Mercy Otis Warren was an American activist poet, playwright, and pamphleteer during the American Revolution. During the years before the Revolution, she had published poems and plays that attacked royal authority in Massachusetts and urged colonists to resist British infringements on colonial rights and liberties. She was married to James Warren, who was likewise heavily active in the independence movement.

Major-General James Warren was an American merchant, politician and military officer who served as the speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1787 to 1788. An advocate of colonial resistance to British parliamentary acts in the American Revolution, Warren served as the Continental Army's Paymaster-General during the Revolutionary War before pursuing a political career.