THE SECRET WHITE ‘SLAVE’ REVOLT THAT SPARKED THE REAL AMERICAN REVOLUTION: PART 2 OF 2
The War for Independence from Great Britain was won with the Peace of Paris in 1783 but the American Revolution is an ongoing, perpetual struggle for social justice that will last as long as the Republic survives. That fight started in 1766, when farmers and native American allies rebelled against slave-like conditions on massive manors owned by a wealthy, privileged few in the Hudson Valley and laid siege to New York City to free captured comrades.
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Patriot militia opening fire on British regulars at the start of the American War for Independence, Battle Of Lexington, 19th April 1775, by William Barnes Wollen, 1910.
Siege of New York City
The farmer militia mustered in response to the arrest of their comrades and moved to break them out of the British brig. On their way, they marched on the manors of the Patroons in the Hudson Highlands and declared an end to Patroon rent. They beat and whipped a judge who had thrown tenant farmers in jail. They threw new farmers off land that had belonged to farmers ejected for failing to pay rent and put those farmers back on the land.
A force of at least 500 marched on New York City to free their captured comrades. They paused at King’s Bridge in the Bronx to send emissaries to explain their actions. British Gov. Sir Henry Moore graciously accepted the emissaries and invited them into Fort George to hear their grievances. Their quarrel was with the Patroons, not the Crown, the emissaries said. Gov. Moore agreed not to interfere in the dispute.
The prisoners, however, could not be returned. General Thomas Gage was determined to keep hold of them and defend his jail, Gov. Moore explained. To emphasize the point, the genial governor showed the emissaries what they were up against. He politely led them to a square inside the fort packed with a squad of his Britannic Majesty’s Grenadiers. Selected for their size and strength, the formidable-looking force was fully-armed and ready for battle.
Pendergast and the farmer militia retreated to the Hudson Valley. Before they returned to their farms, they freed a farmer imprisoned for not paying rent from the jail in Poughkeepsie.
The Sons of Liberty of New York City could have helped the farmers. Its "riots" against the Stamp Act lead to its repeal. Prendergast, in fact, thought of his militia as a Sons of Liberty militia and explicitly called it that in public. "We the Sons of Liberty" he said. He expected their support at King's Bridge. But the Sons were "great opposers to these Rioters as they are of the opinion no one is entitled to Riot but themselves," according to keen but very-interested observer British Captain John Montressor.
The Patroons and their allies in the colonial Government labeled Prendergast and his militia “Levellers”—long a British term of abuse for rural rebels who believed in direct democracy, a "level" playing field between rich and poor and spread their ideas through pamphlets and other popular appeals. The "Levellers" were a swelling menace, the Patroons told Gov. Moore. They were inspiring rent rebellions all across the entire colony. If the Levellers were not neutralized, they would grow so big even the Crown might not be able to crush them, the Patroons cried. They repeatedly petitioned Gov. Moore to deploy the military to defend the Patroon system. They called it “restoring order.”
Gov. Moore yielded to their demands. Warrants of arrest were issued by the New York Provincial Council for Prendergast and five of his top lieutenants. The council requested military assistance. General Gage tasked the 28th Regiment of Grenadiers, under the command of Major Browne in Albany, with hunting Prendergast down. They were ordered to do whatever was necessary to capture or kill the rebel Leveller leader.
Portrait of British Royal Governor, 1st Baronet, Sir. Henry Moore by Joshua Moore. Photo credit: courtesy of Frank T. Sabin via Wikipedia.
It was the first time British troops were authorized to employ military force against the colonists.
The Red Coats moved down the Hudson River by boat and landed in Poughkeepsie. Prendergast and a group of Leveller militiamen prepared to battle them to the death. They fortified the Meeting House at the top of Quaker Hill near Prendergast's farm and waited. Brandishing a short sword, Prendergast vowed to "make day Light Shew thro'" the Red Coats.
The Red Coats were closing in on the Leveller redoubt when, by chance and at dusk, 30 armed and mounted Leveller militiamen riding hard to join their comrades caught them by surprise. Seeing the Red Coats, the American militiamen rode into a corn field.
