Re-Writing the American Revolution: Kathleen DuVal’s Independence Lost

August 27, 2015 By Christopher F. Minty in Book Review, Review / Q&A Tags: 18th Century, 19th Century, American Revolution, book review, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, Digital History, George Galphin, Gulf Coast, historiography, Indians, microhistory, Southern Confederacy, Spain, Spanish America, Treaty of Paris, War for American Independence 7 Comments

**Kathleen Duval, Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution (New York: Random House, 2015).**

When most people think about the American Revolution and its cast of characters, names like Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and George Washington spring to mind. On the British side, people might think of John André, Benedict Arnold, John Burgoyne, and, sometimes, Lord Dunmore. Though some of these people appear in Kathleen DuVal’s latest book, Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution, most of DuVal’s narrative centers around people who seldom feature in books or articles on the American Revolution. It is not the American Revolution that most people know. Indeed, “The American Revolution on the Gulf Coast,” DuVal writes, “is a story without minutemen, without founding fathers, without rebels. It reveals a different war with unexpected participants, forgotten outcomes, and surprising winners and losers.” Continue reading →

Guest Post: The Art of Absconding: Slave Fugitivity in the Early Republic

August 24, 2015 By Christopher F. Minty in Academia, Guest Posts, Research, Special Features Tags: 18th Century, 19th Century, academia, Confidence men, Digital History, Early Republic, Guest Posts, historiography, Politics, Print Culture, race, Slave runaway, Slavery 3 Comments

Guest Poster Shaun Wallace (@Shaun_Wallace_) is an Economic and Social Research Council-funded Ph.D. candidate at the University of Stirling. His dissertation examines how reading and writing influenced and aided slave decision-making in the early republic. Shaun holds a B.A. (Hons.) and a MRes. from the University of Stirling and is president of Historical Perspectives, a Glasgow-based historical society run by and for graduate students in the United Kingdom.

A “very ingenious artful fellow” appears a peculiar description of a runaway advertised for recapture. The advertisement, for Harry or Harry Johnstone, featured in Baltimore’s Federal Gazette newspaper, on May 2, 1800, at the request of Nicholas Reynolds, overseer of criminals for Baltimore County. Harry had absconded from Gotham gaol, near Baltimore. Reynolds described Harry as a “tolerable good blacksmith” and a “rough carpenter.” A “very talkative” slave, he was a man of “great address.” On first impression a relatively congenial description; in actuality, Reynolds’s use of the term “artful” condemned the runaway.[1]
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The American Revolution within the British Imagination

August 21, 2015 By Christopher F. Minty in Commentary, Lists, Recent Scholarship Tags: 18th Century, American Revolution, Atlantic World, British Empire, Comment, Commentary, Duke of Bedford, Earl of Halifax, Early Republic, Frederick Haldimand, George Clinton, Henry Clinton, historiography, Methodology, OpEd, Opinion, Peter Warren, Politics, William Pitt 9 Comments

Four months ago, I reviewed Andrew D. M. Beaumont’s Colonial America and the Earl of Halifax. A biography of an often overlooked figure, Beaumont makes a strong case for including Halifax in standard interpretations of the coming of the American Revolution. As Beaumont showed, to enrich our understanding of colonial British America, including the 1760s and early 1770s, we must appreciate the importance of high-ranking British officials. We also need to isolate and account for the behavior of the people underpinning and changing the constitutional relationship between Britain and its colonies in North America. Continue reading →

Historians Attend Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton: An American Musical

August 7, 2015 By Christopher F. Minty in Commentary, Opinion, Public History Tags: Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton, Angelica Schuyler, Anthony Ramos, Bill of Rights, Christopher Jackson, Daveed Diggs, Eliza Hamilton, Eliza Schuyler, Founding Fathers, George Washington, Great White Way, Groffsauce, Hamilton: An American Musical, Hercules Mulligan, History, How do you get tickets for Hamilton?, How to get tickets for Hamilton, James Madison, Jasmine Cephas Jones, John Laurens, Jonathan Groff, King George III, Leslie Odom Jr., Lin-Manuel Miranda, Maria Reynolds, Marquis de Lafayette, Musicals, New York Times, Okieriete Onaodowan, Peggy Schuyler, Philip Hamilton, Phillipa Soo, Renee Elise Goldsberry, Richard Rodgers Theater, Showbiz, The Public Theater, Thomas Jefferson 13 Comments

