>> next, nancy rubin stuart on the life of mercy otis warren who was the first female historian of the american revolution. she was encouraged by john adams to write the history of the rise, progress and termination of the american revolution that was published in 1805 and that is the topic of her book. she spoke at the john hay library at brown university in providence, rhode island for a little over an hour. >> thank you very much. it is a pleasure to be here. and have a chance to share with you some of the things i have learned, but before i tell you things i have learned, i am going to ask you a few questions, so, let's think about a few characteristics and i would like to ask you when you think these happened. the first one is a dangerous dependence on overseas goods. the second one is crashing land values. the third one is a rapidly

depreciating national currency. the fourth one is shabby treatment of veterans. the fifth one is suppression of civil rights. so, what year to you think we are talking about? any ideas? today? [laughter] the 1780's in the's revolutionary period, and mercy was one of the people who warned about these things beginning to happen. actually, before we became a nationally aware of them, so it is fascinating to me during the four years i was researching this book i am reading about this terrible recession and these awful things that are happening in the early federal period and suddenly they began to unfold in this country. so, i think things really never

quite a change in human nature, just the circumstances do. , another question to ponder is, how, and i guess i probably started the book this way with a question, how could they colonial woman, after all colonial women were supposed to be involved with birthing and raising children and staying in the home in candle making and cooking by the heart. their education was restricted to the school, grammar school. how could it be that a woman of the colonial era, mercy was born in 1728, how could it be that she would become one of the most outspoken individuals during the resolution, after the revolution and certainly really up to 1805? how could that be? well, of course, you know women were supposed to be silent and i have alluded to that. the voiceless, the voiceless

existence of the 18th-century with the exception i think, i kenneth you to name a few. think about abigail adams and by and large you would be hard-pressed to think about. even betsy ross said and we don't know a lot about her, so how can that be? mercy had come she had some extraordinary opportunities. one was that for whatever reason, yes sir father was having his oldest brother, james the patriot, tutored to go to harvard and he had a second son who he indeed was also having tutored by their uncle who was the agent bunk-- reverend of the west church-- peers church. mercy was the third bauder. it seems as though some number two dropped out of that training. so come a mercy begged and wheedled with their father who was a sop target attorney, please can i sit in on these the

tutorings sessions? it seems as though what we know, that she was allowed to do that and she attended the sessions every day. now the training for the examination for harvard college was rick griscom is so mercy at the very young age even though she wasn't allowed to read latin and french because she wasn't going to go to college, she still could read in english so she read at an early age, pope, shakespeare and milton and she read all of the classics. she could not read them in the originals but you read all the classics. she also read raleigh's history of the world. of course, she was supposed to be getting married. we don't have, which is sort of a master these is it the will for a colonial woman that would indicate her domestic skills, but we do have a wonderful card table that she-- and if you go to plymouth massachusetts to

plymouth paul you will see it there. it is quite marvelous. besides the work of art, indicating a complex mind and i think a person who is the very astute to do this masterpiece but also indicated the kind of life she was going to lead or expected to lead. that would be one of leisure. she would marry a wealthy man but one that she would be at home and entertainer friends with this card game. well, they were harmless card games. really early sort of versions of today's bridge. in fact in a lot of her writing she talked about how this patriot or this situation trumped up one so we began to get that language. marci did not get married until quite late for a colonial woman. she was 26. 23, 24 was the standard hcan scholars wondered why. and of course the theories that

first of bound for that mercy was simply too well educated. she's scared of the men. after all even rousseau wrote in 1762 uneducated woman is a scourged to her husband and her children. she scorns to stoop to the duties of a woman. so, scholars concluded perhaps this was why she did not marry until late. there were other theories too. one of them was that her husband to be was a man who was to be high sheriff of plymouth county, and his father was very ill and basically they were waiting for him to retire before her husband, james warren, would assume that position. there are a couple of james in the stories so i am going to try to be specific of who they are. james, her brother, the patriot. she colston james the patriot warren, it became a great boston lawyer. he actually hell the crown

appointment as the deputy advocate for the best admiralty court, which oversaw all of the trade in massachusetts, the sea trade. this was a crown appointment, the very lucrative. is merchants included people like the hancocks, the wealthiest merchants and traders and boston you that time had enormous trade in a very powerful city. by 1761 the british had instituted under governor bernard, actually revived the old-- and they were using wittes of assistance, a general search warrants, to break into the homes of the colonist traders, so without just waiting and breaking into shops, warehouses businesses and homes in looking for smuggled goods, one of the things of course, molasses part of the old navigation acts the go back to 1733, why mull's is?

