's lyrics set to music by Alexander Reinagle (1756-1809), is all that now survives of the play.

Susanna Haswell Rowson writes Trials of the Human Heart, 4 vols. Philadelphia: Printed for the author by Wrigley & Berriman and sold by M. Carey [and others], 1795. This novel describes 16 years of suffering by Meriel Howard. Rowson's first novel written in America wins an impressive list of subscribers, including Martha Washington, members of prominent Philadelphia families, and members of the New Theatre Company.

1796

George Washington's Farewell Address is published in Philadelphia's Daily American Advertiser. He warns against the divisiveness of a party system & permanent foreign alliances, and cautions against an overpowerful military establishment. He then retires to Mount Vernon, Virginia.

Amelia Simmons produces the first truly American cookbook American Cookery: The Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry, and Vegetables, and the Best Modes of Making Puff-Pastes, Pies, Tarts, Puddings, Custards, and Preserves, and All Kinds of Cakes From the Imperial Plumb to plain Cake, Adapted to this Country, and All Grades of Life.See this blog for more on Amelia Simmons.

The election brings in a Federalist president (John Adams) and a Republican vice-president (Thomas Jefferson)

1 June. Tennessee is admitted to the Union as a slave-holding state.

Susanna Haswell Rowson writes Americans in England, one of the first American works exploring the "international theme," Rowson's social comedy would be revised by the author as The Columbian Daughter in 1800.

1797

John Adams (1735–1826) becomes the second president of the United States.

A cast-iron plow is invented, but farmers fear it will poison the soil and refuse to use it.

18 October. Amid tensions between the US & France, French foreign minister Tallyrand's agents suggest a "loan," essentially a bribe, to bring the French to the bargaining table. Charles C. Pinckney, the American minister to France, refuses, saying, "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
The USS Constitution ("Old Ironsides") is launched as part of the new US navy.

Ann Eliza Bleecker’s work is published posthumously, The History of Maria Kittle. It is a captivity narrative set during the French & Indian War, is a fictionalized elaboration of the author's own experiences. It is thought to be the first American fictional account focusing on Native Americans, where horrific descriptions of an Indian attack & an earthquake are contrasted with tranquil rural scenes.

Hannah Webster Foster (1759-1840) writes The Coquette; or, The History of Eliza Wharton, an epistolary novel based on the alleged seduction of Foster's distant cousin, Elizabeth Whitman, by Pierpont Edwards, and her death in childbirth. Wildly popular, the novel would appear in numerous editions, with early editions attributed to "A Lady of Massachusetts."

Deborah Sampson (1760-1827) cooperates with Herman Mann in writing The Female Review; or, Life of Deborah Sampson, Dedham [Mass.}: Nathaniel and Benjamin Heaton, 1797. This is an account of Deborah Sampson, afterwards Mrs. Benjamin Gannett, who served as a soldier in the revolutionary war under the name of Robert Shirtliff. an embellished autobiography detailing Sampson's experiences in the American Revolution, in which she had dressed as a man & served in the Massachusetts militia & Continental army. Although she had lost her wartime diary, she told her tale to Herman Mann, who wrote & published it.

In the first black initiated petition to Congress, Philadelphia free blacks protest North Carolina laws re-enslaving blacks freed during the Revolution.

Sarah Wentworth Morton writes Beacon Hill: A Local Poem, Historic and Descriptive, Boston: Manning & Loring, 1797. This was poetical record of the American Revolution.

1798

Controversial Alien and Sedition Acts are passed by the US Congress as emergency measures in response to the perceived threat of war with France. The Alien and Sedition Acts give the president the power to imprison or deport foreigners believed to be dangerous to the United States and make it a crime to attack the government with "false, scandalous, or malicious" statements or writings. Thomas Jefferson later pardons all those convicted under the Sedition Act, many of whom were Democrat-Republicans.

Congress abolishes debtors' prisons.

