Lost to Time Page 6

  THIS STATUE OF GIL EANES in Lagos, Portugal, pays tribute to one of the least known yet most important of all Portuguese mariners who led the world into the Great Age of Exploration.

  As for Gil Eanes, records of his life after his voyage with Baldaya are fleeting. There are indications that he may have commanded one or two exploratory expeditions to West Africa sponsored by Portuguese merchants stationed in the port city of Lagos (Nigeria). What is known for certain is that on August 10, 1445, he sailed in an armada of fourteen caravels to the island of Tidra, off the coast of present-day Mauritania. There, under the command of Admiral Lanzarote Pessanha, the Portuguese, determined to conquer the island’s largely Muslim population, won a resounding victory. The armada returned home with some sixty captives. It is here that Eanes disappears from the pages of history. Some unsubstantiated accounts claim that he was killed in the fighting on Tidra. Others simply state that he died at a young age around the year 1450.

  It was a brief life, yet it was highlighted by an accomplishment that can be regarded as a turning point in history. Gil Eanes broke both the physical and psychological barriers of rounding Cape Bojador, a breakthrough that led to European trade with Africa and eventually with India as well.

  As historian John Friske stated, “This achievement of Gil Eanes marks an era. It was the beginning of great things. When we think of the hesitation with which this step was taken, and the vociferous applause that greeted the successful captain, it is strange to reflect that babies were born in 1435 who were to live to hear of the prodigious voyages of Columbus and Gama, Vespucius and Magellan.”

  Gil Eanes’s breakthrough was indeed followed by a succession of Portuguese voyages that, along with Christopher Columbus’s journey in the opposite direction, changed the course of history. Despite the true progress it represented, not all of this course was positive. The commerce that developed as a result of Eanes’s achievement included the capture, trade, and enslavement of a horrifying number of human beings. But, as John Fiske pointed out so long ago, there can be no denying the importance of what Gil Eanes accomplished. It is time for history to grant him the recognition he deserves.

  FOUR

  JOSEPH WARREN

  Architect of a Revolution (1741–75)

  He was regarded by many in his time as the true architect of the American Revolution. He was the key figure in one of history’s most famous tea parties. He wrote a set of Resolves that served as the blueprint for the first autonomous American government. He delivered a speech that sparked the first battles of the Revolutionary War. He sent Paul Revere out on one of history’s most famous rides. He was the only Patriot leader, prior to the Declaration of Independence, to risk his life against the British on the battlefield. His name was Joseph Warren, and, remarkably, he has been largely lost to history.

  Warren was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, on June 11, 1741. When he was fourteen, his father, a well-known farmer and respected member of the community, fell off a ladder while gathering fruit in his orchard and was killed. Fortunately, there was enough money in the family to pay for a superior education, and, after attending the prestigious Roxbury Latin School, Warren studied medicine at Harvard, graduating at the age of eighteen.

  At a time when there was no formal medical school in North America and doctors received their practical training by serving an apprenticeship, Warren was taken in by James Lloyd, who had acquired much of his medical knowledge by studying in England with William Cheselden, one of Europe’s greatest surgeons. Lloyd took a particular liking to the young Warren and not only passed on to him the most advanced knowledge of the European medical institutions, but also gave him a much freer hand in diagnosing and treating patients than was ordinarily granted apprentices.

  A CA. 1912 STATUE OF General Joseph Warren stands in General Joseph Warren Park in Warren, Pennsylvania.

  In 1763, at the age of twenty-two, Warren became the youngest doctor in Boston. It was the beginning of an extraordinarily busy medical career, one in which he would become the best-known physician in the city. Hundreds of sailors, rope makers, pewterers, saddlers, and even slaves came to him for treatment. But it was another group of patients who would represent the turning point in Warren’s life.