This post was written by Christopher Minty and Nora Slonimsky, who, many moons ago, woke up early on a Sunday morning to purchase tickets to the opening-night preview performance of Hamilton: An American Musical, which took place on July 13, 2015, at the Richard Rodgers Theater in New York City. This post was originally posted on July 19, 2015. It was removed as a courtesy to the show’s creative and promotional teams. It has been reposted with significant alterations and additions.

hamilton_FB Hip-hop is on Broadway, not just in a popular YouTube video. On Monday, July 13, 2015, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit off-Broadway musical, HAMILTON, made its debut on the big stage. On August 6, 2015, rebranded as Hamilton: An American Musical, a much-applauded, diverse cast returned to perform in the official opening of a much larger, hopefully long-running production at the Richard Rodgers Theater.

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Seriously, though, was the American Revolution a Civil War?

June 29, 2015 By Christopher F. Minty in Academia, Commentary, Opinion Tags: Alan Taylor, Allegiance, American Revolution, British Empire, Citizenship, Civil War, Coercion, colonial history, Constitutional history, David Armitage, King George III, Loyalty, microhistories, New York, Politics, Rebecca Brannon, South Carolina, sovereignty 38 Comments

On February 18, 2014, Tom Cutterham asked, “Was the American Revolution a Civil War?” According to Cutterham, understanding the Revolution that way might be useful. If we did, he suggested, “we’d better understand the way the modern world—the nexus of state, citizen, and property—was born in and determined by violence.”[1] Continue reading →

Review: Jessica Choppin Roney, Governed by a Spirit of Opposition

June 25, 2015 By Christopher F. Minty in Book Review, Review / Q&A Tags: academia, American history, American Philosophical Society, American Revolution, book review, Carl Becker, Eric Foner, History, Jessica Roney, Johns Hopkins, Mobilization, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, political culture, Political history, Politics, Richard Ryerson, The Junto, voluntary associations 2 Comments

Jessica Choppin Roney, Governed by a Spirit of Opposition: The Origins of American Political Practice in Colonial Philadelphia (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014).

Capture In recent years, early American political history has received considerable attention. A range of historians have enriched our understanding of how Americans participated in and contributed to politics in the early republic.[1] Popular politics during the colonial period has received less attention.[2] But in Governed by a Spirit of Opposition, part of Studies in Early American Economy and Society from the Library Company of Philadelphia, Jessica Choppin Roney focuses on politics in Philadelphia prior to the American Revolution. In so doing, she makes an important contribution to the field of early American history. Continue reading →

The Importance of Partisanship in New York City, ca. 1769–1775

June 5, 2015 By Christopher F. Minty in From the Archives, Research Tags: Alexander McDougall, American Revolution, historiography, John Wilkes, Liberty Boys, Loyalists, Middle Colonies, New York City, New York history, Partisanship, patriots, Politics, Print Culture, Republicanism, Sons of Liberty, voluntary associations 7 Comments

On April 25, 1775, hundreds of New Yorkers acknowledged receiving “a Good firelock, Bayonet, Cartouch Box, and Belt.” Six days after the Battles of Lexington and Concord, and three days after Israel (Isaac) Bissell told New Yorkers the news, Alexander McDougall mobilized support against the British. The War of American Independence had reached New York and, with hundreds of supporters, McDougall was ready to fight.[1] By April 1775, McDougall was a revered figure across colonial America, widely known as “the Wilkes of New York.” He was an individual who, like John Wilkes, was perceived as willing to fight for the liberties of the press, the people’s welfare, and against arbitrary rule.[2] McDougall’s popularity, by 1775, had been five years in the making. But, in 2015, historians are yet to fully appreciate the role he played in the coming of the Revolution. In this post, I want to reemphasize his influence in affecting New Yorkers’ allegiances. Continue reading →