Susanna Haswell Rowson writes Reuben and Rachel; or, Tales of Old Times, Boston: Manning and Loring, for D. West, 1798. This romantic novel surveys the history of Western civilization & attempts to interest young women toward history.

Hannah Webster Foster writes The Boarding School; or, Lessons of a Preceptress to Her Pupils, Boston: I. Thomas and E.T. Andrews, 1798. This is a collection of moral & domestic lectures, including her advocacy of female education & criticism of sexual double standards.

Judith Sargent Murray (1751-1820) writes The Gleaner, Boston: I. Thomas and E.T. Andrews, 1798. This is a collection of essays on history, guidelines for women's conduct, discussion of education and politics, & poems. Originally published under the guise of male authorship to maintain an impartial readership, the essays attempt to prove the capability of women writers.

1799

George Washington, aged sixty-seven, dies after a brief illness at his home in Virginia.

American born Helena Wells (c. 1760-c. 1809) writes The Stepmother. The story of an independent woman who manages her own finances & property after the death of her husband; it includes detailed descriptions of the conduct of a sensible woman. The daughter of a Loyalist bookseller & publisher, Wells was a novelist & educator who operated, with her sister, a boarding school for girls in London & worked as a governess.

Hannah Adams (1755-1831) writes A Summary History of New England, Dedham [Mass.]: Printed for the author, by H. Mann and J.H. Adams. This is an account of events from the sailing of the Mayflower to the establishment of the Constitution, based on primary sources from state archives & newspapers. Adams conducted much of her research in bookshops, because she could not afford to purchase books.

1800

The census estimated the population of the United States at 3,929,214.

The United States reports a birth rate of 7.04 children per woman, one of the highest in the world.

The congress founds a new national library in Washington named The Library of Congress.

US president John Adams moves into the newly completed White House, named for its light grey limestone.

Republican Thomas Jefferson and Federalist Aaron Burr tie votes in the Electoral College in the presidential election. The US House of Representatives votes for Jefferson as president.

According to George Washington's vision, Washington City in the District of Columbia becomes the capital of the United States, a new city located at the junction of the Potomac & Anacostia rivers. Major Pierre Charles L'Enfant (1754–1825) designs a plan modeled on Versailles with grand public parks & spacious avenues radiating out from on a domed Capitol.

Off the coast of Cuba, the U.S. naval vessel Ganges captures two American vessels, carrying 134 enslaved Africans, for violating the 1794 Slave Trade Act & brings them to Philadelphia for adjudication in federal court by Judge Richard Peters. Peters turns the custody of the Africans over to the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, which attempts to assimilate the Africans into Pennsylvania using the indenture system with many local Quakers serving as sponsors.

American born Helena Wells writes Constantia Neville; or, The West Indian, a novel about education promoting Christianity in arguments with deists & Unitarians and includes an attack on English author and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft.

Absalom Jones & other Philadelphia blacks petition Congress against the slave trade & against the fugitive slave act of 1793.

Sarah Sayward Barrell Keating Wood (1759-1855) writes Julia and the Illuminated Baron, a gothic story of an intrepid young woman who resists an atheistic baron during the French Revolution.


Burt, Daniel S , editor. The Chronology of American Literature: America's Literary Achievements from the Colonial Era to Modern Times. Houghton Mifflin Internet. History Matters. American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning (Graduate Center, CUNY) and the Center for History and New Media (George Mason University). Internet. http://historymatters.gmu.edu/

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1797 Jacques Grasset of Saint-Sauveur (France, 1757-1810), Costumes of Different Countries, Los Angeles County Art Museum 

Across the 18C globe, dress varied widely. In the early 1700s, British & British American colonial women dressed similarly, but they could get an idea how women in far places also might dress from costume drawings, which were becoming more popular & more widely available.