Then they jumped off their horses, turned around and opened fire. Their barrage killed two Red Coats, Carmer reports.
The Grenadiers charged into the corn, but found nothing. The Red Coats moved up Quaker Hill the next day, but the force surrendered-minus Prendergast.
Enter Mehitabel, American Heroine
Prendergast and his Quaker wife, Mehitabel, were in a nearby farmhouse when the Leveller militia shot up the British column from the cornfield. They heard the firefight, the volleys of musket fire, and knew what it foretold: the British were coming. Prendergast fled through the forest. He evaded capture, but eventually surrendered at the urging of Mehitabel.
We can only imagine what words Mehitabel spoke to her powerful guerrilla leader husband that convinced him to yield. It likely included reference to the many men who would die if he did not.
Bravely the two rode side-by-side on separate horses into Major Browne’s Red Coat camp and surrendered July 28. The British promptly marched Prendergast to a ship on the Hudson which sailed him to a Manhattan brig in Fort George. He was charged with treason and lesser crimes. The treason charge carried a sentence of death by draw-and-quartering-a punishment typically reserved for regicide and rebellious slaves.
Dutchess County Courthouse built 1717 right. Painted by Gerald Sargent Foster, 1937, Poughkeepsie Post Office. Courtesy of reformed Dutch church
The British orchestrated a 24-hour nonstop show trial for Prendergast in Poughkeepsie on Aug. 6. He wasn't allowed legal representation, so Mehitabel acted as her husband’s lawyer. She spellbound everyone with her confidence, competence, eloquence and apparent beauty. New York newspapers covered the sensational trial. Mehitalbel never failed "to make every remark that might tend to extenuate the offense and put his conduct in the most favorable point of view," the New York Gazette reported.
Prendergast wasn't a treasonous scoundrel bent on anarchy. He was a "sober, honest, and industrious Farmer much beloved by his neighbors." He reluctantly accepted leadership only because "he pitied poor people who were turned out of possession."
The 26-year-old, mother-of-three likely had at least one if not more of her children sitting on the bench behind her and her husband as she fought for his life and their future.
Mehitabel was so good the prosecutor tried to get her thrown out of court.
"Your Lordship, I move that this woman be removed least she too much influence the jury," Attorney General Kempe whined to the Honorable David Horsmanden, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Province of New York.
"I do not think she should speak at all and I fear her very looks may too much influence the jury," the prosecutor added.
Judge Horsmanden overruled Kempe's objection: “She does not disturb the court, nor does she speak unseasonably.”
The judge even mocked Kempe: he "might as well move that the Prisoner himself should be cover'd with a Veil, lest the Distress painted in his Countenance should too powerfully excite Compassion."
Mehitabel Wing acting as her husband rebel leader William Prendergast’s lawyer in his 1766 treason trial. From Hidden History of the Mid-Hudson Valley-from the Albany Post Road (History Press, 2011) by Carney and Tatiana Rhinevault.
The “seasonable” 26-year-old, mother-of-three may have been an attractive and effective advocate for her husband, but Mehitabel was not a magician. She could not undo what her husband had, in fact, done. It didn't help that the jury was the colony's landed gentry: Johns Watts, William Walton, Oliver De Lancey, Joseph Reade, William Smith, Whitehead Hicks, and John Morin Scott.
Two of them were related to Patroons the farmers revolted against.
The jury was unfairly rigged against Prendergast in favor of conviction. Its guilty verdict was no surprise. What was surprising was Chief Judge Horsmanden's reaction.
"Your verdict does not accord with the evidence in the opinion of the court. I must ask that you return to your deliberations," he demanded.
The jury again returned a guilty verdict with a recommendation for the King's mercy. This time, Judge Horsmanden accepted the jury's verdict. Still, he managed to surprise everyone again. He rejecting the jury’s recommendation for mercy and, shockingly, sentencing Prendergast to death by being be drawn-and-quartered on Sept. 26.