because molasses was important. it could be used for making rum. i don't mean to imply the revolution was based on a lack of the information or access to rum, but certainly the principle of this violation upset them. you know, very much, that the english rights, their rights as english citizens were being violated, really going back to the magna carta. anyway, her brother james b.p. wheatridge to recite his crown appointment because he rallied his marchant friends and clients in instituted a case against the british government. and the old state house in boston, that is where the council chamber met, the superior court. he challenged a then she just as hutchinson and all of the other justices that this was a violation basically of english rights. in fact he declared for for that

ours and people were astounded. he was brilliant. he had a brilliant mind come and he knew british law intimately. and that he talked so long, and i hope i don't deny, that the servants had to run aground and like the lamps just so people could see. and finally, at the end of this he declared, of course is most famous comments come down, which was the taxation without representation is tyranny. john adams, who was only 24 but already an attorney, sat in scribbled notes. he was fascinated and later wrote in his diary that the childed independence was born. after that, james the patriot organized with sam adams and mercy's husband, james warren, organized the sons of liberty and for the next ten years or so all of the many things ...

steadied, all of the act, the stamp act and the townshend acts and the intolerable acts and so on and so forth, all of the things that happened, mercy's brother, james the patriot, was that the head of them. the only problem was coming he was getting elcock they have, a little over the top, a little careless, a little unstable and while he was in the assembly, while their own husband was in the assembly, they begin to become alarmed. things went from bad to worse with james the patriot. he became frenzied and started writing not only his original treatises, which of course he published for five of them but in 1769, september he wrote something in "the boston gazette," the patriarch newspaper, in which he called in british officer a blockhead. citing john lott, who they all

it fired for his ideas about the inalienable rights of man and the natural rights that government is supposed to respect those among people, the british, he started into the british coffee house the next day in the british offices gathered round him in brutally assaulted him. he had his head slashed open. he was obviously severely ill. he did recover, but he never recovered his stability and perhaps at some point he study della the patriots in american history. you may not have heard of james the patriot because from then on he is basically whisked off stage. you don't hear about him. his family put up with him. they hope he recovers. he comes back and doesn't do things that is while politically. he is finally shunted off to a farm in andover and we really don't hear about him. mercy meanwhile, mary to the

high sheriff, her husband is involved in these politics. john adams knew him through legal circles for gober husband being bahá'í sheriff incheon being the lawyer. john adams did not like plymouth that first 21st came. he wrote to his then fianc, abigail smith and said, i really don't like this town. i find more lawyers, junkins squires and impertinent people, but later when he met james warren and later when he had sunday dinner with mercy in james he wrote to by then his wife abigail smith and said here i find friends. however, mercy now is in a very strange position. she has been writing nature poetry. she is doing what a good colonial life would do. she has five sons, a lovely home in plymouth, to homes, one is the farm and one is a home,

which she commutes between summer and winter. marci finds herself in an odd position. she knows exactly what is going on. shiastan listening to what happens in the assembly and your brother and now letters come flooding into her brother especially from the radical sort of english statesman in london, wanting to-- among whom was the radical british historian. mercy rights are a rather awkward letter and said my brother can no longer write to you but i just-- she is very much in of this woman who had written a very important radical history of the british, and she does the unexpected get a letter from catherine but she said i want you to know that he can't write any more and basically i am and awe of you and i want you

to know that and we appreciate your support for the american cause. i have to tell you that when i started this book i was going to college, there i say more because being a colonial woman she knew she had to keep replace. but, and she is forever, and this goes on for the next i would say 15 or 20 years at least, she continues to write in she continues to ask her friends, her husband, the women she writes to and john adams to becomes our literary mentor. terrorist amr? this is incriminating for a woman. what will people think about me? i will be a shrewd and an outcast. that goes on and on. so, she writes in that same tone to catherine mcauley. a year later catherine mcauley rights to her, embraces her essentially and says i am so honored to hear from the sister of james the patriot and they

began a literary friendship. maybe that is part of why mercy becomes inspired in the course she is horrified by everything that's happening in the revolution. she and abigail adams by 1772 are corresponding and become fast friends. the warrenton the atoms are now very good friends, but in 1772, she just can't stand what is happening anymore in boston or massachusetts, all of the oppression and after the boston massacre, she dissed her to write. she writes for first place. plays were not performed in boston until 1792. they were wed greatly in coffee houses in drawing rooms and shops and so one, so she publishes her first play. it is called the flatter. as i was saying to the history class just a few minutes ago, she is very hesitant.

