This is a guest blog post by Bianca Scialabba, MA in History and Museum Studies at Tufts University. Bianca is a 2024 Buchanan Burnham Fellow.
During the colonial period, Newport prospered economically as an important regional trade center, acquiring large amounts of wealth by dealing in commodities such as rum and spermaceti and through its involvement in the transatlantic slave trade. This immense flow of money made some prominent Newport merchant families very rich, driving local demand for the fanciest things money could buy, including fine fabrics, delicate porcelain, and ornately crafted objects made of precious metals. Silver, long beloved for its beautiful luster, was highly valued among these luxury goods for the ease with which the soft metal could be crafted into a variety of practical yet attractive objects, including drinking vessels, snuffboxes, and eating utensils. This shiny material was more than just a pretty face, however. It existed in Newport as the result of colonial plunder, as a personal status symbol, and as a bulwark against a regularly unreliable currency system.
From Latin America to Rhode Island
Silver was fashioned into shape both locally and in Europe. Colonial silversmiths regularly sold their own wares alongside those imported from England, sometimes stamping the imported wares with their own maker’s marks, making it difficult to find the exact origin of a given piece.1 Smiths and buyers were more likely to import smaller, more portable objects like belt buckles and jewelry due to the expense of shipping heavier objects across the ocean.2 Newport itself had a thriving network of silversmiths in Easton’s Point, conveniently located near the harbor for proximity to imported wares and to mercantile customers.3 This was also an advantageous location because smiths could be in regular contact with the latest decorative trends from England.
Newspaper advertisement issued by Newport silversmith Isaac Anthony for the capture of an enslaved goldsmith named Newport, who had self-emancipated after being forced to work in Anthony’s workshop. The Boston Post-Boy, February 6, 1749.
Silver spoon bearing the maker’s mark of Isaac Anthony. Like many other colonial silver pieces, it was likely shaped by enslaved laborers who were not credited for their work. An enslaved man named Newport is known to have labored in Anthony’s workshop. 78.1.2, collection of the Newport Historical Society.
Smiths did not work alone and utilized the labor of their apprentices, who were learning metalworking skills in exchange for their service, as well as that of enslaved individuals. It is difficult to identify which pieces enslaved people contributed to, but census records confirm that several of Newport’s silversmiths enslaved people in their households. Newspaper advertisements paid for by Newport silversmiths for the recapture and sale of enslaved men noted to be skilled in goldsmithing (a term used interchangeably with silversmithing in the colonial era) also indicate that enslaved labor contributed to Newport silver and that the skills of enslaved laborers were in demand in the industry.4 One of the enslaved smiths named in the advertisements, a man named Newport, is known to have labored in the workshop of Isaac Anthony. Newport may be the actual creator of a number of the pieces that have Anthony’s maker’s mark on them, as Anthony would not have properly credited an enslaved craftsman.
Most of the silver that these colonial smiths used would have been melted down from other pieces or coins instead of directly from silver ingots. Colonists moving from Europe to the Americas frequently took their silver possessions with them, and upon arrival could either sell these pieces to be melted down or later have them remade into newer, more fashionable styles with the same raw material.5 The silver that was reused in these pieces would have, like most seventeenth and eighteenth century silver, originated from the Spanish colonies in Latin America. The Spanish crown used the forced labor of Indigenous people to extract massive amounts of silver ore from beneath the earth. The process of silver mining caused mass mercury poisoning in the laborers as well as people who lived near the mines as toxic fumes were released from mineshafts and from the amalgamation process that removed silver from the ore that it was found in.6
The origin of silver was well known outside of Latin America during the colonial period, though there was little outcry regarding the exploitative nature of its extraction. Publications such as the British journal Tatler had takes on the matter that were more whimsical than serious, including an article written as a first-person perspective narrative of the life of a silver coin that has the coin describe being “born” in Peru before being “taken out of my Indian habit, refined, naturalized, and put into the British mode”.7
Showing Off
Silver communion cup donated by Hannah Martin to the Seventh Day Baptist Church in 1750. Wealthy congregants often donated their personal silver to churches with their own names engraved as a public show of generosity and piety. 01.216, collection of the Newport Historical Society.
Colonists were far more concerned with what silver could provide for them: a status symbol. While early American colonists maintained strong cultural and economic ties to England, they lacked one major element of English society: a hereditary, landed aristocracy. Because of this, colonists without prestigious family pedigrees found other ways of imitating the trappings of wealth and power in order to assert their superior social status over other colonists. Purchasing silver—and displaying it in a conspicuous location where visitors might see it—was one of these strategies.
