The Talbot Resolves was a proclamation made by Talbot County citizens of the British

Province of Maryland The Province of Maryland was an Kingdom of England, English and later British colonization of the Americas, British colony in North America from 1634 until 1776, when the province was one of the Thirteen Colonies that joined in supporting the A ...

, on May 24, 1774. The

British Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and may also legislate for the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of ...

had decided to blockade

Boston Harbor Boston Harbor is a natural harbor and estuary of Massachusetts Bay, located adjacent to Boston, Massachusetts. It is home to the Port of Boston, a major shipping facility in the Northeastern United States. History 17th century Since its dis ...

as punishment for a protest against taxes on tea. The protest became known as the

Boston Tea Party The Boston Tea Party was a seminal American protest, political and Mercantilism, mercantile protest on December 16, 1773, during the American Revolution. Initiated by Sons of Liberty activists in Boston in Province of Massachusetts Bay, colo ...

. The Talbot Resolves was a statement of support for the city of

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

in the

Province of Massachusetts Bay The Province of Massachusetts Bay was a colony in New England which became one of the thirteen original states of the United States. It was chartered on October 7, 1691, by William III and Mary II, the joint monarchs of the kingdoms of Eng ...

. The author of the Talbot Resolves is unknown. Speculation has been made that the author is

Matthew Tilghman Matthew Tilghman (February 17, 1718 – May 4, 1790) was an American Planter class, planter, and Revolutionary leader from Maryland. He served as a delegate to the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1776, where he signed the 1774 Continental Asso ...

or a group of citizens that included Tilghman, Edward Lloyd IV, Nicholas Thomas, and Robert Goldsborough IV. All four were leading citizens of Talbot County, and they represented the county in a meeting of all of Maryland's counties held in June shortly after the reading of the Talbot Resolves. Within the next 14 months, statements or resolves were issued elsewhere in the colonies. The

First First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

and

Second Continental Congress The Second Continental Congress (1775–1781) was the meetings of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that united in support of the American Revolution and American Revolutionary War, Revolutionary War, which established American independence ...

es met, and the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

began. A

Declaration of Independence A declaration of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the territory of another state or failed state, or are breaka ...

was made on July 4, 1776, and a new independent government for the state of

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...

was formed.

Background

A charter for the

was issued to Lord Baltimore in 1632 by the king of England. The colony became part of a group of English (later British) colonies located along the east coast of

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

. During the 1760s after the

French and Indian War The French and Indian War, 1754 to 1763, was a colonial conflict in North America between Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and Kingdom of France, France, along with their respective Native Americans in the United States, Native American ...

, Great Britain began imposing taxes on its

North American North America is a continent in the Northern and Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea, and to the sou ...

colonies. From the British point of view, the colonies were being taxed to cover the cost of the British Army protecting them. Taxes related to the American Revenue Act 1764 and

Stamp Act 1765 The Stamp Act 1765, also known as the Duties in American Colonies Act 1765 (5 Geo. 3. c. 12), was an Act of Parliament (United Kingdom), act of the Parliament of Great Britain which imposed a direct tax on the British America, British coloni ...

caused discontent in the colonies. The major objection was that the taxes were being imposed on the colonists by politicians that did not represent colonists. A slogan often used by the colonists was " no taxation without representation".

Protests against taxes

A popular pamphlet written by Maryland lawyer Daniel Dulany in 1765 was called ''

Considerations on the Propriety of Imposing Taxes in the British Colonies ''Considerations on the Propriety of Imposing Taxes in the British Colonies'' was a pamphlet written by Daniel Dulany the Younger in opposition to the UK Stamp Act 1765 effectively imposing taxes on the colonies. In the pamphlet, published in An ...

''. Although this pamphlet complained mostly against the Stamp Act, it also noted that the restriction on the colonial export of tobacco to countries other than Great Britain was costing farmers money. Notable incidents of violence that occurred between 1765 and 1767 happened at Pokomoke, Maryland;

Dighton, Massachusetts Dighton is a New England town, town in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 8,101 at the 2020 census. The town is located on the western shore of the Taunton River in the southeastern part of the state. History Cross ...

;

, Massachusetts;

Newbury, Massachusetts Newbury is a town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, ...

; and

Charlestown, South Carolina Charleston is the List of municipalities in South Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint of South Carolina's coastline on Charleston Harbor, an inlet of the Atla ...

. These events typically happened between customs officers and locals. In Talbot County, Maryland, a group of unknown citizens released "Resolutions of the Freemen of Talbot County Maryland" on November 25, 1765—nearly a decade before the release of the Talbot Resolves. They assembled at the county court house, and declared loyalty to King

George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland, Ireland from 25 October 1760 until his death in 1820. The Acts of Union 1800 unified Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and ...

. They also declared that they should enjoy the same rights as British subjects. The remainder of their proclamation complained about the Stamp Act. They also declared that they would erect a gallows ("

gibbet Gibbeting is the use of a gallows-type structure from which the dead or dying bodies of criminals were hanged on public display to deter other existing or potential criminals. Occasionally, the gibbet () was also used as a method of public ex ...

