Image courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society.

Disarming Early American History
Michael Bellesiles

Part I | II | III | Notes

Notes

1. Sally Smith Booth, Seeds of Anger: Revolts in America, 1607-1771 (New York, 1977), ix. One gets the feeling that Booth did not read her own introduction, for nearly every conflict she describes ends "through peaceful, not violent means" (39).

2. Peter Young and Wilfred Emberton, The Cavalier Army: Its Organization and Everyday Life (London, 1974), 31-38; Quentine Bone, Henrietta Maria: Queen of the Cavaliers (Urbana, Ill., 1972), 143-44.

3. Board of Trade, Plantations, Colonial Office 323/4, Public Records Office; Wallace B. Gusler and James D. Lavin, Decorated Firearms, 1540-1870 (Williamsburg, Va., 1977).

4. Dave Grossman, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society (Boston, 1995); Konrad Lorenz, On Aggression (New York, 1963).

5. J. A. Sharpe, Crime in Early Modern England, 1550-1750 (London, 1984), 143-67; Clive Emsley, Crime and Society in England, 1750-1900 (London, 1996), 21-85; J. M. Beattie, Crime and the Courts in England, 1660-1800 (Princeton, N.J., 1986), 74-198; D. Rumbelow, I Spy Blue: The Police and Crime in the City of London from Elizabeth I to Victoria (London, 1971). For a completely different perspective, see Joyce Lee Malcolm, To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right (Cambridge, Mass., 1994), 79-91.

6. Donna J. Spindel and Stuart W. Thomas Jr., "Crime and Society in North Carolina, 1663-1740," Eric H. Monkkonen, ed., Crime and Justice in American History: The Colonies and Early Republic (2 vols. Westport, Conn., 1991) 2: 699-720; Arthur P. Scott, Criminal Law in Colonial Virginia (Chicago, 1930), 314-19, Byrd quoted p. 321; Hugh F. Rankin, Criminal Trial Proceedings in the General Court of Colonial Virginia (Williamsburg, Va., 1965), 204-15; Charles Hoadly, ed., Records of the Colony and Plantation of New-Haven, from 1638 to 1649 (Hartford, Conn., 1857), 22; Cornelia Hughes Dayton, Women Before the Bar: Gender, Law, and Society in Connecticut, 1639-1789 (Chapel Hill, N.C. , 1995), 8n, 144; Nathaniel B. Shurtleff and David Pulsifer, eds., Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England (12 vols. Boston, 1855-61) 7: 6, 35, 56, 58, 116. Carl Bridenbaugh insists that "crimes of violence" were on the rise throughout American cities in the 1730s. He offers no statistics, only one amazing event, in which a "Troop of young Ladies" set upon a man walking across the Boston Neck and "strip't down his Breaches and whip't him most unmercifully." A compelling story, though hardly compelling evidence. Carl Bridenbaugh, Cities in the Wilderness: The First Century of Urban Life in America, 1625-1742 (New York, 1955), 382, quoting the New York Journal November 8, 1736.

7. William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620-1647, ed. by Samuel Eliot Morison (New York, 1952), 210; Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, ed., Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England (5 vols. Boston, 1853-61) 1: 48; Charles F. Adams, Three Episodes of Massachusetts History (2 vols. Boston, 1893), 194-208; Charles M. Andrews, The Colonial Period of American History (4 vols. New Haven, Conn., 1937) 1: 332-34, 362-63.

8. J. Mills Thornton III, "The Thrusting Out of Governor Harvey: A Seventeenth Century Rebellion," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 76 (1968): 11-26; Sir John Harvey, "The Mutiny in Virginia, 1635," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 1 (1893): 416-30; Thomas J. Wertenbaker, Virginia under the Stuarts, 1607-1688 (Princeton, N.J., 1914), 60-84; Richard L. Morton, Colonial Virginia (2 vols. Chapel Hill, N.C., 1960) 1: 82, 137-46. Oddly, Thornton, who labels this "America's first rebellion against royal authority," and considers it a "triumph" (12), fails to mention Harvey's return to power. Harvey was removed from office by the Privy Council in 1639.

9. Clayton Colman Hall, ed. Narratives of Early Maryland, 1633-1684 (New York, 1910) 73, 107-08, 150-54, 158-59.

10. William L. Shea, The Virginia Militia in the Seventeenth Century (Baton Rouge, La., 1983) 73-77; Edmond S. Morgan, American Freedom, American Slavery: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia (New York, 1975) 147-48, 400-04; Wertenbaker, Virginia under the Stuarts, 99-101; Morton, Colonial Virginia 1: 171-73.

