 The Whiskey Rebellion took place in western Pennsylvania when farmers on what was then the American frontier objected to a federal tax on whiskey. At the time, liquor was a medium of exchange and a store of value, as corn distilled into whiskey could be shipped more economically to eastern markets and was more easily stored and traded than grain. Tax collectors were tarred and feathered—or worse. President George Washington ordered the federal militia to stop such acts, which he called treasonous. Some Rebellion leaders were taken to Philadelphia (then capital of the United States) and tried. Two were convicted but were pardoned by the President. The Whiskey Rebellion was the first test of government power to enforce laws enacted by Congress.
On March 22, 1794, Congress forbade the states to engage in the slave trade with foreign nations. Nevertheless, the law was widely ignored, and slavers, as they were called, continued to bring their ships from Africa to ports in the southern United States. In 1794, France declared that all slaves within its borders were free, the first country in the world to do so.
The Battle of Fallen Timbers, August 20, 1794, was won by the government ending attacks on American settlers by Indians in the Kentucky and Ohio districts. Indians had been encouraged by the British to attack white settlers.
Jay’s Treaty was signed on November 19, 1794, settling certain outstanding, unresolved disputes between the United States and Great Britain, but certain terms—including the provision that the British could search American vessels and take as prisoners any seamen of British citizenship—were met with disfavor in the United States. The Insurance Company of North America, chartered from Philadelphia, became the first United States firm to offer life insurance policies.
The Lancaster Road, financed by a $465,000 stock issue, opened to link Lancaster with Philadelphia and the Delaware River. The dirt thoroughfare, 62 miles in length, was a great success and paid dividends as high as 15% in some years. This set the tone for other toll road projects, including the Cumberland Road in 1811. In an era before canals and railroads, toll roads provided the main links between cities. Transportation was by horse and carriage. Few Americans traveled far from home. Eastern cities, mainly located on the Atlantic coast or on large inland tributaries, were connected by sailing ship routes which facilitated trade.
Peale’s Museum was opened in Philadelphia by portrait artist Charles Willson Peale in January 1794. For the sum of one dollar, a patron could gain admission for the year. The first to subscribe was President George Washington, who bought four tickets. Exhibits in this, the first notable popular museum in America, pertained to natural history, art, and science.
Bowdoin College was founded in Maine in 1794; it would go on to have such illustrious instructors as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Harriet Beecher Stowe and to be recognized as a premier institution of higher learning. John Trumbull, American artist, produced his heroic-sized painting, The Declaration of Independence, which would become famous (and which in 1976 would be used on the reverse of the $2 bill). The first section of Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason was published in Paris, and solidified public opinion about Paine into two starkly opposing camps: staunch supporters, and vehement opponents. 1794 was, after all, the beginning of the Reign of Terror in France.
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