Timeline of America's British Rulers

December 29, 2017, 1:00 am

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The British Royal House during British American Colonization

Elizabeth I (the Great) 1558-1603  Daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, last of the Tudors

James I  1603-1625  James VI of Scotland, House of Stuart

Charles I 1625-1649 Deposed. Executed 1649—English Civil War

The Protectorate 1649-1660 Oliver Cromwell is Lord Protector; Son Richard Cromwell succeeds in 1658

Charles II 1660-1685 The Restoration; Cromwell removed

James II 1685-1688 Deposed in the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688

William and Mary 1689-1694 Joint rule. Battle of the Boyne—1690

William III 1694-1702 William is of the House of Orange (Netherlands) Succeeds on Mary's death.

Anne 1702-1714  Last of the Stuarts. No surviving children.

George I 1714-1727  House of Hanover

George II 1727-1760 Seven Years' War begins 1756

George III 1760-1820 American Revolution 1775-1783

18C Women Across the Globe

December 30, 2017, 1:00 am

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1797 Jacques Grasset of Saint-Sauveur (France, 1757-1810), Costumes of Different Countries, Los Angeles County Art Museum 

Across the 18C globe, dress varied widely. In the early 1700s, British & British American colonial women dressed similarly, but they could get an idea how women in far places also might dress from costume drawings, which were becoming more popular & more widely available.

Mary Jemison, Indian Captive 1750s

January 1, 2018, 1:00 am

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Mary Jemison captured by Native Americans from the 1856 printing of The Life of Mary Jemison, Deh-He-Wa-Mis

Mary Jemison (Deh-he-wä-mis) (1743–1833) was probably about 15 years old, when she was captured & adopted by Seneca Indians during the French and Indian War. Jemison was 80 years old, when she told her story to James Seaver who wrote the narrative of the young English woman who chose to remain within the Indian culture which had adopted her.

The night was spent in gloomy forebodings. What the result of our captivity would be, it was out of our power to determine, or even imagine. At times, we could almost realize the approach of our masters to butcher and scalp us; again, we could nearly see the pile of wood kindled on which we were to be roasted; and then we would imagine ourselves at liberty, alone and defenseless in the forest, surrounded by wild beasts that were ready to devour us. The anxiety of our minds drove sleep from our eyelids; and it was with a dreadful hope and painful impatience that we waited for the morning to determine our fate.

The morning at length arrived, and our masters came early and let us out of the house, and gave the young man and boy to the French, who immediately took them away. Their fate I never learned, as I have not seen nor heard of them since.

I was now left alone in the fort, deprived of my former companions, and of every thing that was near or dear to me but life. But it was not long before I was in some measure relieved by the appearance of two pleasant looking squaws, of the Seneca tribe, who came and examined me attentively for a short time, and then went out. After a few minutes' absence, they returned in company with my former masters, who gave me to the squaws to dispose of as they pleased.

The Indians by whom I was taken were a party of Shawnees,* if I remember right, that lived, when at home, a long distance down the Ohio.

My former Indian masters and the two squaws were soon ready to leave the fort, and accordingly embarked -- the Indians in a large canoe, and the two squaws and myself in a small one-and went down the Ohio. When we set off, an Indian in the forward canoe took the scalps of my former friends, strung them on a pole that he placed upon his shoulder, and in that manner carried them, standing in the stern of the canoe directly before us, as we sailed down the river, to the town where the two squaws resided.

On the way we passed a Shawnee town, where I saw a number of heads, arms, legs, and other fragments of the bodies of some white people who had just been burned. The parts that remained were hanging on a pole, which was supported at each end by a crotch stuck in the ground, and were roasted or burnt black as a coal. The fire was yet burning; and the whole appearance afforded a spectacle so shocking that even to this day the blood almost curdles in my veins when I think of them.

At night we arrived at a small Seneca Indian town, at the mouth of a small river that was called by the Indians, in the Seneca language, She-nan-jee, about eighty miles by water from the fort, where the two squaws to whom I belonged resided. There we landed, and the Indians went on; which was the last I ever saw of them.