  He started his practice at a momentous time in the history of the American colonies in general and of Boston in particular. England, after years of allowing its colonies across the Atlantic to do pretty much as they pleased, had reversed its course. Its new king, George III, and his ministers were determined to bring the policies of “salutary neglect” to an end. Acts would be passed designed to make the colonists pay their share of the costly French and Indian War that was being waged when George III ascended the throne in 1760. As far as England was concerned, the war had been fought for the colonists’ protection. Most important, the British government would make it clear that it held supreme authority over the colonies.

  The new king and parliament began their new policies not by instituting legislation, but by resurrecting and enforcing old laws that had not been enforced. Chief among them were the Navigation Acts, which restricted the use of foreign shipping for trade between England and its American colonies. Particularly onerous to the colonists was the reinstatement of writs of assistance, a measure designed to enforce the Navigation Acts. This law gave royal custom officials in America the authority to issue writs compelling local colonial authorities to assist them in identifying and capturing smugglers and others. Even more outrageous as far as the colonists were concerned, a writ of assistance permitted British officials to search warehouses and colonists’ homes without a court order.

  GEORGE III is shown here as a young king in an engraving from 1762.

  AS WARREN’S REPUTATION AS A SKILLED physician grew, so did his reputation as a born leader and a well-read, highly articulate individual, always eager to express his opinions. He began to attract as patients many of those who would lead the way in opposing the new British policies, men such as John Adams, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, James Otis, and Josiah Quincy Jr. All of these men would soon become Warren’s political allies as well as patients. He joined them as they gathered at the many clubs that were being formed throughout Boston. He joined others at the St. Andrew’s Masonic Lodge, where his magnetic personality and strong convictions convinced fellow members—including the young silversmith Paul Revere—that he was a man ready to assume a leadership role in what could become a serious clash with the mother country.

  They were right. In 1733, Parliament passed the Molasses Act, which levied prohibitive duties of six pence per gallon on molasses. In 1764, via the Sugar Act, Parliament reduced the duty on molasses but raised it on sugar. These were but two of numerous revived Navigation Acts and other acts of trade that England would impose on the colonies in the early eighteenth century. As these taxes were announced, Warren began to speak out openly against not only the levies themselves but also England’s right to impose them upon a people who had no representation in the Parliament that was laying down the taxes. Other Patriots spoke out on the same issues, but Warren did so with extraordinary passion and eloquence.

  Tensions escalated tremendously with the passage of the Stamp Act in 1765, a measure that imposed a direct tax on all legal documents, permits, newspapers, almanacs, wills, commercial contracts, pamphlets, and even playing cards, a tax that affected almost every colonist. Officers were appointed to collect stamp duties and ensure that all printed material was officially stamped or marked. In his first letter to the press, published in the Boston Gazette of October 7, 1765, Warren demonstrated the emotional style that would arouse and inspire his fellow citizens throughout the events to follow.

  Awake! Awake, my countrymen, and, by a regular and legal opposition, defeat the designs of those who would enslave us and our posterity. Nothing is wanting but your own resolution—For great is the authority, exalted the dignity, and powerful the majesty of the people . . . Ages remote, mortals yet unborn, will bless your generous effort, and
revere the memory of the saviors of their country.

  Spurred on by Warren, Samuel Adams and other colonial leaders in Boston (as well as outraged citizens in New York and Philadelphia) organized themselves into a secret society named the Sons of Liberty in opposition to the Stamp Act. The mob violence that followed included physical attacks on British tax collectors, the burning of the houses of British tax collectors and other British officials, and the widespread destruction of the detested stamps. In the most effective protest of all, a boycott of all British goods was initiated.

  THE SATIRIC MASTHEAD OF THE OCTOBER 31, 1765, edition of the Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser, with a skull and crossbones representation of the official stamp required by the Stamp Act of 1765 that reads: “An emblem of the effects of the STAMP—O! the fatal Stamp,” and a note on the top left stating that “The TIMES are Dreadful, Dismal, Doleful, Dolorous, and Dollar-less.” The article opens with a statement by the publisher, William Bradford, that reads “I am sorry to be obliged to acquaint my Readers, that as the STAMP Act, is fear’d to be obligatory upon us . . . the Publisher of this Paper unable to bear the Burthen, has thought it expedient to STOP awhile.”

