Mercy Otis Warren: “The Conscience of the Revolution”
by Gabrielle Mollin
Fraunces Tavern Museum Docent Gabrielle Mollin details the life and legacy of Patriot activist Mercy Otis Warren.
Mercy Otis Warren, John Singleton Copley. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
In the years leading up to the American Revolution and throughout the formation of the early Republic, Mercy Otis Warren cemented her role as an intellectual by using something unexpected from women at the time: her voice. As an established poet, playwright, and essayist, she played a critical role in publicizing the Patriot cause and promoting the very Enlightenment principles that led to the formation of the United States of America.
Born into one of Massachusetts’s most influential wealthy families on September 14, 1728, Mercy Otis Warren was the third of thirteen children. Her father, James Otis, was an attorney and an elected member of the Massachusetts legislature, giving Mercy early exposure to colonial politics.
Like most colonial girls, Mercy never had a formal education, yet she enthusiastically attempted to learn more about history and politics through her brother’s school lessons and her uncle’s impressive library. Her brother, James Otis, consistently encouraged Mercy to explore her passion for writing and influenced her patriotic beliefs. Notably, he is rumored to have popularized the famed revolutionary phrase: “no taxation without representation.”[1]
Mercy married James Warren, her brother’s close friend and classmate at Harvard, in 1754. Like her father and brother, her husband had close ties to the growing Patriot movement as a Massachusetts politician. As a result, the Warren’s home flourished into a revolutionary hot-spot, hosting patriots like the Sons of Liberty and facilitating the creation of the Committees of Correspondence, a strategic letter-writing network created to unify the colonies against Loyalist legislation.[2]
Despite significant political influence from the three closest men in her life, Mercy’s strong work ethic and zeal were the main reasons for her barrier-breaking writing throughout the revolution. In the 1760s, Mercy was at the center of a bustling household of five sons but never let her domestic responsibilities hinder her intellectual passion. As a woman, she could not participate in politics nor serve in the military, but she had a knack for something equally impactful: writing. Mercy knew that the Patriot movement would be nothing without supporters, so she decided to use her talents to sway and inspire Tory-leaning colonists to join the fight against British tyranny.
Mercy began by writing various political plays, criticizing the crown’s policies and Loyalist officials in Massachusetts, especially the family nemesis, Governor Thomas Hutchinson.[3] Her first play, The Adulateur, was anonymously published in a local newspaper in 1772. The play was set in the mythical kingdom of Servia, and the characters paralleled controversial political figures of the time. Mercy intended to instigate conflict between the colonists and colonial officials by portraying Governor Hutchinson, known as Rapatio in the play, as “a tool” who would “stop at nothing to achieve his personal ambitions,” even if it meant sacrificing others.[4] She ended the play by foreshadowing the possibility of a full-scale revolution, writing that soon people may have to take up arms to defend their liberty and “murders, blood and carnage,/ Shall crimson all these streets.” [5]
Mercy published The Defeat in the Boston Gazette in 1773 as a response to the publication of a series of letters written by Hutchinson, in which he articulated his belief that the most strategic way to maintain the colonies’ connection to Britain would be through “an abridgment of what is called English liberty.”[6] These letters confirmed the colonists’ worst fears about the crown. The play was set in Servia yet again with the same characters as before, as Mercy sought to expose Hutchinson as corrupt and traitorous to the colonists.
Abigail Adams, a close friend of the Warren family, encouraged Mercy to continue playwriting. In a heartfelt letter, Adams wrote to Warren saying “satire in the hands of some is a very dangerous weapon; yet when it is so happily blended with benevolence, and is awakened only by the love of virtue and abhorrence of vice—when truth is unavoidably preserved, and ridiculous and vicious actions are alone the subject, it is so far from blamable that it is certainly meritorious.”[7] With Adams’ support, Mercy published her third patriotic satire, The Group, in 1775—without the protection of anonymity. [8]
The Patriot movement was still gaining momentum in 1773, as Mercy and the colonists would face one of the most infamous British policies: the Tea Act. When Boston leaders and Governor Hutchinson failed to come to a resolution, the Boston Tea Party erupted, and Mercy, once again, picked up her pen. Just days after the Tea Party, when the “spirit of liberty [was] very high,” John Adams wrote to James Warren, “I wish to see a late glorious event, celebrated, by a certain poetical pen, which has no equal that I know of in this country.”[9] Adams regarded Mercy as a “poetical genius,” who he hoped would document the recent events in Boston Harbor to bring more attention to the growing Patriot cause. In her first published political poem, titled “The Squabble of the Sea Nymphs,” Mercy praised the Sons of Liberty as “heroes of the Tuscararo tribe, / Who scorn’d alike a fetter and a bribe, / In order rang’d, and waited freedom’s nod, / To make an offering to wat’ry god.”[10] Adams was thrilled with the result and arranged for it to be published on the front page of the Boston Gazette.