Having made fast to the shore, the squaws left me in the canoe while they went to their wigwam or house in the town, and returned with a suit of Indian clothing, all new, and very clean and nice. My clothes, though whole and good when I was taken, were now torn in pieces, so that I was almost naked. They first undressed me, and threw my rags into the river; then washed me clean and dressed me in the new suit they had just brought, in complete Indian style; and then led me home and seated me in the center of their wigwam.

I had been in that situation but a few minutes before all the squaws in the town came in to see me. I was soon surrounded by them, and they immediately set up a most dismal howling, crying bitterly, and wringing their hands in all the agonies of grief for a deceased relative.

Their tears flowed freely, and they exhibited all the signs of real mourning. At the commencement of this scene, one of their number began, in a voice somewhat between speaking and singing, to recite some words to the following purport, and continued the recitation till the ceremony was ended; the company at the same time varying the appearance of their countenances, gestures, and tone of voice, so as to correspond with the sentiments expressed by their leader.

"Oh, our brother! alas! he is dead-he has gone; he will never return! Friendless he died on the field of the slain, where his bones are yet lying unburied! Oh! who will not mourn his sad fate? No tears dropped around him: oh, no! No tears of his sisters were there! He fell in his prime, when his arm was most needed to keep us from danger! Alas! he has gone, and left us in sorrow, his loss to bewail! Oh, where is his spirit? His spirit went naked, and hungry it wanders, and thirsty and wounded, it groans to return! Oh, helpless and wretched, our brother has gone! No blanket nor food to nourish and warm him; nor candles to light him, nor weapons of war! Oh, none of those comforts had he! But well we remember his deeds! The deer he could take on the chase! The panther shrunk back at the sight of his strength! His enemies fell at his feet! He was brave and courageous in war! As the fawn, he was harmless; his friendship was ardent; his temper was gentle; his pity was great! Oh! our friend, our companion, is dead! Our brother, our brother! alas, he is gone! But why do we grieve for his loss? In the strength of a warrior, undaunted he left us, to fight by the side of the chiefs! His warwhoop was shrill! His rifle well aimed laid his enemies low: his tomahawk drank of their blood: and his knife flayed their scalps while yet covered with gore! And why do we mourn? Though he fell on the field of the slain, with glory he fell; and his spirit went up to the land of his fathers in war! They why do we mourn? With transports of joy, they received him, and fed him, and clothed him, and welcomed him there! Oh, friends, he is happy; then dry up your tears! His spirit has seen our distress, and sent us a helper whom with pleasure we greet. Deh-hew5-mis has come: then let us receive her with joy!-she is handsome and pleasant! Oh! she is our sister, and gladly we welcome her here. In the place of our brother she stands in our tribe. With care we will guard her from trouble; and may she be happy till her spirit shall leave us."

In the course of that ceremony, from mourning they became serene,-joy sparkled in their countenances, and they seemed to rejoice over me as over a long-lost child. I was made welcome among them as a sister to the two squaws before mentioned, and was called Deh-hew5-mis; which, being interpreted, signifies a pretty girl, a handsome girl, or a pleasant, good thing. That is the name by which I have ever since been called by the Indians.

I afterward learned that the ceremony I at that time passed through was that of adoption. The two squaws had lost a brother in Washington's war, sometime in the year before, and in consequence of his death went up to Fort Du Quesne on the day on which I arrived there, in order to receive a prisoner, or an enemy's scalp, to supply their loss. It is a custom of the Indians, when one of their number is slain or taken prisoner in battle, to give to the nearest relative of the dead or absent a prisoner, if they have chanced to take one; and if not, to give him the scalp of an enemy. On the return of the Indians from the conquest, which is always announced by peculiar shoutings, demonstrations of joy, and the exhibition of some trophy of victory, the mourners come forward and make their claims. If they receive a prisoner, it is at their option either to satiate their vengeance by taking his life in the most cruel manner they can conceive of, or to receive and adopt him into the family, in the place of him whom they have lost. All the prisoners that are taken in battle and carried to the encampment or town by the Indians are given to the bereaved families, till their number is good. And unless the mourners have but just received the news of their bereavement, and are under the operation of a paroxysm of grief, anger, or revenge; or, unless the prisoner is very old, sickly, or homely, they generally save them, and treat them kindly. But if their mental wound is fresh, their loss so great that they deem it irreparable, or if their prisoner or prisoners do not meet their approbation, no torture, let it be ever so cruel, seems sufficient to make them satisfaction. It is family and not national sacrifices among the Indians, that has given them an indelible stamp as barbarians, and identified their character with the idea which is generally formed of unfeeling ferocity and the most barbarous cruelty.

