(September 25, 1728 - October 19, 1814)
A Columbian Patriot was her pen name.
She was a playwright, a poet, a patriot and a historian, a political writer and a propagandist of the American Revolution.
In the 18th century topics such as politics and war were thought to be the province of men. Few men and fewer women had the education or training to write about these subjects, but Ms. Otis-Warren was an EXCEPTION!
Marriage to James Warren in 1754 produced five sons between 1757 and 1766. He admired her intellect and encouraged her to study and to write. She was also actively involved in lively political discussions, many of which took place at her home on the Eel River near Plymouth, Massachusetts. Her brother James Otis, Samuel Adams and John Adams were frequent visitors. In 1772 excerpts from The Adulateur, her first propaganda play, appeared anonymously in the radical newspaper, the Massachusetts Spy. It was revised as a five-act play in pamphlet form, Her purpose was to "strip the Vizard from the Crafty." The Crafty were the wealthy Tory oligarchs who represented the British king and opposed the elected assembly. Chief of these was Thomas Hutchinson, called Rapatio in the play. Opposed to the Tories were the Patriots, led by James Otis, called Brutus. She wanted to arouse the Patriots and unite them once again as they had been two years prior to the time of the Boston Massacre.
Other plays followed. The Defeat, although never published in pamphlet form, concerned Rapatio and the opposition by members of the Massachusetts Assembly. Mercy predicted victory for the Patriots.
THE BOSTON TEA PARTY December, 1773
This event prompted her to write "The Squabble of the Sea Nymphs" appearing on the front page of the Boston Gazette (March 21, 1774)
In June of that year another poem satirized women who refused to give up their imported luxuries.
THE GROUP, her most popular propaganda play, 1775
She attacked 16 councilors who were king appointed and who had refused to resign their commissions despite threats from the mob. Initially published as excerpts in the Boston Gazette and the Massachusetts Spy, the play (four scenes and an epilogue) appeared as a pamphlet. This play was the last of Mrs. Warren's satires in dramatic form, written for publication, not for production. However she did write a poem satirizing the nouveaux riches who began to imitate the social customs of the British and Tories. "O Tempora! O Mores!" appeared on the front page of the Boston Gazette (October 5, 1778).
USE OF FEMALE CHARACTERS
Poems, Dramatic and Miscellaneous was printed in Boston and dedicated to George Washington.
In addition to earlier poems, two long plays written in blank verse were The Ladies of Castile, based on Spanish history about a people's uprising against tyranny. For the first time she used female characters, and her heroine is the wife of one patriot and the sister of another. The Sack of Rome concerned the danger of luxury and pride.
She sent the play to John Adams, who was the American ambassador in London, to see if he could find a producer. Adams tried but tactfully wrote to her that "nothing American sells here."
HISTORY OF THE RISE, PROGRESS, AND TERMINATION OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION INTERSPERSED WITH BIOGRAPHICAL, POLITICAL, AND MORAL OBSERVATIONS. (1805-1806) Three Volumes.
President Thomas Jefferson ordered subscriptions for himself and his cabinet and noted "his anticipation of her truthful account of the last thirty years that will furnish a more instructive lesson to mankind than an equal period known in history".
FAMOUS QUOTES
"But truth is most likely to be exhibited by the general sense of contemporaries when the feelings of the heart can be expressed without suffering itself to be disguised by the prejudices of man." (Amen.)
She was one of the most democratic of the Revolutionary leaders, and her plays stress the dignity of the common man. She was one of the first writers to use the word "independence" and one of the first to write of a united nation that would some day achieve great things. She attempted for the first time in American drama to define "true" Americans as they differed from the Englishmen. She also thought that women were fully capable of participating in many activities that were in her time restricted to men. However she pioneered the belief that the drama and the theatre were to be a strong force for unifying the people of the new country.
Resource: Notable Women in American Theatre. 1989 Alice McDonnell Robinson
Wikipedia (Note further reading in both references).
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