Mercy Otis Warren

Mercy Otis Warren (September 14, 1728 – October 19, 1814) was an American activist poet, playwright, and pamphleteer during the American Revolution. During the years before the Revolution, she had published poems and plays that attacked royal authority in Massachusetts and urged colonists to resist British infringements on colonial rights and liberties. Her husband, James Warren, was likewise heavily active in the independence movement.

During the debate over the United States Constitution in 1788, Warren issued a pamphlet, Observations on the new Constitution, and on the Federal and State Conventions, written under the pseudonym "A Columbian Patriot", that opposed ratification of the document and advocated the inclusion of a Bill of Rights. Observations was long thought to be the work of other writers, most notably Elbridge Gerry. It was not until one of her descendants, Charles Warren, found a reference to it in a 1787 letter to British historian Catharine Macaulay that Warren was accredited authorship. In 1790, Warren published a collection of poems and plays under her own name, an unusual occurrence for a woman at the time. In 1805, Warren published one of the earliest histories of the American Revolution, a three-volume History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution.

Early life

Warren was born on September 14, 1728, the third of 13 children and the first daughter of Colonel James Otis (1702–1778) and Mary (Allyne) Otis (1702–1774). The family lived in Barnstable, Massachusetts.