It was my happy lot to be accepted for adoption. At the time of the ceremony I was received by the two squaws to supply the place of their brother in the family; and I was ever considered and treated by them as a real sister, the same as though I had been born of their mother.

During the ceremony of my adoption, I sat motionless, nearly terrified to death at the appearance and actions of the company, expecting every moment to feel their vengeance, and suffer death on the spot. I was, however, happily disappointed; when at the close of the ceremony the company retired, and my sisters commenced employing every means for my consolation and comfort.

Being now settled and provided with a home, I was employed in nursing the children, and doing light work about the house. Occasionally, I was sent out with the Indian hunters, when they went but a short distance, to help them carry their game. My situation was easy; I had no particular hardships to endure. But still, the recollection of my parents, my brothers and sisters, my home, and my own captivity, destroyed my happiness, and made me constantly solitary, lonesome, and gloomy.

My sisters would not allow me to speak English in their hearing; but remembering the charge that my dear mother gave me at the time I left her, whenever I chanced to be alone I made a business of repeating my prayer, catechism, or something I had learned, in order that I might not forget my own language. By practicing in that way, I retained it till I came to Genesee flats, where I soon became acquainted with English people, with whom I have been almost daily in the habit of conversing.

My sisters were very diligent in teaching me their language; and to their great satisfaction, I soon learned so that I could understand it readily, and speak it fluently. I was very fortunate in falling into their hands; for they were kind, good-natured women; peaceable and mild in their dispositions; temperate and decent in their habits, and very tender and gentle toward me. I have great reason to respect them, though they have been dead a great number of years...

After the conclusion of the French war, our tribe had nothing to do till the commencement of the American Revolution. For twelve or fifteen years, the use of the implements of war was not known, nor the warwhoop heard, save on days of festivity, when the achievements of former times were commemorated in a kind of mimic warfare, in which the chiefs, and warriors displayed their prowess, and illustrated their former adroitness, by laying the ambuscade, surprising their enemies, and performing many accurate maneuvers with the tomahawk and scalping knife; thereby preserving, and banding to their children, the theory of Indian warfare. During that period they also pertinaciously observed the religious rites of their progenitors, by attending with the most scrupulous exactness, and a great degree of enthusiasm, to the sacrifices, at particular times, to appease the anger of the Evil Deity; or to excite the commiseration of the Great Good Spirit, whom they adored with reverence, as the author, governor, supporter, and disposer of every good thing of which they participated.

They also practiced in various athletic games, such as running, wrestling, leaping, and playing ball, with a view that their bodies might be more supple -- or, rather, that they might not become enervated, and that they might be enabled to make a proper selection of chiefs for the councils of the nation, and leaders for war.

While the Indians were thus engaged in their round of traditionary performances, with the addition of hunting, their women attended to agriculture, their families, and a few domestic concerns of small consequence and attended with but little labor.

No people can live more happy than the Indians did in times of peace, before the introduction of spiritous liquors among them. Their lives were a continual round of pleasures. Their wants were few, and easily satisfied, and their cares were only for to-day -- the bounds of their calculation for future comfort not extending to the incalculable uncertainties of to-morrow. If peace ever dwelt with men, it was in former times, in the recess from war, among what are now termed barbarians. The moral character of the Indians was (if I may be allowed the expression) uncontaminated. Their fidelity was perfect, and became proverbial. They were strictly honest; they despised deception and falsehood; and chastity was held in high 'veneration, and a violation of it was considered sacrilege. They were temperate in their desires, moderate in their passions, and candid and honorable in the expression of their sentiments, on every subject of importance.

