Representative To Congress
After arriving in Charleston in December 1773, Salvador at once entered into the American cause, and became close friends with the leaders of the Revolution in the South, including Pinckney, Rutledge, Drayton, Laurens, and Hammond. Salvador was elected to South Carolina's General Assembly within a year of arriving, the first Jew to hold that office in any of the English colonies in North America. He was just 27, and would hold the post until his death.
Although Jews legally could neither hold office nor vote, no one objected when Salvador was elected, along with his friend and fellow planter Richard Rapley, as the two frontier representatives from Ninety-Six to the provincial congress. He was chosen for important committee assignments: drawing up the declaration of the purpose of the congress to the people; obtaining ammunition; assessing the safety of the frontier, and working on the state constitution.
In 1774, Salvador was chosen to be a delegate to the revolutionary Provincial Congress of the colony, which first met in Charleston in January 1775. The group framed a bill of rights and composed an address to South Carolina's royal governor setting forth the colonists' complaints against the Crown. Salvador was appointed to a commission that tried to convince the Tories in the northern and western parts of the colony to join the American cause.
The second Provincial Congress assembled in November 1775. Salvador was one of the champions for Independence. He urged his fellow delegates to instruct the colony's delegation to the Continental Congress to cast their vote for independence. Salvador chaired the ways and means committee of this second Congress, at the same time serving on a select committee authorized to issue bills of credit as payment to members of the militia. He was also made part of a commission established to preserve the peace in the interior parts of South Carolina.
Read more about this topic: Francis Salvador
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