Vineyarders active during the American Revolution have names sounding familiar to 21st-century ears: Mayhew, Daggett, Norton, Look, Smith, Cottle, Bassett, Athearn, and Manter. Some Islanders were sympathetic to the rebel cause, others were loyal to the Crown, and some were unpersuaded either way.
The same was true for all Americans: Many remained loyal to the Crown, and some were just uncertain. In 1776, America was a backwater land of merchants, farmers, artisans, and of course many owners of enslaved Black people (slavery was legal in Massachusetts until the 1780s). The colonies were hardly unified as a nation with an organized continental government, and there was no established military force. This was especially onerous given that Britain possessed the largest, most well-trained military force in the world. Each of the 13 colonies was a distinct entity with its own militia, ruled either by a royal or proprietary governor, and all were beholden to the British Crown and often jealous of their neighbors.
Rebels, Loyalists, and neutrals lived in the Island community. In his book “The History of Martha’s Vineyard,” Island historian Arthur Railton contends that “the issues that had brought [Sam] Adams and his rebels to the boiling point had never meant much to Vineyarders. They had never seen British redcoats marching through their villages demanding housing. Such ‘nuisances’ as duties and taxes didn’t bother mariners … It is no wonder that Vineyarders had little enthusiasm for the rebellion, isolated and vulnerable as they were.”
In this sense, Americans fought Americans in a civil war between Loyalists and rebels, even on Martha’s Vineyard.
The staunchest Island Loyalist was William Jernegan of Edgartown, a delegate to the Massachusetts General Court, the colonial (soon state) legislative assembly. To the consternation of those opposing British policy toward the colonies, he, along with Matthew Mayhew, another legislator, declined to join Samuel Adams in opposing some of the oppressive taxes that the British Parliament imposed on the Americans.
For mainland Americans, the war began well before the battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775. These incidents hardly affected those living on Martha’s Vineyard, because the fighting was relegated to the mainland. But the British had their reasons for levying a long series of taxes on the Americans, beginning with the Stamp Act of 1765. Britain had fought several wars against its historic rival, France, and needed money. The most recent conflict was the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), known in the colonies as the French and Indian War. Britain figured the Americans should pay for their protection from attacks by the French or the Indian tribes after the war ended.
But that argument did not assuage the colonists. They claimed they had no say in the passage of these taxes. This was known at the time by the famous phrase summarizing the rebellion, “No taxation without representation,” which Vineyard historian Thomas Dresser contends was coined by the Rev. Jonathan Mayhew. Born and raised in Chilmark, Mayhew preached at the Old West Church in Boston. In his biography of John Adams, however, Island historian David McCullough points to Adams as using the phrase in his 1765 “Braintree Instructions.” Others claim the phrase was often used in Ireland in the 17th century. At any rate, many Americans were incensed that they had no say in the passage of these measures, since no Americans were elected to the British Parliament.
According to Island historian and surgeon Charles Edward Banks, who published an iconic three-volume “History of Martha’s Vineyard, Dukes County” in 1911, the population in 1776 was only 2,881 residents (depending on who was counted at the time). By mid-1776, the Island had a military force of some 250 militiamen to protect the community from British incursions, and even to harass His Majesty’s warships passing along Vineyard Sound. But in 1777, most able-bodied men moved to the mainland to fill the quota required to round out the militia of the Massachusetts General Court. The Island was on its own for protection. According to Banks, “It would be no more than human nature for the people of the Vineyard to resent their abandonment by the authorities to the tender mercies of the enemy.”
Numerous rebel patriots lived on the Island. One story commemorated on a plaque on a flagpole outside the historic Samuel Mayhew Schoolhouse on Main Street in Vineyard Haven (at the time known as Holmes Hole) relates to the heroics of three young women. A captain of a British warship lost his mainsail in a storm off the coast of the Island. He demanded that the Vineyard supply him with a large tree for a new spar. One such tree had been transformed into a Liberty Pole, but three young women, Parnell Manter, Maria Allen, and Polly Daggett, decided that the captain would not have it. The night before the pole was to go to the ship, they poked a large hole in it, stuffed it with gunpowder, and blew it into pieces.
The Revolutionary struggle was a long, hard slog. But fighting took place mostly on the mainland. The Vineyard avoided much of the violence. Many Vineyard men fought off-Island in the Massachusetts regiments, and many engaged in privateering, seizing British ships, while others were involved in minor skirmishes on the Vineyard and the Elizabeth Islands. One notable skirmish occurred in September 1777 in a gunfight in Gay Head (now Aquinnah). The Islanders suffered one death when Sharper Michael, a Black man, was killed.
Perhaps the most monumental Vineyard incident, Grey’s Raid took place in 1778. A large British contingent of soldiers, some 6,000, were stationed at Newport, R.I., but they were short of provisions. The commanding officer, General Henry Clinton, sent General Charles Grey to the Holmes Hole harbor, “on a foraging party of great strength to relieve the situation,” as Banks puts it. The force consisted of over 4,000 men, convoys of a dozen ships of the line, and a score of transports. It was a devastating invasion for Island residents. The British demanded tons of provisions, including 10,000 sheep, 300 oxen, tons of hay to feed them, and food for the men to eat. What they did not seize, they destroyed. They also wanted everyone to submit their armaments and public funds, amounting to £7,923 sterling. Banks writes, “Although [the captain’s] mission was hardly of a warlike character, under the circumstances, it might have been accompanied by casualties, if resistance were offered.” British officers detained several Island leaders and imprisoned them on their frigates or in homes, especially after several of them declined to surrender their arms. If anyone refused to open their homes to allow redcoats to loot their cupboards and cabinets, they broke in and destroyed furniture, split doors into pieces, and rummaged through personal belongings.
The whole matter took four days, after which, finally, “the hostages were set at liberty.” Dresser adds that Grey’s men destroyed so many Vineyard vessels that privateering from the Island effectively ended. Before the redcoats sailed off, they spent a few days destroying more buildings, including a salt mill and several vessels. The final losses included 10,574 sheep and 315 cattle — but these provisions offered the British food for just four weeks. The raiders took no sheep from the Wampanoags, possibly because the British questioned whether tribal members were citizens. Meantime, General Grey originally promised to pay for anything his men took, but he never did. Island leaders led by Beriah Norton of Tisbury petitioned the British to reimburse them for their considerable losses, but the military commanders declined. After petitioning directly to the ministry in London, the Island was finally promised in 1782 an amount of £3,000 sterling — less than one-half of what was owed.
Soon, the war moved south, effectively ending in 1781 with Washington’s defeat of General Charles Cornwallis at the battle of Yorktown in Virginia. Underlying the suffering and cruelty of it all were American republican ideals: to establish a government of their own ruled by their citizens, as “citizens” were defined, which failed to include enslaved or free Blacks, women, and Native Americans. For those people left out despite the ideals, the Revolution was a deep disappointment.
The great 18th-century writer Dr. Samuel Johnson understood this hypocrisy. In 1775, in a nod toward orator James Otis’ statement “Taxation without representation is tyranny,” Johnson wrote in his book “Taxation No Tyranny,” “If slavery be thus fatally contagious, how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of Negroes?”
Abigail Adams, writing to her husband John while he was at the Second Continental Congress, made the argument for women’s rights, echoing the American demand for equal representation. In a March 31, 1776, letter, she wrote, “I desire you would remember the ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice, or representation.”
Americans today should applaud the willingness of so many to fight for ideals of justice and liberty while undergoing terrible costs, suffering, and sacrifice, even if it may take yet another 250 years to reach the goal.
This is true for Vineyarders as well as all Americans.