Mercy Ottis Warren

Mercy Ottis Warren

Mercy Ottis Warren is an important women of America in a time when women were supposed to have no voice. She was a writer and political thinker, patriot propagandist, and historian. She published political work under her own name. One of her quotes was “The bulk of mankind have indeed, in all countries in their turn, been made the prey of ambition”. What I think she meant by the quote is that every country and nation has been great at a point then decreased. Ottis Warren is one of many females that eventually gave every female a voice in society and she also made a change in every other women’s minds.

Mercy Ottis was born in West Barnstable, Mass., on September 14, 1728. Her dad was Colonel James Otis and her mom was Mary Allyne Otis. Her father was a farmer and attorney, who served as a judge for the Barnstable County. She was the third child of thirteen and the first daughter. Mercy did not really have a formal education but she was tutored by her local reverend. The two most significant events that impacted Mercy Ottis Warren was the publish of; “The Defeat” and “The Blockheads”.”The Defeat” was a play strictly by Mercy Ottis Warren. This play was prompted by the incriminating Hutchinson Oliver letter that Benjamin Franklin has obtained the message to Boston that they are not to be made public. “The Blockheads” was another play by Ottis Warren.

The people who influenced Ottis Warren the most were her family, later The Boston Tea Party inspired Warren’s first published political poem. Her dad was an Influence on her because, he was an outspoken man who led the movement against British rule and eventually later in the years it helped Mercy in her writings as well. When she got older her brother was the one to become her companion in literary pursuits, he ran the courageous rumor, “ Taxation without representations is tyranny.” Ottis Warren was one among many who opposed the United States constitution, In 1788 she wrote about her opposition in “Observations on the New Constitution”. It explained her opposition of to the document on account of a strong central government. How she came over the obstacles were she composed political poetry and, though she had most likely never seen a staged performance, she wrote dramas which satirized Massachusetts's royal government. Supported by her political family, Ottis voiced her political views through her Anti-British and Anti-Loyalist propaganda plays.

Mercy Otis Warren was America's first female playwright and first female historian of the American Revolution. Mercy became famous for her outspoken writings for liberty, social equality and fair government. Her three popular anti-Tory and Anti-British propaganda plays were anonymously written during the Revolution, she wrote on liberty, thrift and respect, for the people, As well as, her treatise pleading for a Bill of Rights enabled her eventual recognition as the conscience of the Revolution and her erudite literary style.

Among her many accomplishments are several plays, including the satiric “The Adulateur”, directing a play telling the War of a Revolution. She wrote “The Defeat” , also featuring the character based on Hutchinson, and in 1775 Ottis published “The Group” , a satire conjecturing what would happen if the British king abrogated the Massachusetts Charter of Rights. In 1788 she published the play Observations on the New Constitution, whose ratification she opposed as an Anti-Federalist. Observations on the New Constitution she expressed how the New Constitution set no limits on the power of