Long before the first musket was fired at Lexington, Salem, Massachusetts was already at war. Not with bullets and bayonets, but with ledgers, harbor pilots, and the stubborn refusal of its merchant class to submit to imperial authority. Salem's story in the American Revolution is not the story of a single dramatic battle or a famous speech delivered from a balcony. It is something more complex and, in many ways, more consequential: the story of how a wealthy commercial port turned its economic infrastructure into a weapon of rebellion, became the de facto capital of a province in revolt, and launched the naval campaign that would bleed the British Empire at sea. To understand the Revolution fully, one must understand Salem — because Salem shows us what the Revolution looked like when driven not only by ideology but by the fierce independence of men who knew the Atlantic world and refused to let Parliament dictate its terms.
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KEY EVENTS
PLACES TO VISIT
STORIES
HISTORICAL VOICE
The Merchant Who Waged War at Sea
Elias Hasket Derby never went to sea himself. He was a counting-house man, a merchant who understood ledgers and markets and risk. But from his wharf on Salem harbor, he waged a private war against th...
MODERN VOICE
What the Ledgers Tell Us
People come to Salem expecting witches. They leave, sometimes, understanding privateers. The maritime collections here at the Peabody Essex Museum contain thousands of documents from Salem's Revoluti...