Everything about The Committees Of Correspondence totally explained
The
committees of correspondence were body organized by the local governments of the
Thirteen Colonies during the
American Revolution for the purposes of coordinating written communication outside of the colony. These served an important role in the Revolution, disseminating the colonial interpretation of
British actions between the colonies and to foreign governments. The committees of correspondence rallied opposition on common causes and established plans for collective action, and so the group of committees was the beginning of what later became a formal political union among the colonies.
As news during this period was typically spread in hand-written letters to be carried by couriers on horseback or aboard ships, the committees were responsible for ensuring that this news accurately reflected the views of their parent governmental body on a particular issue and was dispatched to the proper groups. Many correspondents were also members of the colonial legislative assemblies, and were active in the secret
Sons of Liberty organizations.
History
The earliest committees of correspondence were formed temporarily to address a particular problem. Once a resolution was achieved, they were disbanded. The first formal committee was established in
Boston, in 1764, to rally opposition to the
Currency Act and unpopular reforms imposed on the customs service.
During the
Stamp Act Crisis the following year,
New York formed a committee to urge common resistance among its neighbors to the new taxes. The
Province of Massachusetts Bay correspondents responded by urging other colonies to send delegates to the
Stamp Act Congress that fall.
The
Gaspee Affair in June, 1772 prompted the colonies to form Committees of Correspondence.
Massachusetts
In Massachusetts, in November 1772,
Samuel Adams and
Joseph Warren formed a committee in response to the
Gaspee Affair and in relation to the recent British decision to have the salaries of the royal governor and judges be paid by the Crown rather than the colonial assembly, which removed the colony of its means of controlling public officials. In the following months, more than 100 other committees were formed in the towns and villages of Massachusetts. The Massachusetts committee had its headquarters in Boston and under the leadership of Adams became a model revolutionary organization. The meeting when establishing the committee gave it the task of stating "the rights of the colonists, and of this province in particular, as men, as Christians, and as subjects; to communicate and publish the same to the several towns in this province and to the world as the sense of this town".
Virginia
In March 1773,
Dabney Carr proposed the formation of a permanent Committee of Correspondence before the
Virginia House of Burgesses. Virginia's own committee was formed on
March 12,
1773 and consisted of
Peyton Randolph,
Robert Carter Nicholas,
Richard Bland,
Richard Henry Lee,
Benjamin Harrison,
Edmund Pendleton,
Patrick Henry,
Dudley Digges,
Dabney Carr,
Archibald Cary, and
Thomas Jefferson.
Other States
By July,
Rhode Island,
Connecticut,
New Hampshire, and
South Carolina had also formed committees.
Within a year all of the other colonies except for Pennsylvania had such committees.
They organized common resistance to the
Tea Act and even recruited physicians who wrote drinking tea would make Americans "weak, effeminate, and valetudinarian for life."
These permanent committees performed the important planning necessary for the
First Continental Congress, which convened in September 1774. The Second Congress created its own committee of correspondence to communicate the American interpretation of events to foreign nations.
On December 17, 1774
John Lamb and others in
New York City formed the
New York committee. This committee included
Isaac Sears,
Alexander McDougall, and others.
These committees were replaced during the revolution with
Provincial Congresses.
By 1780, committees of correspondence had been formed in
England and
Ireland.
Further Information
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