Rag Linen | Online Museum of Historic Newspapers

“Always brutal and everywhere fierce, King Philip’s War, as it came to be called, proved to be not only the most fatal war in all of American history but also one of the most merciless,” Jill Lepore wrote in her award-winning book The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity (1998).

The back cover summary of Lepore’s book reads: “In 1675 Algonquian Indians all over southern New England rose up against the Puritan colonists with whom they had lived peacefully for several decades. The result was the bloodiest war in American history, a terrifying conflict in which the Puritans found themselves fighting with a cruelty they had thought only the natives capable of.  By August 1676, when the severed head of the Wampanoag leader, King Philip, was displayed in Plymouth, thousands of Indians and English men, women, and children were dead. More than half of the new towns in New England had been wiped out, and the settlers’ sense of themselves as civilized people of God had been deeply shaken.”

One of the earliest printed accounts of King Philip’s War (that Lepore cited in several instances and even pictured in her book) appeared in the August 16 to 19, 1675 issue of the London Gazette.

As the lead report, spanning two-thirds of the London Gazette’s front page (the first time the Gazette had dedicated so much space to the American colonies, which alone underscored the severity and importance of the news), is a letter from Benjamin Batten, the son of Sir William Batten.

Benjamin Batten “happened to be in Boston when that fateful Indian uprising began, and my attention was drawn to him by a letter he wrote to Sir Thomas Allin, Comptroller of the Navy, relating in considerable detail the daily news of the trouble in Plymouth Colony down to the sixth of July, 1675.” (Benjamin Batten and the London Gazette by Douglas Leach, printed in the New England Quarterly 1963.)

The carnage is not diluted for the London Gazette readers:

• “In their journey they had seen lying the bodies of several English without heads, who had been murthered by the Indians…”
• “We had advice, that 16 English were killed in skirmishing and 7 Indians…”
• “And that 14 houses belonging to the English near Swansey, had been burnt…”
• “An Indian Spy had been executed at Plymouth…”
• “Having only seen ten Indians together, of whom they killed four; they found 6 English heads, and twice as many hands, being of those the Indians had murthered…”

Below is the famed issue of the London Gazette containing Batten’s letter about the first days of King Philip’s War. Click to enlarge.

On October 7, 1763, King George III issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which legally restricted any westward expansion of American colonies beyond the Appalachian Mountains. The goal was to prevent the cost of any further conflict with the native Americans since the French and Indian War had just ended (browse Rag Linen’s French and Indian War Collection, which includes the Definitive Treaty of Friendship and Peace ending the war) .  However, the Proclamation resulted in what some historians consider the first cause of the American Revolution.

According to the Origins of the American Revolution by John Chester Miller (1959):

“One of the chief reasons why Americans had rejoiced in the peace terms of 1763 was that the West seemed to have been thrown open to their expansion. The removal of the French menace had, it was believed, made possible at long last the settlement of the American West by British subjects… Since the Indians had taken to the warpath in 1763 partly because they fears they were about to be deprived of their lands by the advancing line of white settlement, the British government issued a proclamation which established a line of demarcation — roughly the summit of the Alleghenies — westward of which no British subject could purchase land or settle. Hastily drawn and designed only to meet a temporary emergency, the Proclamation of 1763 became the foundation of a permanent British policy toward the American West.”

To many colonists, particularly those on the frontier, who were often called the Piedmont, Mother England was being over protective of her American children. According to The Real History of the American Revolution: A New Look at the Past by Alan Axelrod, “after the Proclamation of 1763, [colonists] began to think of themselves as victims of tyranny.”

Below is the first report of the Proclamation of 1763 as published in the October 4 to 8, 1763 issue of the London Gazette.

In August, 1712, the first tax on newspapers was imposed, an attempt by English government to suppress the booming print media industry and eliminate small papers that were most vocal in opposition of the government — a less direct form of censorship. This uniquely untrimmed October 14, 1712 issue of the Spectator, published by Richard Steele and Joseph Addison, was among the first newspapers to feature the red tax stamp. Click photo to enlarge.

According to The Stamp-Collector’s Magazine, published in 1871:

“In the year 1712, Queen Anne sent a message to the House of Commons, complaining of the publication of seditious papers and factious rumours… On the 12th of February in that year, a committee of the whole House was appointed, to consider the best means for stopping the then existing abuse of the liberty of the press. The evil referred to had existence in the political pamphlets of the period. A tax upon the press was suggested as the best means of remedying the evil; and for the purpose of avoiding a storm of opposition, the impact was tacked on to a bill for taxing soaps, parchment, linens, silks, calicoes, etc. The result of the tax was the discontinuance of many of the favourite papers of the period, and the amalgamation of others into one publication… The stamp was red, and the design consisted of the rose, shamrock and thistle, surmounted with a crown. In the Spectator of June 10, 1712, Addison makes reference to this subject, and predicts great mortality among “our weekly historians.”

The history of events relating to European witch hunting can be traced back to the Medieval Inquisition and the Knights Templar. Yes, long before the Salem witch trials of colonial Massachusetts, witchcraft — and by consequence witch trials and witch burning — had spread across Europe (remember, the American colonists brought over both good and bad).

One of the most concentrated periods of witch hunting occurred in Scotland during the 17th century. According to The Journal of British Studies by Brian Levack:

“During 1661 and 1662 Scotland experienced one of the largest witch hunts in its history. Within the space of sixteen months no fewer than 660 persons were publicly accused of various acts of sorcery and disabolism… We do not know how many people were executed during the hunt, but the report of John Ray, the English naturalist, that 120 were believed to have been burned during his visit to Scotland suggests that the total number was substantial… At no other time in Scottish history, with the possible exception of 1597, were so many people accused of witchcraft within such a brief period of time.”

As evidence of the Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1661-1662, and the burnings, the May 16 to 23, 1661 issue of Mercurius Publicus reported:

“There were several Witches Men and Women burnt at Edinburgh the last week, and some of them, when they came to dye [sic], said Argyle was a Witch, and did often appear in the likeness of a Fox.”

I am not certain about the reference to “Argyle” in this issue of Mercurius Publicus and welcome any comments with explanation below. I can’t help but wonder if the reference was to Archibald Campbell, Marquess of Argyll, who was beheaded for high treason four days after this newsbook was published, on May 27, 1661.

Below are images from the May 16 to 23, 1661 Mercurius Publicus, which was co-edited by English journalism legends Henry Muddiman and John Berkenhead:

The French and Indian War in America was formally concluded with the signing of the Treaty of Paris on February 10, 1763.  As the May 1763 issue of Gentleman’s Magazine (printed in London) reports, “The Definitive Treaty of Friendship of Peace between his Britannick Majesty, the Most Christian King, and the King of Spain. Concluded at Paris, the 10th day of February 1763; to which the King of Portugal acceded on the same day.” Five days later, on February 15, 1763, the Treaty of Hubertusburg ended the Seven Years’ War in Europe.  The April issue of Gentleman’s Magazine printed an “Abstract of the Definitive Treaty of Peace between the Empress Queen and the King of Prussia.”

Gentleman’s Magazine – March and April 1763