Today, part two of my occasional summer series on Salem’s role as provincial capital in the summer of 1774, illustrated by reenactors of the Encampment Weekend at Salem Maritime National Historic Site. Of course, there were no soldiers encamped along Derby Wharf in 1774: this was a busy, busy port, especially since the enforcement of the Boston Port Act. But they were a welcome sight (for those of us in Salem who believe that “history” happened in more years than 1692) in June of 2024, along with various townspeople, deputies to the resident General Court (including John Adams) and busy cooking and crafting women. Congratulation to Salem Maritime on a great event!
So now that we have the setting established, let’s return to the timeline. In Part I, I covered the background to Salem’s new revolutionary role and brought Governer Gage to town. He was followed by representatives from across Massachusetts to the General Court, which had its first Salem meeting on June 7. This session lasted ten days, and it did not go well from the British perspective for several reasons. The Boston Port Act had incited the majority of the representatives, and the dictates of the Massachusetts Government Act (published in the Boston Gazette on June 6) even more so: Governor Gage knew that he would soon be in a position of even more control over the government of Massachusetts, so he was completely reluctant to negotiate on anything: why they were all in Salem, first and foremost. From a local perspective, the Governor’s reactions to two very different addresses he had received upon his arrival in Salem, from the majority the majority Patriots and solid minority Loyalists, represent his point of view quite well. The former, along with their fellow Patriots in Boston and elsewhere in Massachusetts, were quite bolstered by the support from communities up and down the British Atlantic, and focused more on planning for participation in a Continental Congress than doing Gage’s bidding. When a special subcommittee submitted its plans for the Congress to the full assembly on June 17, the doors were locked to prevent any gubernatorial interruptions. Gage dissolved the General Court the same day, but it had already approved sending five delegates to the Congress, as well as a boycott on the purchase and consumption of tea and other imports from Great Britain and the East Indies. And so we move on.
Appendix: a cautionary tale!
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