these plays are not easy to read. they are written in neoclassical style but in the back of this room there is a key to one of them in one of the cases that will show you that these characters she makes up and they are kind of like saturday night live did you think about that in colonial america. she is funny names for them and of course governor hutchinson it is the arc dylan. he is repay shell. she has other characters like general hagel and brigadier and simple and meeker. she calls one of their relatives a limp that. thinking must have had a problem with his legs. but, people know exactly who they are when they read them, just like sunsetted the nightlight. we can understand who they are. her name is not on the play. it is published in the massachusetts spy. her name is not on it.

well, many times if you look at the old newspapers there is no name on there. there is a nickname or something in the old name-- newspapers in in this case she does not have a name on it but it is very popular. it is republished as the pamphlet and pretty soon it is plagiarized and there is another and that sort of tied into it. but that does not stop mercy. in fact your-- she is happier name is kant on it because she keeps telling friends, including hannah winthrop, the wife of a professor of philosophy, that she does not want anyone to know she has written this. she is just happy it got published, because she is afraid, a because she is a woman and b she is the sister of james the patriot. she is part of the sons of liberty and a sense. certainly her husband hit some thinner the atoms are involved. she many of the sons of liberty

meetings. one person who keeps encouraging her is john adams who says she is a genius pen. he knows of no other and all of this convinces her to go ahead and write the second play called the group-- the second play called the defeat in which no mercy of getting upset about women, the way women are treated but she is not a feminist even though we have had a lot of feminists and trease scholarship about her. she is very upset about how women are some ties tied to win the war loyalists men or the way the colonial laws went at that time were a woman when she married her dowry was taken from her. she was absolutely parlett sociowees has a little bit of that in their place. sheet some of the women who she knows because they are drinking tea and they are wearing imported silk instead of homespun. this goes on and on so this is all in her plays in the second

plate in you know, again we have prep ratio who predicts the downfall other is a wonderful scene in there in which he predicts what happened to repay shia when he comes back but does not depend. and she says even if he does don't trust him. she also writes a wonderful poem about the boston tea party. that is an alexander pope style in which the nymphs of neptune are in the ocean and suddenly they discover that the oceans taste like long t. ended ends with governor hutchinson in a defeat in his country home in milton massachusetts. in any case, things continue to heat up between the british and the americans and by 1774, layed 1774 of course we are heating up and we start long cents, with plans for revolution.

her husband, now, it is now in the red massachusetts provincial congress and they want him to be president but he does not want to be. he does not want to be involved in politics so instead they make somebody else, dr. joseph warren, a well-regarded much younger patriot, to become the head of that. in 1774, mercy is thinning of a third play and it is called the group. john adams gets wind of it and before it is even finished sheed dixon to send it on to her and publish it. and, her husband does send part of the play on, most of it. and ison is published in philadelphia and new york and we published both the newspapers and family in pamphlet form in massachusetts. it literally appears under the nose of general gates who by then has lost the military rule

and mercy's husband is and conquered at that point. the provincial congress moves around but it is in concord at that time in mercy is long to see him. she did not see him very much because he has been so involved. she has five sons and four still in the house. one is at harvard, and she begged to see him. he arranges a weekend. he said i found a chamber for you and you can visit. this is in very late march in with the day or two he writes back in says things are heating up and conquered. there is a lot of stockpiling of weapons and we will have to cancel the meeting and of course we have just before april 19, a breakout of lexington conquered, the bloodshed. he has come back, congress sets the salton he has come back to plymouth and gets mercy and a wide, we don't know whether in a carriage or a horse. she was a country girl so she may indeed have been able to ride a horse at that time.

