Making yellow fever American: The early American Republic, the British Empire and the geopolitics of disease in the Atlantic world

2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 447-471
Author(s):  
Katherine Arner
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Yellow Fever ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
Early American Republic ◽  
Early American

Passing as a Pastor: Clerical Imposture in the Colonial Atlantic World

2004 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Kidd
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
Early Republic ◽  
Religious Authority ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Early American Republic ◽  
Early American ◽  
True Value ◽  
Cultural Power

AbstractMany impostors in the eighteenth century tried to pass as pastors in North America's churches. This phenomenon showed how increasing engagement with the broader Atlantic world could carry ominous implications for colonial religious leaders, implications that would become manifest in the itinerancy of the evangelical revivals and, in the early republic, finally crush any hopes of centered American religious authority. Eighteenth-century episodes of clerical imposture help illuminate the increasing loss of cultural mastery faced by religious elites as a result of Atlantic anonymities, itinerant ministries, and democratic sensibilities. This article considers why so many in the eighteenth century attempted to pass as pastors, from British wanderers like the supposed brick-maker Samuel May to notorious criminals like Tom Bell or Stephen Burroughs. Understanding the conditions that led to these cases of clerical imposture leads to greater understanding of the nature of religious and cultural power in colonial North America and in the early American republic. The eighteenth century brought a crisis to America concerning the implications of cultural and demographic fluidity as elites worried more and more about assigning true value and uncovering conspiracy in a world newly dependent on appearances to establish authority. The increasing cosmopolitanism, immigration, and commerce helped make the colonial elites more wealthy and powerful, but they also now had to scramble to resist the potential for deception and imposture that the new engagements created. Such conditions made new room for con men, many of whom posed as pastors to access the power of religious authorities.

The Atlantic World

2019 ◽  
pp. 224-233
Author(s):  
David Sorkin
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Early American Republic ◽  
Early American ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
The North ◽  
British Colonies ◽  
The Church

This chapter assesses how the Atlantic world of Dutch and British colonies followed the west European pattern of emancipation. Jews were spread across numerous colonies. The thirteen British colonies were not preponderant: each of the communities of “Curaçao, Surinam and Jamaica had more Jews in the mid-eighteenth century than all of the North American colonies combined.” In the British colonies of Canada, Jamaica, and the thirteen colonies, Jews achieved civil rights largely without controversy or conflict. In contrast, Jews organized and campaigned for political rights. In the early American republic, Jews received rights state by state, in Canada colony by colony. In the United States and Canada, political rights were linked to disestablishment of the church and the enactment of religious equality. In Jamaica, it was entwined with race relations.

Dr. Pascalis and the Making of American Medicine

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry Rey
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Yellow Fever ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
The United States ◽  
George Washington ◽  
Early American ◽  
American Science ◽  
American Medicine ◽  
Benjamin Rush ◽  
The City

Arriving in Philadelphia in 1793 as a refugee, and carrying a letter of introduction to President George Washington, Abbé Ouvière soon remade himself in the United States—only not as a priest, but as a physician and scientist. The timing was opportune, as the population of his French compatriots in the city swelled in 1792 to nearly 10% of Philadelphians and with them came the yellow fever epidemic. Though no longer known as Abbé Ouvière, the priest plunged into the struggle against the epidemic, now as Dr. Pascalis, treating patients with American luminary Benjamin Rush and embarking on a long and storied career as a pioneering figure in early American science and medicine. This chapter details Pascalis’ life in America, from 1793 until his death in 1832, focusing attention on the windows that his biography open onto the contours and functions of religion, race, slavery, and science in the revolutionary Atlantic world.

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