11. Andrews, The Colonial Period 2: 319; Browne, B. Bernard, "The Battle of the Severn: Its Antecedents and Consequences, 1651-1655," Maryland Historical Magazine 14 (1919): 154-71; Matthew Page Andrews, History of Maryland: Province and State (Hatboro, Pa., 1965), 117-29; Hall, ed., Narratives of Early Maryland, 235-44, 256-67.

12. Alexander C. Flick, ed., History of the State of New York (10 vols. New York, 1933-1937) 1: 310-13, 315-17, 2: 56-57, 75-80; E. B. O'Callaghan and B. Fernow, eds., Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York (15 vols. Albany, 1856-87) 1: 550-55, 14: 213, 231-32, 237-40, 544-48, 551-59; Allen W. Trelease, Indian Affairs in Colonial New York: The Seventeenth Century (Ithaca, N.Y., 1960), 107-08.

13. Flick, ed., History of New York, 2: 92-95.

14. Shea, Virginia Militia, 89-94.

15. Shea, Virginia Militia, 75, 92-93; Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom, 244-48. South Carolina found itself in a similar position at the beginning of an Indian war in 1671. The council voted that "it is thought unsafe" to keep all its twelve barrels of powder--barely enough for a month's campaigning--in one central location, so it sent several barrels for safekeeping to two militia officers. Alexander S. Salley Jr., ed., Journal of the Grand Council of South Carolina (2 vols. Columbia, S.C., 1907) 1: 9-10.

16. Charles M. Andrews, ed. Narratives of the Insurrections, 1675-1690 (New York, 1943), 105.

17. Robert Beverley, The History and Present State of Virginia, ed. by Louis B. Wright (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1947) 77; Andrews, ed. Narratives of the Insurrections, 16-19, 105-07; W. L. Grant and James Munro, eds., Acts of the Privy Council of England, Colonial Series, 1613-1680 (6 vols. Hereford, 1908-1912) 1: 593; Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom, 250-59; Shea, Virginia Militia, 97-99.

18. Beverley, History of Virginia, 78; Andrews, ed. Narratives of the Insurrections, 20-22, 108-12, 123-24; Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom, 259-62; Shea, Virginia Militia, 100-04.

19. Andrews, ed. Narratives of the Insurrections, 22-27, 121-28; Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom, 262-69; Shea, Virginia Militia, 104-11.

20. Andrews, ed. Narratives of the Insurrections, 27-39, 66-71, 128-40; Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom, 269-70; Shea, Virginia Militia, 111-18.

21. Andrews, ed. Narratives of the Insurrections, 39-40; Beverley, History of Virginia, 85-86; Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom, 271-79; Wertenbaker, Virginia under the Stuarts, 196-201, 207-11; Morton, Colonial Virginia 1: 278-80, 288-90.

22. CO 5/1355: 68-75, 5/1371: 48, PRO; "Virginia in 1682," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 28 (1920): 227-28; Shea, Virginia Militia, 118-20.

23. "Virginia in 1682," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 28 (1920): 117-27, 229-33; Beverley, History of Virginia, 92; Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom, 286-88; Shea, Virginia Militia, 125-26.

24. Shea, Virginia Militia, 120-21; W. Noel Sainsbury, et al., eds., Records in the British Public Record Office Relating to South Carolina, 1663-1782 (36 vols. Columbia, S.C., and Atlanta, Ga., 1928-1947) 5: 109-111.

25. David S. Lovejoy, The Glorious Revolution in America (New York, 1972), 122-59, 235-50.

26. E. B. O'Callaghan, ed., Documentary History of the State of New-York (4 vols. Albany, N.Y., 1849-1851) 2: 3-4, 14-15; Andrews, ed. Narratives of the Insurrections, 362-63; Lovejoy, Glorious Revolution, 106-14, 251-57.

27. Andrews, ed. Narratives of the Insurrections, 364; O'Callaghan, ed., Documentary History 2: 6, 68, 185.

28. Flick, ed., History of New York 2: 109-16; O'Callaghan, ed., Documentary History 2: 40, 106-108, 113-14, 120-32; Andrews, ed. Narratives of the Insurrections, 338; Lovejoy, Glorious Revolution, 313-14.

29. O'Callaghan, ed., Documentary History 2: 263, 268-69; Lovejoy, Glorious Revolution, 312-24, 330-31.

30. O'Callaghan, ed., Documentary History 2: 309-10; Lovejoy, Glorious Revolution, 322-23.

31. O'Callaghan, ed., Documentary History 2: 320-30, 340-46, 358-64; Andrews, ed. Narratives of the Insurrections, 368-70, 390-93; Lovejoy, Glorious Revolution, 337-40. For a more sympathetic treatment of Leisler's Rebellion, see Gary B. Nash, The Urban Crucible: Social Change, Political Consciousness, and the Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, Mass., 1979), 44-49, 88-93.

