James Nelson Barker
He rose to the rank of major in the Army during the War of 1812, wrote ten plays, and was mayor of Philadelphia.
[2] His education was limited, for though he attended local schools, he spent more time reading books than studying.
[3] However, Barker's father ensured that his son was educated in gentlemanly etiquette and the ability to defend himself with a sword or pistol.
(1808), was a drama about the Embargo Acts of December 22, 1807, and February 19, 1808, which forbade vessels to engage in foreign trade.
[15] Barker's plays show awareness of the problems with the government's attitude that it was the center of the new America's society.
Though originally written as a play, Barker decided to turn it into an operatic melodrama,[24] collaborating with the English[25] John Bray, who wrote the music.
[24] However, according to the American music scholar H. Wiley Hitchcock, the London production was "a bowdlerized version" of the original.
[29] In a letter of June 10, 1832, to William Dunlap, Barker said that the London production at Drury Lane "differs essentially from mine in the plan and arrangement".
[32] As Susan Scheckel wrote, "In bringing Pocahontas to the popular stage, James Nelson Barker enlisted the conventions of melodrama to produce a romanticized version of American history that resolved conflicts implicit in past acts of conquest and revolution and defined national identity in terms that reinforced a sense of moral and cultural integrity.
[40] It was initially purposefully attributed to the English dramatist Thomas Morton, out of fear of disregard for a play by an American.
Ticket sales remained constant,[43] and Marmion was one of the longest running dramas of Barker's career.
According to Allan Gates Halline in his introduction to Superstition in American Plays, "The appeal to reason and knowledge suggest that Barker was reflecting the rationalistic thought current shortly before and partly during the period in which he was writing.
The play's protagonist, Charles Fitzroy, and his mother, Isabella, are unfairly condemned by the town's Puritan leader, Reverend Ravensworth.
After the New England town defends itself from a Native American raid, Charles and Isabella are put on trial and are executed for supposed witchcraft.
[11] He was shot in both legs by Major Wade Hampton, father of the Confederate general, and he was incapacitated from active service for several years.
[1] He was appointed major[49] when he was made assistant adjutant general of the 4th Military District by President Madison on April 8, 1814.
As mayor, he was known for being fair, speaking out against slavery, raising funds for local charities and sending aid to Savannah after the city was hurt by a devastating fire.
According to historian Arthur Hobson Quinn, the plot revolves around "Puritan refugee Goff, issuing from his solitude to lead the villagers to victory against the Indians.
[54] His non-fiction works include A Sketch of Primitive Settlements on Delaware River (1827) and contributions to the columns of many Democratic journals during the Bank War and Panic, from 1832 to 1836 which were highly valued.
[55] Barker's literary work advocated native dramas[56] and emphasized a growing desire among American writers to claim the nation's early history.
[58] Quoted in the Philadelphia Democratic Press, Barker believed that theatre had a higher goal, "to keep alive the spirit of freedom; and to unite conflicting parties in a common love of liberty and devotedness to country".