Social status in the colonies was primarily based on wealth. However, wealth itself, which could rise and fall dramatically, was a fickle way of maintaining rank in a society that emphasized stark differences between social classes.8 Therefore, wealthy colonists sought to acquire possessions that spoke to their gentility, fine manners, and fashionable taste in order to associate themselves with European aristocracy. This desire was reflected in widely circulated etiquette manuals of the time such as Henry Peacham’s The Compleat Gentleman, which compared gold and silver, the finest of metals, with the nobility, the most perfect of people.9 In imitation of English nobility, status-conscious American colonists sometimes adopted coats of arms for themselves that weren’t officially approved by the English College of Heralds. Savvy silversmiths took advantage of this trend and offered their customers books of heraldry from which they could pick any coat of arms to have engraved on their silver.10
Copper snuffbox with silver oval on lid. The inscription reads “Come Friend & Take A Pipe With Me, In Hopes That Times Will Better Be,” demonstrating the social role of tobacco usage. 01.273, collection of the Newport Historical Society.
Fabricated Clarke family coat of arms on a teapot produced by silversmith Paul Revere. 98.2.1, Newport Historical Society.
The richest of a colonial silversmith’s customers sought to buy the trendiest silver, while those who could not afford the most ornate silver purchased more simple pieces that would not become dated over time.11 Even the form that a silver piece took could be a sign of status, as having a dedicated sugar bowl or chocolate pot when these commodities were still expensive to import to the American colonies was an indication of the prosperity—and cutting-edge style— of the owner.12 This was by no means limited to vessels for food and drink, as silver snuffboxes and other small objects were a useful (and more affordable) way of signaling a sophisticated lifestyle in public. While tobacco was widely used among all classes in colonial America, snuff in particular was associated with the upper classes. Unlike smoking or chewing tobacco, one could not take a pinch of snuff and work with one’s hands at the same time.13 Snuffboxes were popular gifts and could be presented as love tokens. One visitor to Newport in 1744 recorded a meeting with Dr. John Bret, who liked to show visitors his “cabinet of curiosities” of gifts from young ladies, including such trinkets such as fans, pincushions, and, of course, snuffboxes.14
While best known for his political and militia activities in the lead up to the American Revolution, Paul Revere (1734-1818) was an established silversmith prior to the conflict and returned to the trade following the war. This teapot (left), made in the ornamental Rococo style, was passed down in the Clarke family, and includes a fabricated coat of arms for the family. Jeremy Clarke was one of the founders of Newport and had relatives in Boston, which is likely how he acquired this piece. It bears a striking similarity to the teapot featured in the famous John Singleton Copley portrait of Revere, as seen above. The portrait, completed in 1768, emphasizes Revere’s role as an artisan at work. 98.2.1, Newport Historical Society; 30.781, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Worth its Weight
1775 colonial Rhode Island bank note. Paper bills like this one were issued by each colony and were often counterfeited. 2010.21.3.5, collection of the Newport Historical Society.
Silver’s meaning to American colonists was not merely fanciful. It was also a useful safeguard against unstable economic circumstances. There was no one currency system used by the American colonies, which interchangeably used the Spanish silver dollar and other foreign currencies with paper bills that were issued by individual colonies. This system was undependable as the colonies regularly experienced shortages of coins and the exchange values between the various currencies were confusing and could fluctuate often. Counterfeiting rings flooded the economy with fake bills that, through their sheer numbers, depreciated the value of real paper bills. Counterfeiters also debased the value of silver coinage by clipping the edges off of legitimate coins and producing counterfeit coins with less silver content.15
Because of the danger that fake money posed to the economy, colonial governments considered counterfeiting a serious crime and imposed punishments such as high fines, time in the pillory, branding, and cropping (the cutting off of ears) on captured counterfeiters.16 In early 1742 in Newport, the Rhode Island and Massachusetts colonial governments arrested members of several counterfeiting rings that had been using the forged printing plates of a silversmith, Obadiah Mors, to make counterfeit bills.17 Silversmiths were invaluable resources to counterfeiters because of their metalworking expertise and tools. While some other captured members of the rings were able to pay the high fines imposed and avoid worse corporal punishment, Mors had no such funds and broke out of the Newport jail in an attempt to avoid it.18 After his recapture, he was sentenced to stand in the pillory in front of the Colony House and have his ears cropped or to pay a steep fine and all additional fees accrued due to his escape. Because of the expense of the increased fine, Mors likely received physical punishment.19
A proclamation issued by Rhode Island colonial governor Richard Ward for the recapture of counterfeiting silversmith Obadiah Mors, who had broken out of the Newport jail. Mors had been sentenced to ear cropping if he could not pay a steep fine. The Boston Evening-Post, May 31, 1742.
