New York City’s American Revolution

Sunday, September 14 th - 1:30 p.m.

“What is the Reason, that New York is still asleep or dead in Politicks and War?” John

Adams raged in late June 1776. Independence had not yet been declared, and the

famous Massachusetts scribe worried that New Yorkers had yet to fall in line. “Must it

always be So?...Have they no sense, no Feeling? No sentiment? No Passions?”

This lecture presentation will explore the decade or so before the Revolution in New

York, and the long years that followed, when the city served as military headquarters

for the British, home to the Loyalists, the first POWs, and thousands more who

suffered under the occupation. The causes, courses, and consequences of the war

will be discussed, including its impact on the elite and nonelite, male and

female, free and enslaved populations of New York to better understand why

the city, more than any other urban center in colonial America, was central to

the Revolution.

Blake McGready is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Graduate Center, CUNY, who

works have been published in historical journals. He works at The Gotham

Center for New York City History, and previously has worked for the National

Park Service.

Fee: $10; $8 seniors. Members free. Check is to be payable to the Friends of Rock Hall. Space limited. Reservations required.