In December 1769, Charity Clarke, a 22-year-old New Yorker, articulated early colonial discontent with British rule in a letter to her cousin in London, marking a notable moment in the lead-up to the American Revolution. Though she still identified as British at the time, Clarke expressed a clear desire for economic independence and self-sufficiency, signaling emerging colonial resistance long before the outbreak of armed conflict.

Writing from her family’s farm south of present-day Midtown Manhattan, Clarke urged women to participate in the homespun movement, encouraging them to produce domestic goods to reduce dependency on British imports. She envisioned mobilizing “a number of ladies armed with spinning wheels” to help put New Yorkers “beyond the reach of arbitrary power clothed with the work of our hands.” This call to action underlined the economic grievances tied to British taxes and tariffs imposed after the French and Indian War, which the colonists viewed as punitive.

Clarke’s letter came during a period of simmering tension in New York, just weeks before the Battle of Golden Hill in early 1770—a violent clash between British soldiers and local colonists often viewed by historians as the first skirmish of the Revolution, predating the Boston Massacre. Her writings provide a window into the perspectives of colonial women who were often sidelined in traditional Revolutionary narratives but played critical roles in political and economic resistance.

Despite her youthful age and relatively privileged background as the daughter of a British officer, Clarke’s willingness to advance revolutionary ideas was unusual. Historians note that her advocacy for female participation in the boycotts revealed a growing political consciousness among women, who began to see themselves as active agents in the public sphere. As Clarke herself acknowledged, political engagement was “out of my province,” yet she positioned herself metaphorically as “at the head of a fighting army of Amazons,” signaling a shift in women’s involvement in the movement.

At the time, many colonists, including Clarke and the Virginia House of Burgesses months earlier, still maintained a professed loyalty to the Crown while opposing parliamentary taxation. Clarke concluded her letter with an expression of familial love, signing as “sincere friend & affectionate cousin,” even as she noted some familial estrangement due to her views.

Her correspondence continued through the escalating conflict. By 1774, Clarke had embraced the colonial cause more firmly, questioning the British labeling of Americans as rebels and defending their insistence on their rights. In 1778, she married the Rev. Benjamin Moore, pastor of Trinity Church and future bishop of New York, who briefly served as president of King’s College (now Columbia University) during its Revolutionary War closure. The couple’s son, Clement Clarke Moore, later gained fame as the author of the quintessential American Christmas poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas.”

Clarke’s letters and activities reflect the broader participation of women in the American Revolution, illustrating how the late 1760s propelled many women into political discourse and action, reshaping their roles in both private and public life during a pivotal era of upheaval.