Thus, at peace among themselves and with the neighboring whites -though there were none at that time very near- our Indians lived quietly and peaceably at home, till a little before the breaking out of the Revolutionary War...

Soon after the close of the Revolutionary War, my Indian brother, Kau-jises-tau-ge-au, (which being interpreted signifies Black Coals,) offered me my liberty, and told me that if it was my choice I might go to my friends.

My son Thomas was anxious that I should go; and offered to go with me, and assist me on the journey, by taking care of the younger children, and providing food as we traveled through the wilderness. But the chiefs of our tribe, suspecting, from his appearance, actions, and a few warlike exploits, that Thomas would be a great warrior, or a good counselor, refused to let him leave them on any account whatever.

To go myself, and leave him, was more than I felt able to do; for he had been kind to me, and was one on whom I placed great dependence. The chiefs refusing to let him go was one reason for my resolving to stay; but another, more powerful if possible, was, that I had got a large family of Indian children that I must take with me; and that, if I should be so fortunate as to find my relatives, they would despise them, if not myself, and treat us as enemies, or, at least, with a degree of cold indifference, which I thought I could not endure.

Accordingly, after I had duly considered the matter, I told my brother that it was my choice to stay and spend the remainder of my days with my Indian friends, and live with my family as I hitherto had done. He appeared well pleased with my resolution, and informed me that, as that was my choice, I should have a piece of land that I could call my own, where I could live unmolested, and have something at my decease to leave for the benefit of my children.
Source: James E. Seaver, The Life of Mary Jemison: The White Woman of the Genesee. 1824. New York.

Sexual Politics-Mohawk-Style 1754

January 4, 2018, 1:00 am

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Hendrick Theyanoguin  Chief of the Mohawk Indians, published in London in 1755 

The British American colonial government convened a conference in Albany, New York, in the summer of 1754. French troops had occupied the Ohio valley; while the Indians in New York had declared the Covenant chain alliance broken.

Hendrick, a Mohawk leader among the Iroquois Confederation, wanted to renew the alliance between the Iroquois & the colonists. But in his speech at the meeting, he called the British weak. Soon the Seven Year's War would involve the French, the British colonists, & the Native Americans in a war that would also be called The French & Indian War.

Mohawk Hendrick:
Then Hendrick, brother to the said Abraham, and a Sachem of the same castle, rose up and spake in behalf of the Six Nations as follows:
"Brethren, This is the ancient place of treaty where the fire of friendship always used to burn, and it is now three years since we have been called to any public treaty here; ‘tis true, there are commissioners here, but they have never invited us to smoke with them (by which they mean, the commissioners had never invited them to any conference), but the Indians of Canada came frequently and smoked with them, which is for the sake of their beaver, but we hate them (meaning the French Indians)

We have not as yet confirmed the peace with them: ’tis your fault, brethren, we are not strengthened by conquest, for we should have gone and taken Crown Point, but you hindered us: We had concluded to go and take it; but we were told it was too late, and that the ice would not bear us. Instead of this you burnt your own fort at Saraghtogee and run away from it; which was shame and a scandal to you. Look about your country, and see you have no fortifications about you, no not even to this city. 'Tis but one step from Canada hither, and the French may easily come and turn you out of doors.

"Brethren, You desired us to speak from the bottom of our hearts, and we shall do it. Look about you, and see all these houses full of beaver, and money is all gone to Canada; likewise your powder, lead, and guns, which the French make use of at the Ohio.

“Brethren, You were desirous we should open our minds and our hearts to you; look at the French, they are men; they are fortifying every where; but we are ashamed to say it; you are like women, bare and open, without any fortifications.”

Source: Jeptha Root Simms, History of Schoharie County, and the Border Wars of New York. Albany: Munsell & Tanner, 1845.