32. Andrews, The Colonial Period 2: 343-44; Aubrey C. Land, Colonial Maryland: A History (Millwood, N.Y., 1981), 79.

33. William H. Browne, et al., eds., Archives of Maryland (72 vols. Baltimore, 1883-1972) 5: 312-34; Andrews, The Colonial Period 2: 347-51; Lovejoy, Glorious Revolution, 84-87; Land, Colonial Maryland, 79-80, 83-84.

34. Browne, et al., eds., Archives of Maryland 8: 56-57, 65-67; Lovejoy, Glorious Revolution, 257-60; Lois G. Carr and David W. Jordan, Maryland's Revolution of Government, 1689-1692 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1974), 17, 41, 46-48.

35. Browne, et al., eds., Archives of Maryland 8: 100-12; Lovejoy, Glorious Revolution, 265-66; Andrews, ed. Narratives of the Insurrections, 311-13; Land, Colonial Maryland, 86-93; Carr and Jordan, Maryland's Revolution, 53-61.

36. Browne, et al., eds., Archives of Maryland 8: 134-38, 147-56, 181-204, 211-28, 263-70; Carr and Jordan, Maryland's Revolution, 74-83, 158-63, 201-16; Lovejoy, Glorious Revolution, 267-68, 302-307, 364-67.

37. Hugh F. Rankin, Upheaval in Albemarle: The Story of Culpeper's Rebellion, 1675-1689 (Raleigh, N.C., 1962) 16-17, 27-30, 36-39.

38. Ibid., 40-48, 62-63.

39. Gove was the only one tried. Convicted and sentenced to death, he was pardoned by the Privy Council and set free. Jere R. Daniell, Colonial New Hampshire: A History (Millwood, N.Y., 1981), 90-95.

40. Jeremy Belknap, The History of New-Hampshire (2 vols. Dover, N.H., 1831) 1: 98-100.

41. Nash, Urban Crucible, 43. There have been a number of studies of crowd action in colonial America, most focusing on the Revolutionary period. Those studying the years prior to the Stamp Act crisis in 1765 have found surprisingly few incidences compared with contemporary Europe, only a handful involving violence. In addition to those crowd actions mentioned here, there were three nonviolent mobs in Boston in 1689, 1710, and 1736 protesting economic issues; and some election crowds in Philadelphia in 1727-1729 and 1742; a bloodless anti-impressment riot in Boston in 1747, to which the militia refused to respond; a small nonviolent protest against the overevaluation of pennies in New York in 1753; a minor anti-impressment demonstration in New York in 1758, and another in 1759 concerning a food shortage; an anti-inoculation riot in Marblehead, 1730; and two attacks on houses of prostitution in Boston, 1734 and 1737. Nash, Urban Crucible, 38-44, 76-80, 132-33, 152-54, 222-23, 228-31, 266; Bridenbaugh, Cities in the Wilderness, 70-71, 383-84, 388-89; Christine L. Heyrman, Commerce and Culture: The Maritime Communities of Colonial Massachusetts, 1690-1750 (New York, 1984), 304-313. Bridenbaugh, who has a much looser definition of "riot," locates several more: officials attacked in the streets of Boston, 1701 and 1741, and New York, 1705; the governor's coach damaged in Boston, 1725; "vile Miscreants" tore up the Mayor's plants and sailors stole a city pump in Philadelphia, 1729 and 1741; a "rabble" drinking confiscated claret in front of the customs officers in Newport, 1719; and a crowd of women who threw chamber pots at returning soldiers in 1707. Cities in the Wilderness, 223-24, 382-83. Only one of these riots may have involved a gun. Nash identifies a Boston riot in 1713 in which the lieutenant governor was shot; Bridenbaugh says he was wounded. Nash, Urban Crucible, 77; Bridenbaugh, Cities in the Wilderness, 196. Their source, Samuel Sewall's diary, says only that a riot "Wounded the Lt. Govr. and Mr. Newton's Son." There is no reference to a gun or gunshot. Samuel Sewall, Diary of Samuel Sewall, 1674-1729, vols. 5 and 6 of Collections of the Massachusetts History Society, 5th ser. (Boston, 1878-1888). I can locate no contemporary account of what must have been a very dramatic event that surely would have evoked a royal response. On colonial and revolutionary traditions of crowd action see Pauline Maier, From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1756-1776 (New York, 1972); Dirk Hoerder, Crowd Action in Revolutionary Massachusetts, 1765-1780 (New York, 1977); Edward Countryman, A People in Revolution: The American Revolution and Political Society in New York, 1760-1790 (Baltimore, 1981); Michael A. Bellesiles, Revolutionary Outlaws: Ethan Allen and the Struggle for Independence on the Early American Frontier (Charlotesville, Va., 1993); Alan Taylor, Liberty Men and Great Proprietors: The Revolutionary Settlement on the Maine Frontier, 1760-1820 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1990).