Review: Andrew Beaumont, Colonial America & the Earl of Halifax, 1748-1761

April 21, 2015 By Christopher F. Minty in Book Review, Guest Posts Tags: American Revolution, Andrew Beaumont, Board of Trade and Plantations, book review, British Empire, colonial America, Guest Posts, imperial history, imperial reform, Political history, The Earl of Halifax 3 Comments

**Andrew D. M. Beaumont, Colonial America & the Earl of Halifax, 1748–1761. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.**

Andrew Beaumont has written a provoking biography of George Montagu Dunk, second earl of Halifax (1716–1771) that covers the crucial period between 1748 and 1761. This book offers a re-evaluation of how we understand colonial American politics and, by implication, it forces us to reconsider the origins of the American Revolution.It also reorients our understanding of British figures who wanted to centralize the Empire during the eighteenth century. For Beaumont, we should look less at the familiar cast of characters: George Grenville; the Earl of Bute; William Pitt, later Lord Chatham; and Lord North. There are others, of course. But, we are familiar with these men. We know their stories. We know their contributions. Beaumont does not argue that we should look away from these men. Rather, he argues that we should look at other “ambitious men” and how they affected the British Empire. In this book, Beaumont examines the “Father of the Colonies,” the Earl of Halifax. Continue reading →

Guest Post: [Enter Catchy Title Here]: Working towards a Book Title

February 5, 2015 By Christopher F. Minty in Commentary Tags: Alexander Hamilton, American Revolution, book titles, books, colonial New York, correspondence, friendship, King's College, Loyalists 1 Comment

Today’s guest poster, Christopher Minty, is a Bernard and Irene Schwartz Postdoctoral Fellow at the New-York Historical Society and Eugene Lang College at The New School for Liberal Arts. He received his PhD from the University of Stirling. His current book project examines the role of popular partisanship and its effects on New Yorkers’ allegiances on the eve of the American Revolution. He is also the author of two previous guest posts at The Junto, “The Problem of Loyalism before the American Revolution” and “Working on the Papers of Francis Bernard.”

Untitled I like eye-catching book titles. Who doesn’t, right? A good title should run of the tongue without too much fuss, while also championing the main argument(s) of the book. Recent books with titles that caught my eye include Benjamin Irvin’s Clothed in Robes of Sovereignty, Jessica Roney’s Governed by a Spirit of Opposition, and Albrecht Koschnik’s “Let a Common Interest Bind Us Together.” To be sure, there are others, and they are held together by a common thread: Despite looking at different periods with different objectives, each title offers a snapshot of what the reader can expect to find. Continue reading →

Guest Post: Working on The Papers of Francis Bernard

January 17, 2014 By Christopher F. Minty in Commentary, From the Archives, Guest Posts Tags: Archives, documentary editing, Founders Online, Francis Bernard, Guest Posts, scholarly editing 3 Comments

Christopher F. Minty (University of Stirling) recently completed his dissertation on the social and cultural origins of Loyalism in New York during the imperial crisis. He is the recipient of numerous fellowships, including the British Library, the Huntington Library, the David Library of the American Revolution, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, and Houghton Library at Harvard University. This is his second guest post for The Junto.

In early 2013, Michael D. Hattem offered some thoughts on his role as a Research Assistant on the Papers of Benjamin Franklin. Since then, a variety of other online databases have established themselves as essential go-to sources for students and scholars of colonial British America, the American Revolution and the early Republic. With the launch of Founders Online, it has complemented a stream of other online resources that have given us an unparalleled insight into the lives of George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James and Dolley Madison, the Adams family as well as documentary histories of the ratification of the Constitution and, well, “People of the Founding Era.” Continue reading →