[Ads-l] 1780 Use of "Sam" to refer to the U.S. (precursor to "Uncle Sam"?)

[Bonnie Taylor-Blake]

That’s extraordinary, Dave. Thanks for sharing!

On Tue, Jul 16, 2024 at 2:37 PM dave at wilton.net <dave at wilton.net> wrote:

>
> I've found a 1780 use of the name "Sam" as an allegorical representation
> of the United States, or perhaps more accurately, to the colonial
> resistance to the British during the Revolution.
>
> It's in a poem published in a Tory newspaper. The poem is a humorous (or
> as humorous as a poem about battering a woman can be) allegory of the
> Revolution. It's quite long, but the lines that introduce Sam are:
>
> “Mary Cay.” Royal Gazette (New York), 22 January 1780, 3/3–4. Readex:
> America’s Historical Newspapers.
>
> "IV. For Molly counted full thirteen,
>  And bundled now with Sammy,
> Who said she ought to be a Queen,
>  And never mind her Mammy.
> V. So Sam an[d] Moll together plot,
>  To make a stout resistance,
> And from the school, in short, they got
>  Some truants for assistants.
> VI. Then mother call’d for Dick and Will
>  To teach the wench her duty,
> They drubb’d her now and then, but still
>  They coax’d her as a beauty."
>
> Thirteen-year-old (thirteen, get it?) Molly is the colonies. The mother is
> England. Dick and Will are Richard and William Howe, the commanders of
> British forces in North America. That leaves Sam as the rebellious element.
> Elsewhere in the poem is a reference to Bunker Hill and the dismissal of
> the Howe's, which had occurred two years earlier. Having read the entire
> poem, there's no doubt in my mind that most of the names in the poem where
> chosen for some reason, but "Sam" stands out as not having an obvious
> real-life counterpart (Sam Adams, maybe? That seems a stretch.)
>
> The earliest reference to "Uncle Sam" that I know of is from 1803, but
> could this "Sam" be a precursor? The initials U.S. would not have been in
> common use in 1780, so that would explain the absence of the "uncle." Are
> there 1780–1803 interdatings of "Sam" being used in this way? Or is this
> 1780 "Sam" just a name chosen at random, a one-off usage, and not related
> to the later "Uncle Sam"?
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org