42. Booth, Seeds of Anger, 150.

43. Michael A. Bellesiles, "Guns Don't Kill, Movies Kill: The Media's Promotion of Frontier Violence," Western Historical Quarterly (Fall, 2000).

44. Alexander S. Salley Jr., ed. Journals of the Commons House of Assembly (21 vols. Columbia, S.C., 1907-1946) 1736-39: 110; Wood, Black Majority, 53, 260-62.

45. Sally E. Hadden, "Colonial and Revolutionary Era Slave Patrols," in Bellesiles, ed., Lethal Imagination, 69-85.

46. There was a hysterical terror of a slave uprising in New York in 1741, which led to the official torture and execution of 35 people. Nash, Urban Crucible, 108-11; Kenneth Scott, "The Slave Insurrection in New York in 1712," New-York Historical Society Quarterly 45 (1961): 43-74; Farenc M. Szasz, "The New York Slave Revolt of 1741: A Re-Examination," New York History 48 (1967): 215-30; Herbert Aptheker, American Negro Slave Revolts (New York, 1983), 168-73, 192-96.

47. Wood, Black Majority, 308-23.

48. Ibid., 321-23; Herbert Aptheker, American Negro Slave Revolts (New York, 1983), 187-91.

49. Browne, et al., eds., Archives of Maryland 28: 188-90; Aptheker, American Negro Slave Revolts, 191-92.

50. Albert Henry Smyth, ed., The Writings of Benjamin Franklin (10 vols. New York, 1905-1907) 4: 289-314.

51. For example, Massachusetts Historical Society, "Instructions from the Church of Natick to William and Anthony," Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society 1st ser., 6 (1799): 201-03; Charles H. Lincoln, ed., Narratives of the Indian Wars, 1675-1699 (New York, 1913) 5, 8-17; Shurtleff and Pulsifer, eds., Records of New Plymouth 10: 439-40; Edward Wharton, New-England's Present Suffering under Their Cruel Neighboring Indians (London, 1675), 4-6; William Hubbard, The Happiness of a People (Boston, 1676), 46. Colonial Americans seem to have lacked a coherent justification for war. Jill Lepore, The Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins of American Identity (New York, 1988) 97-121.

52. Daniell, Colonial New Hampshire, 91-92; Andrews, ed. Narratives of the Insurrections, 21-25; Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom, 253-57; Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society 13: 247-48, 257-58.

53. Rankin, Upheaval in Albemarle, 12-13, 20-22; Alexander S. Salley Jr., ed. Narratives of Early North Carolina, 1650-1708 (New York, 1911), 328-29.

54. Lovejoy, Glorious Revolution, 218; Andrews, ed., Narratives of the Insurrections, 196-97; Sir Edmond Andros to William Blathwayt, April 4, October 4, 1688, William Blathwayt Papers, Colonial Williamsburg.

55. Board of Trade, Plantations, CO 323/4, PRO; Beverley, History of Virginia, 269; Grant and Munro, eds., Acts of the Privy Council 1: 422-23; Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom, 252. Another problem was that all the gunpowder came from Europe as well. Gunpowder was thus expensive, difficult to transport, and just simply dangerous to handle or store. And it was essentially useless if shaken into a dust form or if it got wet. There were drying areas in European powder mills; but that was considered the single most dangerous part of the mill, and none existed in America. Jenny West, Gunpowder, Government and War in the Mid-Eighteenth Century (London, 1991), 7-22.

56. Joyce Lee Malcolm, To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right (Cambridge, Mass., 1994) 20-21.

57. Military historians who have looked at militia records: Shea, Virginia Militia, 87-96, 127-34; Harold E. Selesky, War and Society in Colonial Connecticut (New Haven, Conn., 1990) 3, 13-14; James Titus, The Old Dominion at War: Society, Politics, and Warfare in Late Colonial Virginia (Columbia, S.C., 1991), 1-23; Don Higginbotham, "The Military Insitutions of Colonial America: The Rhetoric and the Reality," in Higginbotham, War and Society in Revolutionary America: The Wider Dimensions of Conflict (Columbia, S.C., 1988), 19-41.