  British tax collectors and other British officials, and the widespread destruction of the detested stamps. In the most effective protest of all, a boycott of all British goods was initiated.

  The resulting loss of trade caused by the boycott hit British merchants squarely in their pocketbooks, so much so that, after a series of petitions from many of these merchants, Parliament was forced to repeal the act—but not before passing the Declaratory Act (1766), which stated that Parliament had the right to make laws for the colonies “in all cases whatsoever.”

  The repeal of the Stamp Act brought rejoicing throughout the colonies. Some spoke openly about the restoration of harmony between England and her American brethren. Harmony, however, was the last thing Warren wanted. By this time, particularly with England’s latest declaration of its complete legal authority over the colonies, he was more convinced than ever that an irreconcilable rift with the mother country was inevitable.

  Determined to keep the flames of agitation burning, within two weeks of the repeal of the Stamp Act, he began a written assault on the royal governor of Massachusetts, Francis Bernard. In a series of letters to the Boston Gazette, he charged the governor with “wantonly [sacrificing] the happiness of this Province” by enforcing unpopular laws and taxes, often, Warren charged, for his own selfish purposes. As historian John H. Cary wrote, Warren’s ultimate aims were to drive Bernard out of office and to bring Warren, Samuel Adams, Hancock, and the other Patriots to power. “The former,” Cary stated, “was accomplished by the close of the decade; the latter awaited the Revolution to achieve complete success. Warren’s propaganda played an important role in preparing public opinion for both.”

  A 1766 CARTOON DEPICTS a mock funeral for the Stamp Act. The caption under the cartoon read in part, “The hero of this print is the gentle Mr. Stamper, who is carrying to the family vault his favourite child, in a coffin, Miss Ame-Stamp, about 12 months old.”

  “Important” was an understatement. By this time, Warren was convinced that, despite the Stamp Act’s repeal, other onerous measures would follow and that nothing short of rebellion would restore the liberty the colonists had for so long cherished. On March 19, 1766, in a letter to his friend Edward Dana, he wrote, “Never has there been a time, since the first settlement of America, in which the people had so much reason to be alarmed as the present. The whole continent is inflamed to the highest degree. . . . They can conceive of no liberty when they have lost the power of taxing themselves.”

  Warren then went on to describe a development that had arisen from measures such as the Stamp Act, a result that even “the most zealous colonist never could have expected,” one that few on both sides of the Atlantic could have predicted less than a decade earlier. “The colonies, until now,” he wrote, “were ever at variance, and foolishly jealous of each other. They are now, by [the new British policies] united for their common defense against what they believe to be oppression; nor will they soon forget the weight which this close union gives them.”

  Propaganda it might have been. But Warren was correct in stating that the new British policies had brought the once-divided colonies together as never before. And he also was correct in his conviction that the repeal of the Stamp Act did not signal an end to British “oppression.”

  HE DID NOT HAVE TO WAIT LONG. In 1767, a still-determined Parliament, urged on by King George III, passed the Townshend Acts, imposing taxes on such commodities as glass, paint, lead, paper, and tea. Once again boycotts of British imports were organized. On May 9, 1768, British officials in Boston responded by seizing the Liberty, one of Hancock’s ships, and accusing Hancock of smuggling goods without paying taxes. On the surface the seizure would not seem to be a pivotal incident on the road to the American Revolutionary War. But it came at a time when the captain of HMS Romney, the British ship involved in the seizure, had already outraged Bostonians by impressing colonial sailors in Boston Harbor into naval service. In response to the Liberty seizure, the already incensed mob became so violent that the customs officials sent a hasty message to London declaring that Boston was now in a state of rebellion.

