Mercy Otis Warren

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Mercy Otis Warren:

Female Chronicler of the Revolutionary War

By Helen E. McKinney




		Mercy Otis Warren

Mercy Otis Warren lived in a time when, like children, women were to be seen and not heard. But Warren possessed a mind so sharp and observing that her detailed observations could not be kept hidden away. She was somewhat of a female version of freethinker and experimenter like Benjamin Franklin, and writers Thomas Jefferson, Alexis de Tocqueville, Samuel Adams, and Thomas Paine, all who wrote about the Revolution and the early Republic. Through her writings, Warren recorded what she saw, felt and thought, embedding these ideas into the minds of a ready audience.

Born at Barnstable, Massachusetts on Sept. 25, 1728, Mercy Otis was at the heart of a Patriotic family. Her parents, James and Mary Otis, provided her with a homeschooled education, more than what most young ladies of the time were taught academically. Dr. Jonathan Russell tutored her. She was allowed to discuss politicswith her father and brothers, and developed a deep love of literature. She continued her studies with her older brother James while he prepared at home for his master’s degree. James became a well-connected lawyer and pre-Revolutionary leader. She eventually became a counselor and advisory to him and his friends.

In 1743 she attended a Harvard Commencement where she met James Warren, a farmer and merchant. After her marriage to Warren in Nov. 1754, the couple moved to his family estate at Eel River, Plymouth, Massachusetts. Warren had waited until age

twenty-six to tie the knot, an action that showed her independent nature. Her husband nurtured a career in the colonial legislature, elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1765. In the same year, she wrote a volume of patriotic poetry and published the “Massachusetts Song of Liberty,” which soon became the most popular song of the colonies. Mercy remained at home to raise sons James, Winslow, Charles, George, and possibly one other.

But Warren was not content with merely staying home and attending to motherly duties. “When the colonies increasingly rebelled against English rule, Mercy Otis Warren became perhaps the most important of Revolutionary War women,” (Weatherford). She had been largely self-educated, as it was not proper or practical for females to attend school on a regular basis. But her thirst for knowledge was insatiable, and her inquisitive nature spurred her to pen her thoughts; thoughts she was unable to turn into actions because she was a woman.

Warren decided not to reveal her true identify when she became a published author. In the turbulent years leading to the American Revolution, she anonymously published The Adulateur in 1772. This work was a satire thatcast the colonial governor as “Rapatio,” a villain intent on raping the colony. This work “excoriated Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson and his administration as greedy unprincipled sycophants” (Baym). Between March 26 and April 23, 1772, a selection from The Adulateur appeared in The Massachusetts Spy.

“Rapatio” appeared a year later as a character in her second play, The Defeat. She published her third play on the eve of the Revolution, The Group, in 1775. She satirized the British government in her works, each work being a thinly disguised attack on specific public officials. “She unhesitatingly urged the taking of risks to achieve American independence,” (Weatherford).

Warren was admired by the cosmopolitan and politically important men of her time. And more so than many men of her time period, “she saw the American Revolution as having significance beyond its apparent economic and political warfare; instead, she foresaw a deep and permanent shift of Western ideology,” (Weatherford). She was a firm believer in Thomas Jefferson’s immortal words that “all men are created equal.”

She was so radical in her thinking that she joined the minority who opposed ratification of the Constitution in the late 1780s, fearing it gave too much power to the federal government. “Our situation is truly delicate and critical,” she wrote. She sensed the need for a strong federal government, but at the same time heralded America’s struggle for liberty.

Her passion in life was writing, and she recorded a detailed history of the American Revolution that provided an insider’s view and set a precedent for women authors. It took three decades to work steadily on three volumes of history that were published in 1805 when Warren was seventy-seven years old. Despite her advanced age, History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution established Warren as a professional nonfiction writer. The work was 1,317 pages long, and she had written earlier drafts of the manuscript that were completed in 1801. Warren attributed the delay in publishing her work to heath problems, temporary bouts of blindness and grief over the loss of a son.


	In 1790 Warren had published all of her poetic plays in one book dedicated to George Washington, Poems, Dramatic and Miscellaneous. At the age of sixty-two, this was the first of her works that bore her name in print, “Mrs. M. Warren.” Most of her poetry was so personal that it was not published until almost two centuries after her death. Warren was well acquainted with prominent political men and their wives during the infant years of the United States of America. The Warren home was a common meeting place for Revolutionaries. She entertained George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and John and Abigail Adams in her home. Many letters to her contemporaries have been preserved and published.

	In her lifetime, she was often resentful of the restrictions imposed upon women. She thought it belittling that in her youth she had had to perform endless hours of needlework while her brothers where learning Latin, Greek and useful subjects that challenged the mind. She thought such limits violated what she termed the “natural rights” philosophy inherent in the Declaration of Independence. In later years she focused her energy on educational reform. Less than a decade after her death, Emma Willard’s Troy Female Seminary opened. It was obvious that others espoused Warren’s beliefs. She provided a commentary on the founding of a nation that is an invaluable inside view of the world around her. Although she lived in a primarily male-run world, Warren strove to have her voice heard. She set the precedent for women authors. She was a professional who wrote from the heart, relying on her senses to dictate a history that had a profound effect upon so many future generations. Her Patriotic pride spurred her to tell the story of a people and a nation in epic proportions.

Sources:

 Baym, Professor Nina. “Mercy Otis Warren’s Gendered Melodrama of Revolution.
 Weatherford, Doris. American Women’s History: An A. to Z of People, Organizations, Issues, and Events. New York: Prentice Hall, 1994.