Revolution acts: selections from the SPNEA collection

Magazine Antiques, August, 2003 by Nancy Carlisle

Compared to traditional decorative arts collections, the holdings of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA) in Boston are remarkable because they not only contain wonderful examples of furniture, ceramics, paintings, and the like but also preserve the human stories behind them. This wealth of narrative has made possible a new kind of exhibition: Cherished Possessions: A New England Legacy, currently touring nationally, which presents approximately two hundred objects in the context of the lives of their owners. While the objects, dating from the seventeenth to the middle of the twentieth century, are visually striking, their stories provide detailed insights into the history of New England. The artifacts discussed below date from the American Revolution and portray moments of high drama a period of national crisis.

Already in the 1760s, the seeds of revolution were germinating in the American colonies. In the wake of the hated Stamp Act, and the Townshend Acts that followed, mob violence broke out in Boston. The British distributor of stamps, Andrew Oliver (1706--1774), was hanged in effigy; and radicals formed groups like the Sons of Liberty. In response, the British sent troops to keep the peace. As John Adams later remarked, stationing troops in a city against the will of its townsmen was an ill-conceived and reckless policy: "Soldiers quartered in a populous town will always occasion two mobs where they prevent one. They are wretched conservators of the peace." (1) His words were in response to a bloody encounter between British soldiers and an angry mob that occurred in early March 1770. The tipsy pewter teapot in Plate II is a relic of that encounter. It is thought to have belonged to Crispus Attucks (1723?--1770), the first victim of the so-called Boston Massacre, an incident that occurred after months of rising tension. "Redcoats" had become fair game for rowdy young townsmen, the subject of taunts and the target of snowballs. The soldiers responded, and brawls were soon commonplace. On a snowy Monday evening after one particularly tense weekend, a number of brawlers converged on the sentry stationed outside the Customs House. His patience worm thin by the jeering, the sentry lashed out, hitting a boy nearby with his fist. The crowd then began to shout: "Kill him, kill him." The sentry called for help and was soon joined by eight soldiers who formed a semicircle and tried to keep the crowd at bay with their loaded muskets and fixed bayonets. It is still not known who, if anyone, gave the order to fire, but within moments four townsmen were dead, another lay dying, and several others were seriously wounded.

According to countless witnesses, the first person shot and killed was Attucks, a six-foot two-inch man of mixed race who was seen wielding a club and encouraging others to attack. The shots that killed him may well have been fired by accident in a struggle between Attucks and the sentry for control of the latter's musket. Attucks is believed to have been born near Framingham, Massachusetts, perhaps to an African father and an American Indian mother (2) In the 1750s he was enslaved and living with the William Brown family of Framingham. Nothing more is known of him until the night of the massacre.

As one historian has suggested, if the Boston Massacre had not happened, colonial patriots would have had to invent it. (3) In fact, some have suggested that essentially they did invent it, with leaders like Samuel Adams (1722-1803) and William Molineaux (c. 17 16-1774) encouraging townsmen to behave in a way that forced British soldiers to respond. (4) Once blood had been spilled, it was easy to rally support for the patriot cause. The Sons of Liberty were brilliant propagandists, circulating broadsides and pamphlets within days of the "Massacre," demanding the immediate arrest of the soldiers and the instant removal of troops from Boston. They rallied thousands of mourners to attend the funeral of the victims. Within three weeks, Paul Revere's engraving "of the late horrid Massacre in King St." (Pis. I, Ia) was advertised in the Boston Gazette, or, County Journal. Showing not the clash of brawlers that occurred, but a group of armed soldiers taking aim at a peaceful group of citizens, the print's effect was electric. Few who saw it could doubt the justice of the patriots' cause.

The pewter teapot, as well as a pewter cup also in SPNEA's collection, was passed down in the Brown family with histories of having once belonged to Attucks. Their battered condition lends credence to the story, for why else would they have been saved, if not for their association with the martyred slave? That they did survive is testimony to the early recognition of their value as emblems of sacrifice in the cause of freedom. In Boston in the 1850s, relics like these were placed on display to rally support for the abolitionist movement

Just over five years after the Boston Massacre, war finally broke out when shots were fired in Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. After that day's baffles, British troops returned to their quarters in Boston. British ships kept supply routes open by sea, but the only access to the interior lay across Boston Neck, a long, narrow strip of land (see Fig. 1) soon blockaded by the Continental army At the far side of the neck was Roxbury, with the patriot army camped on Meetinghouse Hill from which they controlled land access to the city The painting in Plate III depicts the army's defensive earthworks built around the hill, visible to the right of the church steeple and along the horizon on the far left.