What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
“A complete collection of what may be with propriety stiled, AMERICAN STATE PAPERS.”
As the imperial crisis intensified, colonizers looked to the past as they considered their present circumstances and the future. In the summer of 1774, an anonymous compiler issued a proposal for collecting and printing “AMERICAN STATE PAPERS” that documented the history of British North America. The compiler acknowledged that recent events in the colonies “attract[ed] attention” and promoted “many inquiries” among the curious with “little, or no connection with the British colonies in America” as well as others with “perhaps more interested motives.” Yet information about the history of the colonies, both the distant past and more recent events, was not readily accessible “by every person.” Even those with means to travel in search of documents that told “the story of [the] rise and progress” of the colonies would spend more time seeking them out than reading them. The compiler presented a published collection of “AMERICAN STATE PAPERS” as the solution, one that would make a “good American history” widely accessible while also “preserving from oblivion valuable materials” that otherwise might be lost, damaged, or destroyed.
The compiler envisioned a project that went back to “the grant from Henry 7th, to John Cabot, and his sons for making discoveries.” It would also include “every important public paper (such as royal grants, charters, acts of parliament, &c. &c.) relating to America.” Despite such an extensive scope, the compiler emphasized the recent past, the events that were part of the imperial crisis that colonizers currently experienced as Parliament sought to regulate trade and oversee governance much more than in the past. The compiler considered the “history of the STAMP-ACT, and other acts of the British parliament for raising a revenue among us by internal taxation;– Resolves of the American assemblies;– Votes of town meeting;– and such political pamphlets and other fugitive pieces” worthy of preservation and inclusion. A significant portion of this collection would be devoted to sources that told the story of the American Revolution; the compiler detailed a plan for constructing a narrative even before the war for independence began.
The proposal gave some details about the publication, indicating that it “may be comprised in five volumes octavo, and … the price of each volume, well bound and lettered, will not exceed one dollar and a half,” yet did more than call on readers to reserve copies by subscribing. The compiler sought “friendly assistance” in acquiring documents that belonged in the collection. To that end, he “begs that gentlemen who are possessed of proper materials for this purpose, will be kind enough to favour him with the use of them,” trusting that “they shall be carefully returned.” The compiler then gave a list of local agents who accepted documents and “safely forwarded” them in addition to accepting subscriptions. Printers, postmasters, and booksellers in fifteen towns in ten colonies participated in this endeavor, establishing a community of common interest across vasty distances. The list of local agents underscored a common cause that extended across the colonies, a political project that looked to history to inform arguments about the rights and liberties that the colonies had enjoyed and should continue to experience. The proposed collection of “AMERICAN STATE PAPERS” commodified the past, especially the decade of the imperial crisis. It was part of the commodification of the American Revolution that occurred before the first shots at Lexington and Concord.