No other answer but from the mouth of his cannon (episode 146)

Boston and Quebec City share a deeply intertwined history that goes back to the earliest days of English settlement in North America.  Puritan Boston could hardly stand the idea that their closest European neighbor was a Catholic colony, and they made many attempts to drive the hated French from the continent.  To defeat the French, the New Englanders would have to take fortresses at Louisbourg, Quebec, and Montreal. We recently talked about the 1745 siege of Louisbourg, but this week we’re going even further back in time.  In 1690, Sir William Phips, the frontier shepherd who found a sunken treasure and became a knight, led a large fleet of ships and over 2000 soldiers out of Boston. Their goal was to reduce the defenses of Quebec and force the French colonists to submit to the British crown, but the result was a total disaster.


No other answer but from the mouth of his cannon

Boston Book Club

Our pick for the Boston Book Club this week is Thomas Prince’s Chronological History of New England.  We’re going to be talking about a story from 17th century Massachusetts today, so I want to share one of my go-to sources for the earliest days of English colonization in New England.  Prince was a Harvard educated minister who was born in 1687. After graduating, but before becoming a pastor at Old South, Prince travelled around the Caribbean and visited England. As a New Englander, people in other places grilled him about our region’s history, so Prince began collecting books and texts about the topic.

A few years later, in 1728, he began assembling his own book about the history of Massachusetts.  Unlike many of his contemporaries, Prince was obsessed with primary sources and accuracy. The result is a book that traces the early history of Plymouth and Boston on an almost day-by-day basis.  The first few entries for 1630 record everything from the official renaming of Trimountaine to Boston to the founding of the cemetery that would become King’s Chapel Burying Ground to Governor Winthrop sending for Thomas Morton of the nearby settlement of Merrymount to account for his people’s bacchanalian lifestyle.  By the time Thomas Prince died in 1758, he had only made it up to the history of 1633, in part because of his rigor, and in part because he insisted on starting on the sixth day of creation, when God was supposed to have created Adam and Eve..

If you’re looking for documentation about the English colonists and their Native neighbors in Massachusetts between 1620 and 1633, this is an excellent source.  Buy a copy from Amazon or read it on the Internet Archive.

Upcoming Event

After the Stamp Act of 1765, and especially after the Townsend Acts of 1767 and 1768, Massachusetts colonists found ways to protest what they saw as unjust taxation.  These protests would eventually escalate to riots in 1768 and result in British troops occupying the town. One of the main ways that colonists could affect the Parliament in faraway Britain was through boycotts.  Boston merchants entered into a non-importation agreement in 1768, banding together to refuse to purchase British goods that would be taxable. Eventually, these non-importation agreements spread to New York, Philadelphia, and beyond.

Textiles were one of the key goods that colonists were boycotting.  During the protests, American patriots took pride in wearing clothes made of rougher “homespun” cloth, which was manufactured locally, rather than more refined materials imported from Britain.  Because spinning, weaving, and sewing were gendered as women’s work, this homespun movement thrust Massachusetts women to the forefront of resistance against the Townsend acts. For example, a May 1769 article in the Essex Gazette said:

It was early conceived by the most sagacious and knowing Nations, that a Number of Females had always determined the Condition of Men by means of their Spinning Wheels.  And Virgil intimates that the Golden Age advanced faster as they spun.

And had the Ladies, in every Age since, ruled in this laudable Way, perhaps some nations would be in a far better State than they now are.  But be that as it will, I presume there never was a Time when, or a Place where, the Spinning Wheel could more influence the Affairs of Men, than at present, in this and the neighbouring Colonies. The Industry and Frugality of American Ladies must exalt their Characters in the Eyes of the World, and serve to shew how greatly they are contributing to bring about the political Salvation of a whole continent.

While the domestic work of spinning yarn, weaving cloth, and sewing clothing was generally done privately, in 1769, the women of Massachusetts found ways to make it public.  Spinning bees were held across the Province, with one historian counting 28 during the first nine months of the year. The Boston Gazette reported on a spinning bee held on August 31 in Lexington:

On August 31, the Lexington Historical Society will be marking the 250th anniversary by reenacting this patriotic protest by the women of Lexington.  Here’s how they describe the event:

On the exact 250th anniversary of the 1769 spinning protest in Lexington, come to a reenactment of that important event in its original location! There will be spinners in period dress, interpreters sharing information about the craft of spinning, the political climate of the time and the British goods boycott that sparked the 1769 spinning bee. 

August 31 is a Saturday, and the event will be held on Harrington Road, across the street from Battle Green, from noon to 4pm.  It’s free and open to the public.