58. Shurtleff and Pulsifer, eds., Records of New Plymouth 1: 22.

59. Browne, et al., eds., Archives of Maryland 1: 77-78, 84, 347, 406-08, 410-13, 2: 475-76, 3: 107-08, 130-34, 344-51, 411, 502, 5: 21, 7: 53-63, 8: 223 (quote), 15: 47-49, 97-99, 124-27, 142-44, 20: 186, 313, 315, 317. Some other colonies were even more lax in maintaining militia musters, their legislatures struggling for decades to keep their militia alive in the face of public indifference. In 1677, for instance, the Rhode Island legislature informed the crown that the colonial militia was defunct and the colony "at this time is in effect wholly destitute of the military forces for the preservation of itself." John Russell Bartlett, ed., Records of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, in New England (10 vols. Providence, R.I., 1856-1865) 2: 567-58. See also ibid., 1: 153-55, 218, 381, 2: 51-52, 114-18, 190, 211-12, 215-19, 3: 15, 4: 149, 155, 173, 211; Aaron Leaming and Jacob Spicer, eds., The Grants, Concessions, and Original Constitutions of the Province of New-Jersey (Philadelphia, 1758), 17-19, 85, 94, 135, 277, 331, 348, 424; State of New York, The Colonial Laws of New York from the Year 1664 to the Revolution (5 vols. Albany, 1894) 1: 49-55, 161-62, 219-20, 231-36, 454-55, 500-07, 546-48, 611-12, 675, 706-07, 745, 778-79, 781-82, 868, 885-88, 917, 1001; Thomas Cooper and David S. McCord, eds. The Statutes at Large of South Carolina (10 vols. Columbia, S.C., 1836-41) 1: 22-40, 48-49, 135, 148; 2: 9-12, 15, 20-21, 25, 44-50, 254-55, 623-24, 691; 3: 23, 108-11, 183, 255-57, 272, 301, 362, 395-98, 465-66, 568-73, 577, 595-96; 4: 104-06, 113-28, 144-48; 7: 1-12, 22-27, 33, 49-56, 346-49, 417-19; 9: 617-24, 638-57, 664-65, 682-88; Hoadly, ed., Records of the Colony and Plantation, 1: 131-32, 202-205; Charles J. Hoadly, ed., Records of the Colony or Jurisdiction of New-Haven, from May 1653, to the Union, (Hartford, Conn., 1858) 173-75, 603-604.

60. John Winthrop, Winthrop's Journal "History of New England,"1630-1649, ed. by J. K Hosmer (2 vols. New York, 1908) 1: 91-92, 2: 42.

61. Fifteen thousand men were eligible for service in the militia in 1690. Chicheley to Privy Council, July 16, 1672, Winder Transcripts, Virginia State Library, 1: 277; Lord Effingham to the Lords for Trade, May 28, 1689, CO 5/1358: 1, PRO; Effingham to the Lords for Trade, May 12, 1691 in W. Noel Sainsbury, et al., eds., Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and the West Indies (44 vols., London, 1860-1969) 1689-1692, 434-35; Henry Chicheley to Thomas Chicheley, July 16, 1673, CO 1/30, PRO; Shea, Virginia Militia, 130; Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom, 252, 395-410; Fredrick Stokes Aldridge, "Organization and Administration of the Militia System of Colonial Virginia" (PhD diss., American University, 1964) 66, 211.

62. Richard B. Davis, ed., William Fitzhugh and His Chesapeake World, 1676-1701 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1963), 238. Fitzhugh's will and probate carefully record every bequest, right down to which son gets which waistcoat and his favorite chocolate pot, as well as every detail of his personal possessions; but there is no reference to a gun. See ibid., 38-39, 373-85.

63. Sir Francis Nicholson to Lords of Trade, August 20, November 4, 1690; January 26, 1691; February 26, July 16, 1692; December 2, 1701, CO 5/1305, 1306, 1358, 1360, PRO; Abstract of Militia Lists, October 1701, CO 5/1312, PRO; Query to Commissioners for Trade, March 1702, and to Lords of Trade, March 17, 1702, CO 5/1312, CO 5/1360, PRO; Gov. Edward Nott to Lords of Trade, 1705, CO 5/1315: 26-29, PRO; H. R. McIlwaine, et al., eds., Executive Journals of the Council of Colonial Virginia, 1680-1754 (6 vols., Richmond, Va., 1925-1926) 1: 111-14, 117-21, 132-34, 141-42, 2: 333-34; William P. Palmer, et al., eds., Calendar of Virginia State Papers and Other Manuscripts (11 vols. Richmond, Va., 1875-1893) 1: 80-81; Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom, 351-54; Aldridge, "Organization and Administration," 92-104; Richard L. Morton, Struggle Against Tyranny (Williamsburg, Va., 1957) 50. Nicholson's successor as governor, Edmund Andros, shared the view that the militia was "very Indifferently Armed," and "unsuiteably (and not well) Armed" but concentrated on coastal defenses. Andros to Commissioners for Trade, 22 July 1693, CO 5/1308, PRO; Shea, Virginia Militia, 131-34.

64. William Byrd, The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover, 1709-1712, ed. by Louis B. Wright and Marion Tinling (Richmond, Va., 1941), 389-96.