The prisoner be led back to the place whence he came, and from thence shall be drawn on a hurdle to the place for execution, and then shall be hanged by the neck, and then shall be cut down alive, and his entrails and privy members shall be cut from his body, and shall be burned in his sight, and his head shall be cut off, and his body shall be divided in four parts, and shall be disposed of at the king's pleasure.
"May God have mercy on my soul," Prendergast gasped. “No, no, no!” Mehitabel protested. Spectators in the gallery cried. Farmers outside the courthouse stirred. Some undoubtedly vowed blood revenge. Others plotted to free their condemned leader.
Mehitabel met with Judge Horsmanden in his chambers. He told her Gov. Moore was the only one who could help, but it was likely too late. Immediately, she rode 80 miles on horseback to Fort George at the very southern tip of Manhattan in New York City. It took her about 18 hours of nonstop riding. As Mehitabel rode into Manhattan, she passed Liberty Poles planted by the Sons of Liberty to celebrate the recent repeal of the Stamp Act—a harbinger of the War for Independence soon to come.
She rode down The Broad Way to the Battery. She changed out of her riding clothes and into a dress she carried with her, probably in a tavern, then she knocked on the gate at Fort George. She convinced guards to let her in and wake up Gov. Moore for a chat. It was the first time anyone at the fort had heard news of the outcome of her husband’s blockbuster trial.
Mehitabel convinced Gov. Moore to support her husband’s pardon and sign a stay of execution until the King’s pleasure was known.
Mehitabel herself composed the petition for her husband’s pardon to the King of England in her own words. Moore assured her that the King would receive her petition, and his own recommendation for mercy.
Then Mehitabel sped back to Poughkeepsie. There was one more thing she had to do. She had to stop the Leveller militia from breaking her husband out of the jail there by force. If he escaped, the Crown would take their farm and order its soldiers and sheriffs to shoot Prendergast on sight knowing a man already-sentenced to be drawn-and-quartered would never let themselves be captured alive.
Mehitabel was awake for at least four days, represented her husband in a marathon 24-hour trial, ridden at least 180 miles on horseback, to New York City and back, persuaded a colonial British governor to grant her husband a pardon sparring him from being drawn-and-quartered and, now, she held that pardon in her hand as she pushed through her husband's militia gathered in force outside the jail readying for action, Carmer reports.
Inside, she handed Gov. Moore's stay of execution to the sheriff then went to her husband's cell and fell into his outstretched arms-"extended through his cell's iron bars."
King George III pardoned Prendergast six months later, Oct. 11.
"His Majesty has been graciously pleased to grant him his pardon relying that this instance of his royal clemency will have a better effect in recalling these mistaken people to their duty then the most rigorous punishment," so said a letter dated Whitehall, England, Dec. 11, 1766 from the Earl of Shelbourne to Gov. Moore.
Prendergast was freed and returned home to his farm a hero.
The Quaker group that ran the Quaker Hill Meeting House that was the site of the Levellers' last stand three years later "became the first in the country to free slaves as an official action of the body" in 1769, the Albany Times Union reports.
Prendergast prospered as a lumberman and bought his farm in 1771. He sat out the War for Independence, honoring the mercy King George showed him. Prendergast and Mehitabel moved around America a bit before settling on Chautauqua Lake in Western New York. They died in peace surrounded by children and grandchildren. Their son James founded Jamestown.
Wappinger Sachem Daniel Nimham died a soldier's death fighting alongside Patriot militia during the third year of the War for Independence in 1778. Caught in a British ambush in the present-day Bronx, outnumbered more than 8-to-1, Nimham stood his ground and yelled that “he was old and would stand and die there.”
A mountain he visited regularly in Putnam County is named after him.
“Ninham’s Last Stand,” by Don Troiani.
The Perpetual American Revolution
Despite his Majesty's wish that his pardon of Prendergast would correct "these mistaken people to their duty" to the Crown, the War for Independence from Great Britain started 9 years later in 1775. The Peace of Paris was signed in 1783 but the fight Prendergast and Ninham started was never finished. Nor will it ever be.
"Poor men were always oppressed by the Rich,” Prendergast said.
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