ABSTRACT
On July 19 of 1775, the province of Massachusetts made arrangements for a new official seal. The figure of a nearly nude Indian clutching a bow and arrow and crying out for aid, which had been in and out of use since the colony’s inception in 1629, was no longer the image the beleaguered colony wanted to present of itself. However, the royal coat of arms that had been in use in various forms with various English-appointed governors since the revocation of the charter in 1692 was not a proper reflection of the colony’s newly revolutionary and independent stance either. An appropriate, official, seal image was needed to signify the severance of any lingering ties with English rule and to set Massachusetts apart from the other colonies as the pacesetter of the patriotic movement. Massachusetts and all of the American colonies had suffered through the American Revenue (or Sugar) Act of 1764, the Stamp Act of 1765, and the Townshend Duties of 1767, which were imposed by Parliament as a means of covering the expenses of quartering English troops on American soil (rather than demobilizing them), after the French and Indian War. On their own, however, Massachusetts residents experienced the fallout from the Boston Massacre in 1770 and the Boston Tea Party in 1773, both of which placed the colony’s citizens in direct conflict with Parliamentary rule; Massachusetts was setting itself apart as the “example” of open rebellion in colonial America.
