Speaker Series: Generals Thomas Gage and George Washington

Conversations of Freedom for the 250th continues with a talk by Deborah Gage who will share the story of Generals Thomas Gage and George Washington focusing on their rubric on the eve of the American Revolution. Through Thomas Gage’s eyes, this lecture will cover colonial ties as they existed before the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, in which Britain recognised the United States as an independent nation.
Thomas married Margaret Kemble (1734-1824) in 1758; through her maternal grandparents, Samuel Bayard and Margaretta Van Cortland, she was related to some of the foremost families on the eastern seaboard: the Schuylers, deLanceys, van Rensselaers, Bayards and Livingstons. Thus, politically well-connected, Margaret and Thomas moved comfortably in both British imperial and colonial circles. Thomas’s last appointment was as Royal Governor of Massachusetts in 1774. Thomas’s destiny in America was the consequence of the English custom of primogeniture: an overlooked factor that put pressure on land availability in the colonies, which, in part, fueled the patriots’ armed rebellion.
Free, pre-registration required.