Because of the scarcity of coinage and risks involved in dealing with paper bills, colonists found other ways of keeping their savings safe. Colonists considered silver a sound financial investment because it retained its value over time, could be passed down through families, and could be sold or melted down if necessary.20 The importance of silver as a store of wealth can be seen in how household inventories did not record silver pieces as individual objects, but collectively by weight and total value.21 Savvy owners also realized that the same traits that made silver a good investment also made it a target for burglary and made sure to have their silver—down the smallest spoons—engraved with their own names or initials. In the event that their silver was stolen, an owner could place an advertisement in local newspapers describing the piece and any maker’s marks or engravings to ensure that prospective buyers would avoid purchasing stolen property.22
Silver tankard that once belonged to the Wanton and Gould families. This tankard bears inscriptions from generations of family members from 1736 to 1973, making it a well-loved family heirloom. 79.1.1, collection of the Newport Historical Society.
As modern banking and monetary systems emerged after the colonial period and made currency more reliable, the central importance of keeping silver as a financial investment declined, and this shining metal came to be appreciated more for its appealing looks and industrial applications than for the starring role that it once played in early American society. However, when we give it the close look that it deserves, silver’s mirrorlike surface can reflect the world that it was shaped in back at us today.
[1] Madeline Siefke Estill, “Colonial New England Silver Snuff, Tobacco, and Patch Boxes: Indices of Gentility,” in New England Silver & Silversmithing 1620–1815, ed. Jeannine Falino & Gerald W. R. Ward (Boston: The Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 2001), 44.
[2] Beth Carver Wees and Medill Higgins Harvey, Early American Silver in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2013), 9.
[3] Tax Records, June 1767. FIC.2022.101, collection of the Newport Historical Society; Census of the Inhabitants of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, 1774. C#00197, collection of the Rhode Island State Archives.
[4] The Boston Post-Boy, February 6, 1749; The Boston Evening-Post, May 7, 1753.
[5] Graham Hood, American Silver: A History of Style, 1650-1900, (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971), 12.
[6] The symptoms of mercury poisoning frequently exhibited near these silver mines included neurological damage, the loss of teeth, birth defects, and death. Regions around silver mines became depopulated as people either died or fled from the mines in large numbers. Nicholas A. Robins, Mercury, Mining, and Empire: The Human and Ecological Cost of Colonial Silver Mining in the Andes (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2011), 109-110.
[7] Joseph Addison, “No. 249 Saturday November 11, 1710” in The Tatler Vol. 2 (London: A. Middleton, J. Young, W. Brown, and J. Midwinter, 1777), 128.
[8] Richard Lyman Bushman, “The Complexity of Silver,” in New England Silver & Silversmithing 1620–1815, ed. Jeannine Falino & Gerald W. R. Ward (Boston: The Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 2001), 7-8.
[9] Henry Peacham, The Compleat Gentleman: Fashioning Him Absolute in the Most Necessary & Commendable Qualities Concerning Minde or Bodie That May Be Required in a Noble Gentleman, (London: Francis Constable, 1622), 1-2.
[10] Ian M. G. Quimby, “Silver,” American Art Journal 7, no. 1 (1975): 80.
[11] Frances Gruber Safford, “Colonial Silver: In the American Wing,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 41, no. 1 (1983): 37.
[12] Carver Wees and Higgins Harvey, 175.
[13] Estill, 46.
[14] Alexander Hamilton, Hamilton’s Itinerarium: Being a narrative of a journey from Annapolis, Maryland, through Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, from May to September, 1744 (St. Louis, MI: William K. Bixby, 1907, original 1744), 123. This Alexander Hamilton had no relation to the founding father.
[15] Bushman, 10-11.
[16] Kenneth Scott, Counterfeiting in Colonial America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1957), 123.
[17] The Boston Evening-Post, January 25, 1742.
[18] The Boston Evening-Post, May 31, 1742.
[19] Scott, 117-118.
20] Carver Wees and Higgins Harvey, 4.
[21] Safford, 9.
[22] Carver Wees and Higgins Harvey, 118.