A newspaper reprint of the May 23, 1779, broadside. (Note: The reprint says the broadside appeared “about the 28th of May,”; historians estimate it was May 23.) Source: Pennsylvania Newspaper Archive — Penn State University Libraries
Two years into the Revolutionary War, British forces captured Philadelphia. They occupied the city from September 1777 to June 1778, when they moved north to confront French forces that had recently allied with the Continental Army.
The British left in their wake a war-torn city deprived of adequate food, firewood, and other basic goods. This situation was worsened by the U.S. government’s overprinting of a new banknote, the Continental Dollar. Prices soared. Some in the Revolutionary militia — which was made up mostly of poor men forced to serve with minimal pay and supplies — said that rich merchants were using wartime shortages to charge more for goods.
On May 23, 1779, this broadside was plastered across Philadelphia. It spoke to the unjust costs of war shouldered by the poor, and warned the merchant class:
We have turned out against the enemy, and we will not be eaten up by monopolizers and forestallers.
Days later, militiamen threw more than 20 wealthy men in jail for overpricing and formed a committee to lower the cost of goods.
Read more in the lesson “Founding” Documents We Don’t Learn About.
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