[blind-chess] US Chess History Article #6
- From: Roderick Macdonald <rmacd@xxxxxxxx>
- To: Blind Chess Mailing List <blind-chess@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2010 20:13:35 -1000 (HST)
US Chess History Article 6
EARLY CHESS IN THE UNITED STATES
by Robert John McCrary
The American Indians had many games. Some of those were board games
without dice, in which men were captured; in some of those Indian games
there were two types of men which moved differently. It is impossible to
be sure whether any of those games preceded the coming of European
contacts, as some of them had similar elements but different overall forms
from known European games. Some of the games may have been older native
forms that were subsequently modified as a result of exposure to European
games. However, the great chess historian, H.J.R. Murray, speculated that
some of those American Indian board games may have been of considerable
antiquity.
Chess came with the earliest Spanish settlers. There is evidence of chess
being taught to the Indians by Spanish settlers in the early 15th century.
That fact is not surprising, since the Spanish of that period were the
most active chess players in Europe. What is surprising, however, is that
there are apparently no references to chess within the current boundaries
of the United States before the 18th century; all prior references are for
areas outside the current US.
The most likely place for the first chess game within the current U would
be St. Augustine, Florida (settled in 1565.) The founder of St. Augustine,
Pedro Menendez, was a favorite of Philip II of Spain, who in turn was a
patron of Ruy Lopez, the famous chess-playing priest. It is certainly
possible that Menendez may have met Ruy Lopez at the court of Philip. In
spite of all that, no evidence of chess anywhere in St. Augustine has been
found before the 18th century. This author went through old St. Augustine
records in 1997 to no avail.
For that matter, no other references to chess in the future US have been
found, to this author's knowledge, before 1733. The early pilgrims left no
evidence of chess, although one of their legal documents listed a number
of other games. If any of the Spanish-occupied areas of the future US left
evidence of chess in either literature or archaeology, this author is not
aware of such. The only clue to that question is found in Benjamin
Franklin's essay, " The Morals of Chess," which contains this cryptic
reference: " The Spaniards have already spread it [chess] over their part
of America, and it begins lately to make its appearance in these northern
states." It is unclear what part of America Franklin meant, or what
"northern states" he was referring to. In any event, that essay was
published in 1786, rather late to tell us much about earlier history.
The documented history of American chess begins in 1733, when there
suddenly appeared three known US chess players. Two of those were Benjamin
Franklin and his chess-playing "acquaintance," an unnamed fellow student
of the Italian language. According to Franklin, he and his friend had an
agreement whereby the loser of each chess game they played had to memorize
Italian passages as a penalty. Franklin observed: " As we played pretty
equally, we thus beat each other into that language."
The other player from that year was Rev. Lewis Rau of New York City, a
Huguenot minister. In 1733 Rev. Rau prepared a manuscript about chess,
which was in response to a British political article that had used chess
references. Rau's manuscript was apparently not published, but it was seen
and described by the famous historian Daniel Willard Fiske in 1859 in his
The Book of the First American Chess Congress.
The question of when Benjamin Franklin learned chess is an open one. At
about age 20, he briefly speculated on the qualities required in the game
of draughts. He opined that the draughts-player should not worry too much
about the consequence of the outcome, and that a player who lacked courage
would play too defensively. The fact that he made no mention of chess in
that early writing suggests, but does not prove, that he had not yet
learned chess.
In 1786, Franklin issued the first published chess writing in the US, an
essay called " The Morals of Chess." Franklin argued in that essay that
chess strengthens good habits useful in daily life. That argument was
typical of Franklin, as he had argued in other writings that the secret of
virtue was little more than the creation and maintenance of good habits.
Furthermore, there is an apparent connection between Franklin's essay on
chess and his love of draughts. That connection was unnoticed before this
author stumbled upon it while reading a book by William Payne, published
in 1756, on the game of draughts. That book had commented that draughts
strengthens caution, foresight, and circumspection. Franklin in his 1786
essay attributed exactly those same qualities (using the same three words)
to chess. Since Franklin was a draughts enthusiast who probably would have
seen Payne's book on his 1757 visit to England, (par articularly as it was
virtually the only draughts book extant at the time) it seems highly
likely that he recalled those ideas and later applied them to chess.
In any event, it is clear from his writings that Franklin was interested
from his youth in the psychological and moral qualities needed by players
of both chess and draughts, and in the general human qualities that were
therefore strengthened by both games. His interest in those areas was an
example of his scientific mind, and his concern about theories of human
virtue.
The scarcity of chess players in the US was apparent in 1752, when
Franklin wrote to an English publisher to the effect that he no longer
needed a chess book. Franklin noted in that letter that " Honest David
Martin, Rector of our Academy, my principal antagonist at chess, is dead,
and the few remaining players here are very indifferent...". That
reference probably gives David Martin the distinction, after Franklin and
Rau, of being the third chess player in the US to have his name preserved
Chess progressed slowly in the US in the early 19th century. The first
chess book by an American author appeared in 1805 in Boston, some 19 years
after Franklin's essay had been published. Although the name of the author
of the 1805 book has not been definitely preserved, he made it clear he
was an American by his attempt to change the names of the pieces to names
that were " better adapted to our feelings as citizens of a free
republic." He then suggested the names " governor, general, colonel,
major, captain, and pioneer," as replacements for king, queen, rook,
bishop, knight, and pawn, respectively. He also suggested a new notation
in which the squares were numbered from 1 through 64. However, he then
kept the old system of writing out the moves in words without
abbreviations. Thus, a move might read " Third pioneer takes the general"
or " Fifth pioneer at 36." His ideas did not catch on.
Only a small number of chess books appeared from American presses before
the 1840's, and many of them were simply editions of English books.
Furthermore, most of the analysis contained in chess books of that era,
whether by American or English authors, was taken from Philidor's famous
works from the 18th century. It is clear that there were no American
"stars" in chess above the local level at that time.
In the late 1820's and early 1830's the "great chess automaton" toured
American cities, and in the process excited chess interest around the
country. It was one of history's most clever illusions, as it appeared to
be a large " mechanical brain" that could play chess skillfully. In fact,
a human player was so well concealed inside that his presence could not be
proven even though the inside of the "machine" was opened to public view
at the start of each exhibition.
A number of chess clubs appeared in major cities in the first decades of
the 1800's, and some local players achieved acclaim in some of those
places. Fortunately, The Book of the First American Chess Congress in 1859
included fairly detailed accounts of some of those early clubs.
In the 1840's, organized chess in the US left its prolonged infancy and
began to become a national game. Details of that formative decade are
included in another article in this publication.
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