Background
In June and July 1774, as discontent seethed through the British colonies in North America, approximately forty jurisdictions represented in the Virginia House of Burgesses held meetings to appoint delegates to the Virginia Convention, and most of these localities adopted resolutions to instruct their representatives. The most well-known and influential of these documents was the Fairfax Resolves. Enmeshed in what became known as Dunmore’s War against the Shawnee and Mingo who had come in conflict with white Virginians seeking land in what became Kentucky, Virginia’s westernmost counties did not participate in this first wave of resolutions.
Following the conclusion of Dunmore’s War, the governor and his officers returned to Fort Gower, a crude stockade at the junction of the Hocking and Ohio rivers. They arrived on November 3 or 4 and learned, according to Daniel Morgan, one of the officers, that “hostilities were offered to our brethren, the people of Boston.” The officers also likely heard about the Continental Congress’s response, particularly its endorsement of the Suffolk Resolves, in which Boston and the other towns of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, called for a boycott of British goods and a refusal to pay taxes or abide by the Boston Port Act, which closed the city’s harbor in retaliation for the Boston Tea Party. According to Morgan, “We as an army immediately formed ourselves into a society, pledging our honors to assist the Bostonians, in case of a serious breach.”
The officers gathered at Fort Gower drafted a preamble and two resolves “for the Purpose of considering the Grievances of BRITISH AMERICA.” The preamble, usually attributed to Colonel Adam Stephen, Dunmore’s second-in-command, who was known to harbor revolutionary sentiments, asserted that at the moment of “this very alarming Crisis,” the officers stood ready to defend their country’s “just Rights and Privileges.” A clear assertion of military readiness followed: “we can live Weeks without Bread or Salt, . . . we can sleep in the open Air without any Covering but that of the Canopy of Heaven, and . . . our Men can march and shoot with any in the known World.”
The Fort Gower Resolves praised Dunmore’s leadership in the recent military campaign and, like many of the revolutionary resolves, declared allegiance to the king. But it also asserted, “we will exert every Power within us for the Defence of American Liberty, and for the Support of her just Rights and Privileges; not in any precipitate, riotous, or tumultuous Manner, but when regularly called forth by the unanimous Voice of our Countrymen.” Thus, the colonists affirmed that they would take up arms against Britain if necessary.
There are no signatories to the resolves, but men known to be present at the time include George Rogers Clark, Michael Cresap, Simon Girty, William Harrod, Simon Kenton, William Russell, and Ebenezer Zane, many of whom went on to participate in the Revolutionary War. The resolves were published in Williamsburg on December 22, 1774.