") in front of the court house door with an effigy of a stamp informer hung in chains, which would remain until the Stamp Act was repealed. On March 18, 1766, Parliament repealed the Stamp Act, but it also passed the

Declaratory Act The American Colonies Act 1766 ( 6 Geo. 3. c. 12), commonly known as the Declaratory Act, was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain which accompanied the repeal of the Stamp Act 1765 and the amendment of the Sugar Act. Parliament repeale ...

—which reasserted that Parliament had authority and control in the American colonies.; In 1767, Parliament passed the

Townshend Acts The Townshend Acts () or Townshend Duties were a series of British acts of Parliament enacted in 1766 and 1767 introducing a series of taxes and regulations to enable administration of the British colonies in America. They are named after Char ...

which added different types of taxes which were used to fund colonial governors and judges. Among the new law's provisions was an import tax on items such as glass, paper, and tea—all of which had to be imported from Britain. The act reinvigorated dissent. In March 1770, British troops fired on an angry mob of colonists in what became known as the

Boston Massacre The Boston Massacre, known in Great Britain as the Incident on King Street, was a confrontation, on March 5, 1770, during the American Revolution in Boston in what was then the colonial-era Province of Massachusetts Bay. In the confrontati ...

. During the same month, many of the taxes from the Townshend Acts were repealed. An exception was the tax on tea.

Boston Tea Party

Effective May 10, 1773, the

Tea Act 1773 The Tea Act 1773 ( 13 Geo. 3. c. 44) was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain. The principal objective was to reduce the massive amount of tea held by the financially troubled British East India Company in its London warehouses and to he ...

went into effect. This act was designed to assist the financially troubled

British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

and enable tea to enter North America priced lower than the tea typically smuggled in to avoid taxes. Colonists recognized that by buying this lower-cost tea, and paying the import tax from the Townshend Acts, they would be setting a precedent of abiding by a type of tax they believed unfair. On December 16, 1773, a protest led mostly by the

Sons of Liberty The Sons of Liberty was a loosely organized, clandestine, sometimes violent, political organization active in the Thirteen American Colonies founded to advance the rights of the colonists and to fight taxation by the British government. It p ...

was conducted in

. Men dressed as Native Americans boarded a British East India Company ship in the harbor at night and destroyed its entire shipment of tea by throwing it into the water. The December 16 incident became known as the

, and it led to defiance in other colonies and similar protests. Over the next few weeks, tea from the British East India Company was rejected at ports in Charleston, New York, and Philadelphia. Later in the year, citizens of

Annapolis, Maryland Annapolis ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of Maryland. It is the county seat of Anne Arundel County and its only incorporated city. Situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east ...

, had their own tea party. On October 19, 1774, the owner of the Maryland cargo ship ''Peggy Stewart'' was forced to burn his ship, with its cargo of tea, at the port of Annapolis. British Parliament reacted to the Boston Tea Party by passing a group of punitive laws aimed at Massachusetts called the Coercive Acts. In the North America the Coercive Acts became known as the

Intolerable Acts The Intolerable Acts, sometimes referred to as the Insufferable Acts or Coercive Acts, were a series of five punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea Party. The laws aimed to punish Massachusetts colonists fo ...

. The first of this group of acts was the

Boston Port Act The Boston Port Act, also called the Trade Act 1774 ( 14 Geo. 3. c. 19), was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain which became law on March 31, 1774, and took effect on June 1, 1774. It was one of five measures (variously called the ''Into ...

, which closed Boston's port. British leadership hoped their punishment for Massachusetts would cause other colonies to tone down their resistance to authority. Instead, the acts caused the

Thirteen Colonies The Thirteen Colonies were the British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America which broke away from the British Crown in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), and joined to form the United States of America. The Thirteen C ...

to unite in defiance, leading to the

American Revolution The American Revolution (1765–1783) was a colonial rebellion and war of independence in which the Thirteen Colonies broke from British America, British rule to form the United States of America. The revolution culminated in the American ...

and the

The Resolves

The Talbot Resolves was a proclamation in support of the citizens of Boston. It was read by leading citizens of Talbot County at Talbot Court House on May 24, 1774. The statement was read in response to the British plan to close the

Port of Boston The Port of Boston (Automated Manifest System, AMS Seaport Code: 0401, UN/LOCODE: US BOS) is a major seaport located in Boston Harbor and adjacent to the Boston, Massachusetts, City of Boston. It is the largest port in Massachusetts and one of th ...

on June1 as punishment for the Boston Tea Party protest. Not all of the region's residents agreed with the proclamation. Residents of Maryland's Eastern Shore of the

Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula, including parts of the Ea ...

were a mixture of revolutionaries, loyalists, and neutralists. They typically "rejected outside influences" of all types, and some believed that a cause concerning Boston did not have to be a cause of Maryland.

