![]() Unlike in Europe, where the privilege of fighting duels was restricted to aristocratic gentlemen, men from all backgrounds and stations fought duels in America. ![]() They were more popular in the South than the North, just one more factor that highlighted the differences between the two regions that became so pronounced in the years leading up to the Civil War. The first recorded duel in America took place in 1621 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and duels continued to be fought in the United States into the latter half of the 1800s. ![]() In a 1784 letter, Benjamin Franklin challenged the wisdom of dueling with a question: “How can such miserable Sinners as we are entertain so much Pride, as to conceit that every Offence against our imagined Honour merits Death?” In the United States, dueling embodied the right of an American man to freely defend himself.ĭueling, which had originated in medieval Europe, was one of the many customs that accompanied the first settlers to the American colonies.
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