Independence Proclaimed in Watertown and Boston

On 16 July 1776, James Bowdoin and the Massachusetts Council were continuing negotiations with Ambroise Saint-Aubin and other representatives of the Malecites and Mi’kmaqs about how those Native nations might ally with the Continental cause. On that day, the negotiating record states, Bowdoin shared a significant piece of news from Philadelphia:

The St. John’s & Mickmac Tribes are now our Brothers, and are become one people with the United Colonies—Those Colonies have lately by their Great Council at Philadelphia declared themselves free and independent States, by the Name of the United States of America.—

The Certain News of it and the Declaration itself are just come to us and we are glad of this opportunity to inform you, our Brothers of it.—The said Great Council the Representatives of the United States of America in General Congress Assembled appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of their Intentions do in the name and by the Authority of the good people of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united Colonies are and of right ought to be Free and Independent States...

And Bowdoin continued reading the last clause of the Declaration—the one that had legal meaning.

The meeting record says, “Here the printed Declaration at large was produced to the Indians, and the Interpreter Mr. [Job] Prince fully explained it to them.” The response of Saint-Aubin (referred to in these records as Ambruis or Ambrose Var) was translated as, “We like it well.”

Bowdoin went on:

This is the declaration of the United States of America. You and we therefore have now nothing to do with Great Britian[.] We are wholly separated from her and all the former Friendship and Connection with her are now dissolved. The United States now form a long and Strong Chain; and it is made longer and stronger by our Brethren of the St. John’s & Mickmac Tribes joining with us; and may Almighty God never suffer this Chain to be broken—

In pursuance and in full Conformation of what has in these Conferences been agreed upon between us, we now lay before you certain Articles of Alliance and Friendship, which if you approve of them we propose shall be mutually signed, viz, by you in behalf of the St. John’s & Mickmac Tribes on the one part; and by us in behalf of the united States of America on the other part.

Bowdoin held out the treaty and said, “This is the Treaty to be read to you. If you approve of it, it will be fairly written [i.e., copied neatly] and brought here again to be Signed by you and us.—I shall desire one of my Brothers to read it to you being obliged myself to go to Boston.” He then shook hands with the Native leaders and left.

Benjamin Greenleaf read the pact, Prince interpreted it, and the Malecite and Mi’kmaq leaders said they were ready to sign. The conference then adjourned for the treaty document to be copied.

The record for Wednesday, 17 July says, “The Council and the Indian Delegates being met, Duplicates of the Treaty fairly written were produced and signed and exchanged.” However, the official text of that treaty carries the date of “the Nineteenth day of July In the year of our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy Six.” Why the discrepancy? Perhaps because Bowdoin wasn’t available to add his signature until the 19th, or perhaps lawyers felt independence had to be proclaimed officially in Massachusetts before the treaty could take effect. Or perhaps the meeting record is in error, and should say the 19th.

On 18 July, “the Committee of Council”—quite possibly including Bowdoin—and many other Massachusetts officials gathered in the Council Chamber of the State House, as the American Gazette newspaper reported. “At One o’Clock the Declaration was proclaimed by the Sheriff of the County of Suffolk [William Greenleaf, assisted by Col. Thomas Crafts], which was received with great Joy expressed by three Huzzas from Concourse of People assembled on the Occasion.” A nineteenth-century portrayal of that event appears above, courtesy of the History Place.

TOMORROW: The significance of the “Watertown Treaty.”

The Declaration Arrives in Massachusetts

As I described yesterday, on 10 July 1776 the Massachusetts Council sat down in Watertown with men representing the Malecite (Wolastoqiyik) and Mi’kmaq nations from what would become Maine and New Brunswick, to discuss an alliance during the Revolutionary War. An unusually detailed record of their discussion appears in the Documentary History of the State of Maine, volume 24, starting on page 165.

Boston merchant and politician James Bowdoin was then President of the Council, and the record quotes him as starting out: “As Some of you speak French, we have desired Mr. Job. Prince who speaks French also to Interpret what shall be Said at this Conference: And we have appointed Mr. John Avery as clerk to take Minutes of it.” In addition, “Colo. [William] Lithgow who understands the Indian Language was desired to assist as interpreter.”

The leader of the Malecites, Ambroise Saint-Aubin, responded, “We like it well.” Or rather, that was how his response was translated. He was credited with saying similar things at other times, so it was probably a general formula of approval. He also seems to have spoken a lot of the time for the entire Native embassy.