  Alarmed at the situation, England took its most dramatic step yet by sending four thousand British troops to restore order. Regarding the soldiers as nothing less than an army of occupation, Bostonians refused to house the troops as England had ordered. British military officers then commandeered public and private dwellings as lodgings for their men. The presence of four thousand armed troops brought tension in Boston to a boiling point, a pot that boiled over when, on March 5, 1770, a Bostonian, Edward Garrick, picked a fight with a young British sentry on guard at the customs office. The sentry hit Garrick in the face with his musket butt, which set off a mob that began throwing ice and snowballs at the sentry and a few other British soldiers. A small group of British officers and soldiers arrived to help protect their battered comrades as the mob grew larger and began to throw other small objects. Almost immediately a fight broke out, and in the scuffle a soldier named Montgomery, who had been hit with a club, suddenly fired into the crowd, although there had been no order to fire. His shot missed, but another soldier, named Kilroy, then discharged his weapon, killing one of the Bostonians. Other shots were then fired, and when the smoke cleared, three townspeople lay dead and two others had been mortally wounded.

  Five unfortunate citizens was hardly a slaughter, and the unruly mob was probably as much to blame as the soldiers. But the incident would forever be known as the Boston Massacre, an event regarded with such importance by the Patriots that John Adams wrote, “On that night, the foundation of American independence was laid.”

  By that time, Warren had earned a full reputation as perhaps the most radical of the radical leaders—so much so that when, in 1772, he was chosen to deliver the second annual Boston Massacre commemorative oration, even so staunch a Patriot as John Hancock expressed his concern that Warren’s speech might be so incendiary as to remove any possibility of easing tensions with the mother country.

  ONE OF THE VERSIONS OF PAUL REVERE’S now-famous print depicting the Boston Massacre, from 1770.

  Hancock’s fears were not unfounded. In an oration that Cary characterized as “one of the finest in American revolutionary literature,” Warren delivered a speech that stopped just short of a call to arms. A state, he exclaimed in his opening remarks, remains happy and secure only as long as its people are willing to fight for their rights. Then, summoning all the passion within him, he used the commemoration of the “massacre” not only as a vehicle to remind his listeners of the “tyranny and oppression” of the present British government but also as a warning of the dire results that might well lay ahead.

  The fatal fifth of March, 1770, can never be forgotten. . . . The horrors of that dreadful night are but too deeply impressed upon our hearts. L
anguage is too feeble to paint the emotions of our souls, when our streets were stained with the blood of our brethren; when our ears were wounded by the groans of the dying, and our eyes were tortured with the sight of the mangled bodies of the dead. When our alarmed imagination presented to our view our houses wrapt in flames, our children subjected to the barbarous caprice of the raging soldiery; our beauteous virgins exposed to all the insolence of unbridled passion.

  After discussing the dangers of standing armies, Warren then, in his most vehement remarks, attacked the very notion of the British colonial system.

  By what figure of rhetoric can the inhabitants of Massachusetts be called free subjects, when they are obliged to obey implicitly such laws as are made for them by men three thousand miles off, whom they know not and whom they have never empowered to act for them. Or how can they be said to have property, if such a foreign body can oblige them to deliver a part or the whole of their substance without their consent. If in this way they may be taxed even in the smallest trifle, they may also, without their consent be deprived of everything they possess.

  He was not done. In arguably the most incendiary remark yet made in the American colonies, he concluded by exclaiming, “May our land be a land of liberty, the seat of virtue, the asylum of the oppressed, a name and a praise in the whole earth, until the last shock of time shall bury the empires of the world in one common undistinguished ruin.”

  According to the Boston Gazette, Warren’s oration was celebrated with “unanimous applause.” Even Massachusetts’s royal governor, Thomas Hutchinson, who had succeeded Bernard, admitted that the “fervor” of the speaker “could not fail in its effect on the minds of the great concourse of people present.” Hutchinson’s words proved prophetic later that year, when an event took place that greatly accelerated the movement toward the colonies’ final split with Great Britain.