they whisked off to providence where they warn the sons of liberty that the british may indeed of some elite attack them there and before the day is over messages are brought about the bloodshed in lexington and concord. mars these taken back immediately to plymouth and her husband goes back to conquered. mercy spends a number of months there, terrified. there's a lot of correspondence between her and abigail adams. and, just before the battle of bunker hill, mercy is, she is almost profit like. mercy is feeling that there is going to be a terrible battle, the most bloody battle of all in she writes this letter to her husband. she is fearing this and it was a thrill when i read that letter. it was the day before bunker

hill, the battle of bunker hill. now, during that battle, the president of the massachusetts congress was killed. maybe you are familiar with the picture, a famous portrait of dr. joseph warren dying at bunker hill in mercy rights a purtenance luff les letter. how could it be that would allow this man to be on the battlefield to encourages men and let this man be killed? the upshot is that your husband has to become an becomes president of the massachusetts provincial congress and he is in watertown where they are meeting. now, when i was researching this book some of the time i spent at the archives in the massachusetts historical society and a gentleman and i were always bumping into each other, always going to the same books and manuscripts and we of course began talking. he told me that he was the historical architect doing work on the restoration of the edmund

follow house in watertown. i'd never heard of the edmund doll house. it was the house that had been granted by the provincial congress after a poll of 75 with the executive council of the provincial congress met. so, of the houses that were stored. it was just recently restored and i just went back there in fact to see it and speak their, and it is quite lovely now. the downstairs is a traditional to parlors in the upstairs has been restored to the way the original chamber council was organized and across the hall is the bedroom where her husband, james warren, was essentially on call 24/7. he also became pitmen schrantz-- paymaster general of the army and also was speaker of the house. this was all from june on a 75 and he is working around-the-clock. in the back of the room, which

you will see later, you can just flit through with the arrow is the slide show up mercy and your husband and you will see a picture of him by copy. by the time mercy sees him in the summer, he is gary. he is working around-the-clock. he keeps writing to john adams, send powder, san gunpowder. we need money, what is happening? john adams keeps writing back, what is happening? everyone has stopped writing. where are the british and what is happening? finally is essentially he asked mercy warren to it please take over the job as his private secretary. so comers the u.s. now near 50, writes 35 miles over rough roads leading her sons was servants and becomes the private secretary to her husband, james warren. we have some wonderful letters. osama were in code, some were secretly sent off.

she stopped to see abigail, her friend along the way in the commiserate about all of the things that are happening. that is on for about six months, and there is other correspondence with people. people like martha washington and then the other people. they worry about simm adams wife that he beacon she is moved to a little cottage out of boston and for safety in the safety of her children. now, mercy is tired. people aren't always asking her, what is happening with the revolution? she is up the center of what is happening. she hears about it all the time and reported to john adams. she ms. washington, but she wants to do more. she is a writer, she wants to write four, what abigail adams calls her historic page burt kellett it is not a page. it ends up eventually being a

history of the american revolution and it is john adams who has been encouraging her to get this done. he is always trying to get sam adams to copy everything down and we know her brother and his friends the at one point had burned up all of his records from the early revolution, so there were a lot of things that are lost. john adams wants her to write this history and slowly, slowly she begins to do so, slowly. i will just give you one quick sideline because in that case that there is a display on this. when general bucklin, before bunker hill, is in boston, he talks about the blocade of boston. he writes a satire and then he leaves and goes back to london. it is a funny story connected that-- with pepper code during the performance of that play is actually the audience, which are british and their wives and

mistresses think the gunshots are part of the play but it is actually the patriots who have come in and are attacking in charleston. anyway, later on there is a raunchy play written after the british evacuated and it is called, if you remember, called the blocades of boston and you remember that the blockheads, the blocade word used by your brother earlier who was a salted, nobody knows if she has read that. it is quite raunchy and there is a lot of controversy about it. she is very proper in her language, almost always but not always. for instance there is a letter written by her husband to john adams in 1775 in the fall from the edmund fall house in which her husband says why aren't you people in congress? make the declaration of independence, and he says my wife is sitting next to me and she wants to write a few words.

she rights wharton she says why are you piddling at the threshold of making a decision? so you see mercy is not always proper, but she is from time to time. so, the british evacuation, mercy watches it, so does abigail adams and her husband. mercy is encouraging abigail to be self-sacrificing inlet john adams continue on in congress and this is for the good of the country but when her own husband is asked, james, to march with washington self to the battles and later asked to be part of the continental congress and to later become a judge, a supreme court judge, mercy will not let him do this. she said, you can't leave me here. if you march, i will go with you. i will take care of you but you can't leave me here.

abby gillis kind of in of the first 16 years and then mercy in parsi is more educated or formally-- formally educated. at the gail excepts this as the young woman but as time goes on she really begins to rankle. mercy is preaching one thing to abigail about letting her husband go and of course the eventually goes to france, england and holland as a minister but she won't let her husband even leave massachusetts. so, it is kind of interesting.