James Nelson Barker

Barker, James Nelson (1784–1858), playwright. The son of a prominent Philadelphia family (his father was later to be mayor), Barker's first produced play was Tears and Smiles (1807), which contrasted French society airs with American simplicity. His next play, The Embargo; or, What News? (1808), provoked riots at Philadelphia's Chestnut Street Theatre with its support of the Embargo Acts and pro‐administration bias. A play with music, The Indian Princess; or, La Belle Sauvage (1808), recounted the legend of Pocahontas with a happy ending. It was thus the first “Indian play” written by an American and produced. Billed as a melodrama, a sign of growing French influence in the American theatre, it was successfully mounted in several cities and became the first American play to be presented in London, where it was offered as Pocahontas. Barker's Marmion; or, The Battle of Flodden Field (1812) was initially presented as being by an English dramatist “in order to avoid the neglect usually accorded to native playwrights,” and his The Armourer's Escape; or, Three Years at Nootka Sound (1817) was based on the real‐life adventures of John Jewitt, who played himself at its premiere. Barker temporarily set aside playwriting when he was elected mayor of Philadelphia in 1819. However, he returned to the theatre in 1824 with his last and best play, Superstition; or, The Fanatic Father, an attack on Puritan excesses. Thereafter, Barker devoted himself to public service, becoming Collector of the Port from 1829 to 1838 and from then until his death Controller of the United States Treasury. Alexander Cowrie has written in Literary History of the United States, “Without being fanatically nationalistic, he staunchly did his part in building a native tradition in the drama.” Biography: James Nelson Barker, Paul H. Musser, 1929.