John Thomas Scharf John Thomas Scharf (May 1, 1843 – February 28, 1898) was an American historian, author, journalist, antiquarian, politician, lawyer and Confederate States of America soldier and sailor. He is best known for his published historical works. ...

, a 19th-century historian and author of a history of Maryland, wrote that "...no county was more decided in its action than Talbot. Another author wrote that the May 24 meeting in Talbot County was "among the very earliest" of those type of "meetings held in Maryland". Statements similar to the Talbot Resolves were made elsewhere in the British North American colonies.

George Washington George Washington (, 1799) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. As commander of the Continental Army, Washington led Patriot (American Revoluti ...

and

George Mason George Mason (October 7, 1792) was an American planter, politician, Founding Father, and delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, where he was one of three delegates who refused to sign the Constitution. His wr ...

were involved with the

Fairfax Resolves The Fairfax Resolves were a set of resolutions adopted by a committee in Fairfax County in the Colony of Virginia on July 18, 1774, in the early stages of the American Revolution. Written at the behest of George Washington and others, they were ...

.; In Massachusetts, the

Suffolk Resolves The Suffolk Resolves was a declaration made on September 9, 1774, by the leaders of Suffolk County, Massachusetts. The declaration rejected the Massachusetts Government Act and resulted in a boycott of imported goods from Britain unless the In ...

were composed.

Creation of the Talbot Resolves

It is believed that in 1958 Baltimore writer Neil H. Swanson was the first to call the statement made at Talbot Court House the Talbot Resolves. The earliest record of the Talbot Resolves is at the bottom of page 3 in the September 2, 1774, edition of the ''Maryland Gazette''. The word "resolve" is nowhere to be found in the article. On the same newspaper page is another article that lists a statement made by the citizens of Chester Town, and it makes liberal use of the term "resolved". A summary paragraph of the Chester Town proclamation, in a paragraph above the Talbot Court House statement and below the Chester Town statement, says "The above resolves were entered into upon a discovery of a late importation of the dutiable tea...." No record is known to exist of the men at the meeting that produced the Talbot Resolves.

of Rich Neck Manor, a future member of the

First Continental Congress The First Continental Congress was a meeting of delegates of twelve of the Thirteen Colonies held from September 5 to October 26, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia at the beginning of the American Revolution. The meeting was organized b ...

, is the person said to have called the meeting on the courthouse lawn. On June 22, Tilghman, Edward Lloyd IV of Wye House, Nicholas Thomas of Anderton, and Robert Goldsborough IV of Myrtle Grove represented Talbot County's

committee of correspondence The committees of correspondence were a collection of American political organizations that sought to coordinate opposition to British Parliament and, later, support for American independence during the American Revolution. The brainchild of S ...

. They met in Annapolis with similar committees from other Maryland counties.; It is possible, some say probable, that Tilghman and/or the other three men elected as representatives wrote the document.

Aftermath

In June 1774, Tilghman, Lloyd, Thomas, and Goldsborough represented Talbot County in a convention of Providence of Maryland counties held in Annapolis. Tilghman was elected as chairman of the convention. A series of resolutions condemning recent acts of Parliament were made. Another resolution made was that a general congress of all of the colonies should meet in Philadelphia during September—"a firm union of sister colonies". Tilghman was among those selected to represent Maryland in Philadelphia, and this meeting became known as the First Continental Congress. The Philadelphia meeting of the First Continental Congress began on September 5, 1774, and it continued into October. A boycott of British goods was threatened, and statements explaining the position of the colonies were issued. The

met in Philadelphia on May 10, 1775. By this time, the American Revolutionary War had begun. On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress approved and signed "The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen States of America", which later became known in the United States as the

. Tilghman again was one of the representatives of Maryland in the Second Continental Congress, but was unable to sign the Declaration because he returned to Maryland to lead its government. In 1781 the Chesapeake Bay was patrolled by British warships, making it necessary for Maryland to split its government into territory west of the bay and territory east of the bay (Maryland's Eastern Shore). This temporary Eastern Shore government met in Easton, Maryland, and Tilghman became its president. He resigned from all government activities in 1783 after the end of the American Revolutionary War, and died May 5, 1790.; Edward Lloyd IV continued to be involved in Maryland politics until his death in 1796. He was also a delegate for the state of Maryland to the Congress of the United States for 1783 and 1784. Robert Goldsborough IV continued his involvement in Maryland politics, and he was a judge in Maryland General Court from 1784 to 1798. He died in 1798. Lawyer Nicholas Thomas represented Talbot County in Maryland's Lower House, and was house speaker from 1777 through 1778. He was involved with the Talbot County Militia during 1776, and a judge in General Court from 1778 to 1782. He died in 1784.

Notes

Footnotes

Citations

References

* * * * * * * *

External links

Talbot County history
– Talbot County, Maryland

- Maryland Manual Online {{American Revolution origins 1774 in the Thirteen Colonies Documents of the American Revolution Maryland in the American Revolution 1774 documents Talbot County, Maryland