65. Ibid., 234, 399, 403, 405, 414-17, 424.

66. Jack Verney, The Good Regiment: The Carignan-Salieres Regiment in Canada, 1665-1688 (Montreal, 1991), 37-40.

67. Ibid., 45-53; W. J. Eccles, Canada under Louis XIV, 1663-1701 (London, 1964) 39-41. For a different reading of these events, see Trelease, Indian Affairs, 242-43.

68. Henry True, Memorandum and Account Book, 1696-1719, New York Public Library [Mss. Room]; Connecticut Historical Society, Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society (31 vols., Hartford, Conn., 1860-1967) 13: 83-85, 269-76, 15: 133-36, 191.

69. Robert E. Wall, "Louisbourg, 1745," New England Quarterly 37 (1964): 64-83; Louis Effingham De Forest, ed., Louisbourg Journals, 1745 (New York, 1932), 5-6 (quote), 10-28, 174-76; G. A. Rawlyk, Yankees at Louisboug (Orono, Me., 1967), 98-117.

70. Thomas Proctor to Samuel Waldo, May 26, 1744, Samuel Waldo Papers, John Marshall Diary, Massachusetts Historical Society.

71. South Carolina Gazette for November 8, 1735, March 6, 1736 (in reverse order); H. Telfer Mook, "Training Day in New England," New England Quarterly 11 (1938): 681; John W. Shy, Toward Lexington: The Role of the British Army in the Coming of the American Revolution (Princeton, N.J., 1965), 6; Ronald L. Boucher, "The Colonial Militia as a Social Institution: Salem, Massachusetts, 1764-1775," Military Affairs 37 (1973): 125-30; Morison Sharp, "Leadership and Democracy in the Early New England System of Defense," American Historical Review 50 (1945): 252; Louis Morton, "The Origins of American Military Policy," Military Affairs 22 (1958): 75-82; Walter Millis, Arms and Men: A Study in American Military History (New York, 1956), 22-23.

72. Isabel M. Calder, ed., Colonial Captitivies, Marches and Journeys (New York, 1935) 36, 56; Henry True, Memorandum and Account Book, 1696-1719, NY Public Library [Mss Room]; O'Callaghan, and Fernow, eds., Documents Relative to the Colonial History 14: 597-609; Samuel Sewall, Diary of Samuel Sewall, 1674-1729 5: 350.

73. On the mythology of hunting, see Matt Cartmill, A View to a Death in the Morning: Hunting and Nature Through History (Cambridge, Mass., 1993).

74. Percy Wells Bidwell and John I. Falconer, History of Agriculture in the Northern United States, 1620-1860 (Washington, D.C., 1925); Bettye H. Pruitt, "Self-Sufficiency and the Agricultural Economy of Eighteenth-Century Massachusetts," William and Mary Quarterly 41 (1984): 333-64.

75. John Lawson, A New Voyage to Carolina (London, 1709), 14-42; Lawrence J. Burpee, ed., "Journal of Matthew Cocking, From York Factory to the Blackfeet Country, 1772-73," Proceedings and Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, 3d ser., 2 (1908): 89-119; Kathryn E. Holland Braund, Deerskins & Duffels: The Creek Indian Trade with Anglo-America, 1685-1815 (Lincoln, Ne., 1993), 66. For other legal limitations on hunting, see for example, State of New York, Colonial Laws, 1: 585-86, 618-20, 888, 2: 323-24; Stephen Aron, How the West was Lost: The Transformation of Kentucky from Daniel Boone to Henry Clay (Baltimore, Md., 1996), 15-17.

76. Lawson, A New Voyage to Carolina, 86, 88.

77. See, for instance, the account books of William Heywood, Stephen Peabody, Thomas Vail, Elijah Washburn, American Antiquarian Society (Worcester, Mass.); Jonas Fay, Isaac Greene, Nathan Stone, Samuel Thrall, Vermont Historical Society (Montpelier, Vt.); the Brownson family, David Mallory, Arlington Library (Arlington, Vt.); Stephen Fay, Bennington Historical Museum (Bennington, Vt.); Stephen Fay, Ambros Hubbert, Bennington Probate Records; Asa Sanger, Keene Public Library (Keene, N.H.); Harold B. Gill Jr., The Gunsmith in Colonial Virginia (Williamsburg, Va., 1974), 63-68.

78. Indians also relied heavily on traps for hunting. Very little research has been done on hunting in colonial America. The topic is better developed in the nineteenth century. Michael A. Bellesiles, "The Autobiography of Levi Allen," Vermont History 60 (1992), 85-87; Beverley, History of Virginia, 309-10; Thomas E. Norton, The Fur Trade in Colonial New York, 1686-1776 (Madison, Wi., 1974), 60-120; Colin G. Calloway, The Western Abenakis of Vermont, 1600-1800: War, Migration, and the Survival of an Indian People (Norman, Ok., 1990), 132-42; Calloway, ed., Dawnland Encounters: Indians and Europeans in Northern New England (Hanover, N.H., 1991), 193-211; Paul C. Phillips, The Fur Trade (2 vols. Norman, Ok., 1961) 1: 377-403; Burpee, ed., "Journal of Matthew Cocking, 106-107; Braund, Deerskins & Duffels, 66-73.