Needless to say, the crown was less thrilled with the major act of defiance. Parliament retaliated with four new laws called the Coercive Acts, better known to the colonists as the Intolerable Acts. Once again, Mercy put her pen to work and published a series of poems encouraging women to boycott British goods and support the growing revolutionary efforts.
Title Page to Warren's "History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution." Courtesy of American Treasures of the Library of Congress.
In November 1775, as the British held Boston under siege, James Warren wrote to John Adams, urging him to negotiate with King George Ⅲ to stop the fighting. Mercy, however, had her own thoughts on the situation, which she insisted her husband include in the letter. “You should no longer piddle at the threshold,” she demanded. “It is time to leap into the theatre to unlock the bars and open every gate that impedes the rise and growth of the American republic.” Mercy fully embraced independence at a time when most colonists viewed reconciliation as the logical end to the conflict, demonstrating her unwavering confidence in her beliefs.
In the years after the Revolutionary War, the Warrens staunchly opposed the ratification of the Constitution. The pair took their concerns to paper in a series of anonymous essays against the Constitution—opposing the Federalist Papers. Under the pseudonym “A Columbian Patriot,” Mercy’s warned that the Constitution did not guarantee the protection of various civil liberties, an argument that contributed to Congress’s addition of the Bill of Rights in 1789.
In 1805, Mercy published History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution, under her own name, making her the first female historian in the United States. One of the major themes focused on the abolition of the institution of slavery, which was left out of the narratives of many of her contemporaries.
Mercy Otis Warren’s sheer intellect and passion transformed masses of frustrated subjects into fiery revolutionaries. In a period when her opinions couldn’t be heard, she wrote them down—and provided a perspective into the Patriots’ struggle beyond the battlefield.
Gabrielle Mollin contributes to the Museum’s blog, social media, and website. She is Student Body President at NEST+m high school in the Lower East Side, and will be graduating in June 2022. Gabrielle has always had a passion for history, much of which can be attributed to her grandfather. She is also an avid ballerina and reader.
Bibliography
Anthony, Katharine. First Lady of the Revolution: The Life of Mercy Otis Warren (New York: Doubleday & Co. Inc., 1958).
Bell, J. L. “‘No Taxation without Representation’ (Part 1).” Journal of the American Revolution, 28 Aug. 2016, allthingsliberty.com/2013/05/no-taxation-without-representation-part-1/.
Michals, Debra. "Mercy Otis Warren." National Women's History Museum. 2015. www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/mercy-otis-warren.
Smith, Bonnie G. "The Contribution of Women to Modern Historiography in Great Britain, France, and the United States, 1750-1940." The American Historical Review 89, no. 3 (1984): 709-32.
Trickey, Erick. “The Woman Whose Words Inflamed the American Revolution.” Smithsonian Magazine. 2017. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/woman-whose-words-inflamed-american-revolution-180963765/.
Wilson, Joan Hoffand; Bollinger, Sharon L. “Mercy Otis Warren: Playwright, Poet, and Historian of the American Revolution (American, 1728-1814).”
Zagarri, Rosemarie. A Woman's Dilemma: Mercy Otis Warren and the American Revolution. Wiley Blackwell, 2015.
Footnotes
[1] Bell, “Taxation.”
[2] Anthony, 78
[3] Zagarri, 54
[4] Zagarri, 57
[5] Zagarri, 58
[6] Zagarri, 60
[7] Ellett, E.F. 1849. Women of the American Revolution: Vol. I. New York: Baker & Scribner. p. 85.
[8] Mercy Otis Warren to John Adams, 11 October 1773, Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-01-02-0106.
[9] John Adams to James Warren, 22 December 1773, Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-02-02-0002.
[10] Otis Warren, Mercy. “The Squabble of the Sea Nymphs.” Poetry Nook. https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/squabble-sea-nymphs-or-sacrifice-tuscararoes.
