Notes towards a Franco-American Mediterranean “From Below”

Rough Waters ◽  
2010 ◽  
pp. 63-76
Author(s):  
Nathan Perl-Rosenthal
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Cultural Exchange

This chapter explores the day-to-day lives and interactions of seamen and maritime crew within Franco-American shipping at the end of the eighteenth century. It analyses what it considers ‘culturally substantive’ relationships between crew-members, where friendship, language-exchange, and working knowledge of each other's’ maritime and naval systems developed between French and American seamen during the American Revolution and the Franco-American Alliance of 1778. These results come from the study of diplomatic and military records. It clarifies that maritime labour facilitated cultural exchange, and that to view this period as either Atlantic or Mediterranean is too narrow a specification for such an intermingled period of history.

Resisting Independence

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brad A. Jones
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
New York City ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Port Cities ◽  
British Atlantic ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
Daunting Task ◽  
Close Study ◽  
New Nation

This book maps the loyal British Atlantic's reaction to the American Revolution. Through close study of four important British Atlantic port cities — New York City; Kingston, Jamaica; Halifax, Nova Scotia; and Glasgow, Scotland — the book argues that the revolution helped trigger a new understanding of loyalty to the Crown and empire. The book reimagines loyalism as a shared transatlantic ideology, no less committed to ideas of liberty and freedom than the American cause and not limited to the inhabitants of the thirteen American colonies. The book reminds readers that the American Revolution was as much a story of loyalty as it was of rebellion. Loyal Britons faced a daunting task — to refute an American Patriot cause that sought to dismantle their nation's claim to a free and prosperous Protestant empire. For the inhabitants of these four cities, rejecting American independence thus required a rethinking of the beliefs and ideals that framed their loyalty to the Crown and previously drew together Britain's vast Atlantic empire. The book describes the formation and spread of this new transatlantic ideology of loyalism. Loyal subjects in North America and across the Atlantic viewed the American Revolution as a dangerous and violent social rebellion and emerged from twenty years of conflict more devoted to a balanced, representative British monarchy and, crucially, more determined to defend their rights as British subjects. In the closing years of the eighteenth century, as their former countrymen struggled to build a new nation, these loyal Britons remained convinced of the strength and resilience of their nation and empire and their place within it.

“The Great Part of It Was Stolen”

2021 ◽  
pp. 9-31
Author(s):  
Gary L. Steward
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Great Part ◽  
Political Resistance ◽  
John Adams ◽  
Made In

This chapter analyzes the justification of political resistance provided to the founding generation by Boston Congregationalist minister Jonathan Mayhew. Mayhew’s arguments made in 1750 influenced John Adams and a number who were active participants in the American Revolution. The source and context of Mayhew’s arguments is considered, first in light of eighteenth-century discussions in Britain, and then in light of the Protestant theological tradition. This chapter argues that Mayhew’s thought on the question of political resistance did not deviate from his inherited Protestant tradition. It is best understood as a renewed assertion of views found commonly within Reformed Protestantism, going back to at least the sixteenth century. Although Mayhew embraced unorthodox theology in other areas, he shared his views on political resistance with a number of more conservative clergymen who were united in their long-standing opposition to the claims of the Stuart absolutists.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Carlton F.W. Larson
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Central Issue ◽  
Declaration Of Independence ◽  
The Law

The Introduction opens with a vignette of James Wilson, prominent attorney and signer of the Declaration of Independence, fighting for his life against members of the Philadelphia militia in the “Fort Wilson” incident of 1779. It then turns to the primary themes of the book: treason and juries. Treason was a central issue of the American Revolution, shaping the early debates over the legality of British actions, the treatment of British adherents, and eventually the suppression of internal rebellions. Juries played a critical role in this process, and this book provides the most detailed analysis of eighteenth-century American jurors yet written. The book focuses on Pennsylvania, as this was the most critical jurisdiction for the law of treason.

The Making of a Radical: The Case of James Burgh

1979 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 90-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carla H. Hay
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Source Book ◽  
Important Place ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Radical Reform ◽  
Parish Church ◽  
Magnum Opus ◽  
William Robertson ◽  
George Iii

During the decade before the American Revolution, the dissenting schoolmaster, James Burgh, became one of England's foremost propagandists for radical reform. All of the recent works on English radicalism and the ideological origins of the American Revolution recognize the important place of Burgh's magnum opus, the Political Disquisitions, in these movements. Burgh himself, however, has remained a shadowy figure. The process whereby he became a radical has not been explored; important nuances of his political philosophy are unknown; the scope of his radical actions are insufficiently appreciated; and the extent of his influence has not been fully evaluated. In short, there exist some rather incredible gaps in our understanding of the author of a work uniformly agreed to be the “standard source book for reform propagandists in the 1780's,” and “perhaps the most important political treatise which appeared in England in the first half of the reign of George III.” More importantly, in rectifying this situation it becomes obvious that Burgh's career raises some important questions about the character and development of late eighteenth-century English radicalism and suggests the need to qualify or modify certain current perceptions of that movement.One of eleven children, Burgh was born in late 1714 in the rural Scottish community of Madderty, Perthshire. His father Andrew was minister of the parish Church of Scotland. His mother Margaret was an aunt of the famous Scottish historian William Robertson. Although almost nothing is known of James's youth, his writing indicates that his childhood was happy and the force of his parents' example was considerable.