79. John Phillip Reid, A Better Kind of Hatchet: Law, Trade, and Diplomacy in the Cherokee Nation during the Early Years of European Contact (University Park, Pa., 1976), 34-36; Braund, Deerskins & Duffels, 61- 66; Daniel K. Richter, The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1992), 90-91; Trelease, Indian Affairs in Colonial New York, 215-25. Rhode Island employed Indians as hunters; Bartlett, ed., Records of Rhode Island 1: 125-26. Maryland attempted in 1650 to outlaw the practice of employing Indians as hunters for white settlers. Nothing came of this effort. Browne, et al., eds., Archives of Maryland 3: 260.

80. Michael A. Bellesiles, Revolutionary Outlaws: Ethan Allen and the Struggle for Independence on the Early American Frontier (Charlottesville, Va., 1993), 27; Jackson T. Main, The Social Structure of Revolutionary America (Princeton, N.J., 1965), 18-27, 50-54, 104-13; Walter Nugent, Structures of American Social History (Bloomington, In., 1981), 39-53.

81. Main, Social Structure, 34-44, 67, 75-83, 112-13, 132-35; Carole Shammas, The Pre-Industrial Consumer in England and America (New York, 1990) 121-88.

82. Main estimates the average annual income of a skilled artisan at £25 to £30. Main, Social Structure, 68-114; Shammas, The Pre-Industrial Consumer, 123-33. On the paucity of currency in British North America, see John J. McCusker, Money And Exchange In Europe And America, 1600-1775: A Handbook (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1978), 125-31; John J. McCusker and Russell R. Menard, The Economy of British America, 1607-1789 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1985), 337-41.

83. Gill Jr., The Gunsmith in Colonial Virginia, 22-32, 63-68; James Whisker, The Gunsmith's Trade (Lewiston, N.Y., 1992), 144-63.

84. S. James Gooding, The Canadian Gunsmiths, 1608 to 1900 (West Hill, Ont., 1962), 31-32. The first gun known to be made in Canada was in the early nineteenth century though some forty smiths and armorers, mostly employed by the Hudson's Bay Company, repaired and maintained firearms in the eighteenth century. Ibid., 34, 59-185.

85. James Blair, president of the Virginia Council, wrote in 1768 that "We do not make a saw, auger, gimlett, file, or nails, nor steel; and most tools in the Country are imported from Britain." Quoted in Gill, The Gunsmith in Colonial Virginia, 45. The few surviving gunsmith account books from the eighteenth century, such as those of James Anderson of Williamsburg which cover the years 1778 to 1799 (Research Department, Colonial Williamsburg), indicates that he repaired but did not make guns. And colonial assemblies regularly paid smiths to repair arms, but almost never purchased guns from these smiths.

86. Gill, The Gunsmith in Colonial Virginia, 21-32; Whisker, The Gunsmith's Trade, 47-66. The Jager rifle, an ornamental German gun with a short barrel and large bore, came to Pennsylvania in the early eighteenth century. Those few gunsmiths making rifles in America reduced the caliber to conserve powder and lead, and lengthened the barrel. Felix Reichman, "The Pennsylvania Rifle: A Social Interpretation of Changing Military Techniques," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 69 (1945): 8-9.

87. Salley Jr., ed., Journal of the Grand Council, 1: 7-8, 39-40, 46, 51-52, 62; Theodore Jabbs, "The South Carolina Colonial Militia, 1663-1733" (PhD diss., University of North Carolina, 1973) 96-97. There is a smith named John Dandy who appears in the Maryland records of the 1640s. In 1644 he may have made or assembled the first gun in the American colonies--the parts were surely imported. On at least one occasion Dandy stocked a gun, and in 1647 he claimed to have made a gunlock eight years earlier, though that must have been in England, if true, since he arrived in Maryland in 1642. Dandy was charged with murdering an Indian boy in 1644, but found innocent. In 1650 he beat an indentured servant to death and was hanged. Browne, et al., eds., Archives of Maryland 4: 122, 247, 254-55, 284, 10: 283.

88. Reichman, "The Pennsylvania Rifle," 9-10; James B. Whisker, Arms Makers of Colonial America (Selingsgrove, Pa., 1992), 102-104, 129-30; M. L. Brown, Firearms in Colonial America: The Impact on History and Technology, 1492-1792 (Washington, D.C., 1980), 256-59, 264.