The conversation went on for a few days, with the Massachusetts officials quizzing the Natives about how many fighting men they could supply, and the Mi’kmaq and Malecites listing their conditions for joining the American cause. On 13 July, the General Court (the lower house of the Massachusetts legislature) adjourned for the month.

On 14 July, it appears, the first copies of the Declaration of Independence reached Massachusetts. Worcester claims that Isaiah Thomas read the document publicly there on that day. That statement seems to be based on a statement in the biography of Thomas that his grandson Benjamin Franklin Thomas wrote for an 1874 reissue of The History of Printing in America. But see if you can spot the problem:

While on a visit to Worcester, July 24th, 1776, he read from the porch of the South Church to an assembly consisting of almost the entire population of that and adjoining towns, the declaration of independence. . . . The declaration was received with every demonstration of joy and confidence. The King's arms were taken from the Court House and burned to ashes. The sign was removed from the King's Arms tavern and a joyful celebration had there in the evening...

A copy of this book in Google Books actually has a handwritten note changing “July 24th” to “July 14th.” Because the 24th was days after the well documented public reading of the Declaration in Boston, which would make Thomas and Worcester afterthoughts.

Thomas had no official government standing—indeed, from the way his grandson wrote, he wasn’t even living in Worcester at the time. But as a printer, he received the news first. As a Patriot activist, he was enthusiastic about it. And as a tall man, he probably didn’t have a lot of people objecting to him reading what he wanted to read. The 14th was a Sunday, making it likely that people would indeed have been at the meetinghouse. I’d like to find a contemporary reference to Thomas’s reading, but haven’t so far.

In any event, on 16 July the Declaration was the front-page item of the American Gazette, a newspaper printed at Ezekiel Russell’s shop in Salem, so we know it had gotten that far by then. And on the same afternoon, the document figured in the negotiations at Watertown.

TOMORROW: How the Declaration changed the negotiations.

Ambroise Saint-Aubin Comes to Watertown

On Saturday, 18 July, the Historical Society of Watertown hosted a public reading of the Declaration of Independence and what has lately been called the “Treaty of Watertown”—two related documents from July 1776.

I didn’t mention that reenactment beforehand because:

• I got caught up in Boston’s smallpox fight.
• I found the description of it a little confusing.

The description appeared to combine two separate historical events: a discussion of the Declaration with ambassadors from two Native American groups in Watertown on 16 July 1776, and the public reading of the Declaration at the State House in Boston two days later. Both events took place in rooms designated the “Council Chamber,” but they were in different towns and, as it follows, different buildings. Over the next couple of days I’ll relate my understanding of what happened in Watertown that busy week.

On 10 July 1776, representatives from two Native nations from what are now Maine and New Brunswick—the Wolastoqiyik (known to the British as the Malecite, Maliseet, or St. John’s River tribe) and the Mi’kmaq—arrived in Watertown. They brought a copy of their 1760 treaty with the British imperial government and a recent letter from Gen. George Washington, asking for their cooperation in the fight against the British military.

Those Native diplomats were probably seeking the best course through the civil war that had broken out among the English-speakers. The main Malecite leader was Ambroise Saint-Aubin, referred to in Massachusetts records as Ambrose or Ambruis Var. He already felt that the British government neglected his people, and in September 1775 had traveled to the Penobscot trading post with an offer to fight against the Crown. The Mi’kmaq representatives apparently didn’t have as much authority or backing as he did because their elders eventually repudiated their negotiations.

Massachusetts’s government had been based in Watertown for several months. Even after the British military had left Boston in March, that port was still underpopulated, dilapidated, potentially ridden with smallpox, and perhaps too close to the coast for safety. The lower house of the provincial legislature, or General Court, met in Watertown’s meetinghouse. The Council, which in the absence of a governor also wielded executive power, met at Edmund Fowle’s house (shown above).

The Malecite and Mi’kmaq delegates visited both sites, but the latter was the main venue for the “Conference held at Watertown in the Colony of Massachusetts Bay between the Honble. the Council of the said Colony in behalf of said Colony, and of all the United Colonies on the one part, and the Delegates of the St Johns and Mickmac Tribes of Indians in Nova Scotia on the other part.”

TOMORROW: The discussion proceeds as the Declaration approaches.