Trade, Distribution, and Economic Growth in Colonial America

1972 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 128-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
James F. Shepherd ◽  
Gary M. Walton
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Colonial America ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Balance Of Payments ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Data Limitations ◽  
Trade Distribution ◽  
Long Term Trends

The purpose of this paper is to present some of the findings and contentions of our forthcoming study of shipping, distribution, and overseas trade in colonial America from the middle of the seventeenth century to the American Revolution, with emphasis upon the later years. In order to provide an explanation of the contribution of overseas trade to colonial growth, we begin the study by proposing a simple theoretical framework for viewing economic development in the colonies. Then, to provide some perspective for the study, we examine the long-term trends in output, population, and overseas trade (subject to fairly severe data limitations, which allow us to make only tentative statements about these long-term trends, and which largely limit us to the eighteenth century). Next we examine the costs of shipping and distributing commodities in overseas trade and show that these costs declined over the long run. The increased productivity in shipping is explicitly measured, and the sources of these advances analyzed. Finally, a balance-of-payments study is presented for 1768 through 1772, the only years in the colonial period for which we have statistics of all legal overseas trade.

Mitre Without Sceptre: An Eighteenth Century Ecclesiastical Revilution

1970 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-371
Author(s):  
Frederick V. Mills
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Parent Body ◽  
The State ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Religious Body ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Church

The American revolution caused the Anglican churches in America to separate from their parent body: the Church of England. This threw the Episcopalians upon their own resources to rebuild their church. In the process of reorganization, the former Anglicans accomplished an ecclesiastical revolution in respect to episcopacy. For the first time since the Norman Conquest in 1066, the Episcopalians in America made a bishop of a major religious body the elected official of a convention of clergy and laymen. In the second place, the office of bishop in a major denomination was completely separated from the state for the first time since Emperor Constantine officially recognized Christianity in 313 A.D.

Setting the Table

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn L. Ness
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
Spanish America ◽  
Global Network ◽  
Spanish Colonial ◽  
Ceramic Vessel ◽  
Spanish Florida ◽  
Spanish Atlantic ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
La Florida

Setting the Table: Ceramics, Dining, and Cultural Exchange in Andalucía and La Florida explores issues of cultural exchange and identity among eighteenth-century Spaniards and Spanish Americans via the archaeological remains and documentary evidence form Jerez de la Frontera, Spain, and St. Augustine, Florida. These lines of evidence indicate that there were substantial and similar changes to dining practices on both sides of the Atlantic almost simultaneously. As a result, this book takes the stance that early modern individuals from Spain and Spanish America were developing and expressing a distinct Spanish-Atlantic identity that was neither wholly Spanish nor wholly Spanish-American but rather combined new ideas and goods from an increasingly global network while also maintaining some Spanish traditions. Although archaeologists have researched Spanish colonial sites in Florida and the Caribbean for decades, only two projects have adopted a trans-Atlantic perspective, and this work is the first to use this approach with eighteenth-century sites. Additionally, it is the first book to conduct a detailed study of Spanish ceramic vessel forms and their possible uses and meanings for the users. As a result, this project sheds new light on the Spanish Atlantic and calls into question several existing interpretations of life in Spanish Florida as well as foodways in both St. Augustine and Spain.

John Bull and the American Revolution: The Transatlantic Afterlives of Arbuthnot's Character

2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-69
Author(s):  
Leah Orr
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
National Identity ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
British Government ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Press ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Eighteenth Century Britain ◽  
Newspaper Articles

AbstractHow did the character John Bull come to be so widely recognized as a stand-in for the British government or people? John Arbuthnot created the character in 1712 in a series of five pamphlets criticizing the British role in the War of the Spanish Succession, and for fifty years the character was mentioned only in references to Arbuthnot. In the late eighteenth century, John Bull began to appear in newspaper articles relating to other political contexts, eventually appearing in satires on all manner of British policies and characteristics, from taxes and the economy to xenophobia and imperialism. This essay argues that the American colonists adapted the character to their own purposes. This analysis contributes to the understanding of the content, political engagement, and spread of the press in eighteenth-century Britain and America. It also reveals one way that writers about British national identity and its symbolism accounted for an increasingly diverse global empire that could not be represented adequately by a single figurehead.

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