89. Gill, The Gunsmith in Colonial Virginia, 6-7, 27-29, 69-108. On David and William Geddy's ability to rifle barrels, see the Virginia Gazette August 8 1751.

90. Rita S. Gottesman, comp., The Arts and Crafts in New York, 1726-1776, vol. 69 of Collections of the New York Historical Society (New York, 1938), 82, 165, quoting New-York Gazette September 18 1769, November 7, 1774 (in reverse order). On other artisans repairing guns, see also ibid., 197, 201, for a brass founder (Rivington's New York Gazetteer May 18, 1775) and a cutler (The New-York Gazette April 6, 1767). As Rita S. Gottesman writes in the introduction, "The early New York artisan had apparently not yet won the confidence of his community, for most articles offered for sale in New York were imported. Even repairs were made abroad" (xiii).

91. Ibid., 304; quoting New-York Gazette August 1 1748.

92. George F. Dow, comp., The Arts and Crafts in New England, 1704-1775 (Topsfield, Mass., 1927), 264-65.

93. At the very least one can safely say that gunsmiths saw no advantage in advertising their services. Alfred C. Prime, comp., The Arts and Crafts in Philadelphia, Maryland, and South Carolina, 1721-1785 (Philadelphia, 1929). During the Revolution, fifty artisans from trades as diverse as clockmaker to tinsmith cleaned and repaired firearms for Pennsylvania, not one of them was a gunsmith. Whisker, The Gunsmith's Trade, 88; Roy Chandler, et al., Arms Makers of Eastern Pennsylvania (Bedford, Pa., 1984).

94. H. R. McIlwaine, ed., Legislative Journals of the Council of Colonial Virginia, 1680-1774 (3 vols. Richmond, Va., 1918) 2: 695; Whisker, The Gunsmith's Trade, 68-73.

95. William W. Hening, ed., The Statutes at Large, Being a Collection of all the Laws of Virginia (13 vols. Richmond, Va., 1809-1823) 1: 208, 2: 85, 294, 3: 363; McIlwaine, ed., Executive Journals of the Council 1: 215. Other colonies also expropriated the labor of gunsmiths, often in similar wording. In 1661, for instance, the Maryland council ordered "That all Smiths which have tooles be forced to fixe armes for the Soldiers." Four years later Connecticut's assembly proclaimed that no smith could do any other work until all the militia's arms were properly repaired. Browne, et al., eds., Archives of Maryland 3: 531, 4: 46, 19: 586; J. Hammond Trumbull, et al., eds., The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut (15 vols., Hartford, Conn., 1850-1890) 2: 19-20.

96. Gill, The Gunsmith in Colonial Virginia, 17-18, 33-44. Though many different artisans were involved in gun repair and maintenance, it is unclear how often they conducted such work. For instance, Jonathan Haight, a rural New York blacksmith, kept an account book between 1771 and 1789. His 5,200 transactions involving 350 customers included only one minor gun repair. Jonathan Haight account book, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass.

97. McIlwaine, ed., Executive Journals of the Council 1: 215; The Council to the Board of Trade, CO 5/1309: 223-24, CO 5/1358: 29-33, 41-45, PRO. See also CO 323/4, PRO.

98. Gill, The Gunsmith in Colonial Virginia , 21-31. There are a few instances of gunsmiths coming to America as indentured servants and finding themselves with little opportunity to use their skills, eventually turning to other lines of employment. See for instance John Austin and John Spencer of Maryland and Henry Hawkins of Pennsylvania; American Weekly Mercury November 28 1728; Maryland Gazette July 31, 1755; Whisker, The Gunsmith's Trade, 96.

99. One critic explained the paucity of firearms in probate inventories by stating that "it is well known that the inventory of a estate is what is left after family members pick over the items." Maybe that is the way people behave in his family, but it was and remains highly illegal to ransack an estate before a court-appointed executor can conduct an inventory. Anyone who works with the probate court records from this early, perhaps more honest, period, knows that exact reference was made to every item, no matter how trivial, that had been passed on to a friend or family member before the death of the testator. The courts are packed with suits between family members arguing over who gets the sheets, plow, and family Bible. Mike Brown, "Constitution Framers backed the right to bear arms," St. Louis Post-Dispatch December 5, 1998.

100. This data is drawn from Horatio Rogers, et al., eds., The Early Records of the Town of Providence (21 vols. Providence, R.I., 1892-1915), vols. 6, 7, and 16.

101. Douglas E. Leach, Arms for Empire: A Military History of the British Colonies in North America, 1607-1763 (New York, 1973) 12. Incredibly, Leach demonstrates this assertion with a fictional account of a militia muster (24-38).

Discuss this article in the Republic of Letters