Sarah Crabtree
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226255767
- eISBN:
- 9780226255934
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226255934.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Holy Nation reconstructs the transnational religious community forged by the Society of Friends during the Age of Revolution. It utilizes the public and private writings of 76 ministers (40 male and ...
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Holy Nation reconstructs the transnational religious community forged by the Society of Friends during the Age of Revolution. It utilizes the public and private writings of 76 ministers (40 male and 36 female) who crossed the Atlantic Ocean from 1750–1820 in order to reinforce religious ties across national borders. It argues that these Quakers envisioned themselves as the ancient Hebraic nation of Zion in order to articulate an identity not only separate from but in opposition to the nation-state during this critical period. This positionality, however, represented a triple threat to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century governments. First, Friends' primary political identity was invested not in the nation or the empire but rather in a loose, transatlantic alliance of Society members, undermining the idea of a cohesive citizenry. Second, Quakers were united in their opposition to the practices used by those in power to secure and exert their authority, challenging exclusionary definitions of citizenship. Finally, Friends' activism underscored the distance between the promise of democracy and the practices that violated it, highlighting the oppressive power of the state. In these three ways, the Friends' holy nation challenges the common supposition that religion and nationalism were mutually constitutive during this period, highlighting instead the role of religion in questioning the form and character of the nation-state. Holy Nation thus intervenes in religious and Atlantic World historiography, demonstrating how religious identity subverted the project of nation-building by offering concrete alternative definitions of nation and citizen at the turn of the nineteenth century.Less
Holy Nation reconstructs the transnational religious community forged by the Society of Friends during the Age of Revolution. It utilizes the public and private writings of 76 ministers (40 male and 36 female) who crossed the Atlantic Ocean from 1750–1820 in order to reinforce religious ties across national borders. It argues that these Quakers envisioned themselves as the ancient Hebraic nation of Zion in order to articulate an identity not only separate from but in opposition to the nation-state during this critical period. This positionality, however, represented a triple threat to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century governments. First, Friends' primary political identity was invested not in the nation or the empire but rather in a loose, transatlantic alliance of Society members, undermining the idea of a cohesive citizenry. Second, Quakers were united in their opposition to the practices used by those in power to secure and exert their authority, challenging exclusionary definitions of citizenship. Finally, Friends' activism underscored the distance between the promise of democracy and the practices that violated it, highlighting the oppressive power of the state. In these three ways, the Friends' holy nation challenges the common supposition that religion and nationalism were mutually constitutive during this period, highlighting instead the role of religion in questioning the form and character of the nation-state. Holy Nation thus intervenes in religious and Atlantic World historiography, demonstrating how religious identity subverted the project of nation-building by offering concrete alternative definitions of nation and citizen at the turn of the nineteenth century.
Nathaniel Millett
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780813044545
- eISBN:
- 9780813046426
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813044545.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter examines the status of and challenges to slavery in both the Atlantic World and in the young American Republic during the Age of Revolution. It considers the role that slaves played in ...
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This chapter examines the status of and challenges to slavery in both the Atlantic World and in the young American Republic during the Age of Revolution. It considers the role that slaves played in the wars of revolution and argues that the arming of slaves was a very different proposition during the War of 1812 than it was in the American Revolution. Much of the chapter is devoted to an analysis of Edward Nicolls's radical anti-slavery thought. Nicolls, the Royal Marine who was integral to the maroon community's founding, constructed an unusual anti-slavery ideology that emphasised black humanity and the potential for total equality. Nicolls also believed that slavery was an evil institution that could justifiably be attacked through violence. This anti-slavery ideology would be a key part of the maroon community's identity.Less
This chapter examines the status of and challenges to slavery in both the Atlantic World and in the young American Republic during the Age of Revolution. It considers the role that slaves played in the wars of revolution and argues that the arming of slaves was a very different proposition during the War of 1812 than it was in the American Revolution. Much of the chapter is devoted to an analysis of Edward Nicolls's radical anti-slavery thought. Nicolls, the Royal Marine who was integral to the maroon community's founding, constructed an unusual anti-slavery ideology that emphasised black humanity and the potential for total equality. Nicolls also believed that slavery was an evil institution that could justifiably be attacked through violence. This anti-slavery ideology would be a key part of the maroon community's identity.
J. E. Cookson
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198206583
- eISBN:
- 9780191677236
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198206583.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Military History
One most interesting aspect of the problem of order in Britain during the Age of Revolution is the enormous gap between the threat of revolution as ...
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One most interesting aspect of the problem of order in Britain during the Age of Revolution is the enormous gap between the threat of revolution as imagined by government and ruling groups and the innocuousness of physical force protest in the actual event. This chapter looks at the state's problem in a revolutionary age of control over the armed power it was forced to create. In England, the volunteers remained the most doubtful proposition, with the local militia providing an answer. In Ireland, a solution to the Irish militia was eventually found in the militia interchange of 1811 which from then on significantly Britannicized the Irish garrison. Since the early nineteenth-century the state continued to take the threat of revolution seriously, it is also important to consider the extent to which the Great War mobilization left a legacy of expanded police resources.Less
One most interesting aspect of the problem of order in Britain during the Age of Revolution is the enormous gap between the threat of revolution as imagined by government and ruling groups and the innocuousness of physical force protest in the actual event. This chapter looks at the state's problem in a revolutionary age of control over the armed power it was forced to create. In England, the volunteers remained the most doubtful proposition, with the local militia providing an answer. In Ireland, a solution to the Irish militia was eventually found in the militia interchange of 1811 which from then on significantly Britannicized the Irish garrison. Since the early nineteenth-century the state continued to take the threat of revolution seriously, it is also important to consider the extent to which the Great War mobilization left a legacy of expanded police resources.
Carroll Smith-Rosenberg
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781469631516
- eISBN:
- 9781469631776
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469631516.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
From the nation’s founding inclusion in and exclusion from the U.S. body politic has been racialized. Citizenship and whiteness have been defined in opposition to slavery and blackness, the free ...
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From the nation’s founding inclusion in and exclusion from the U.S. body politic has been racialized. Citizenship and whiteness have been defined in opposition to slavery and blackness, the free white man celebrated as the prototype of the liberty-loving American citizen. “The very structure of American citizenship is white,” political philosophers and historians repeatedly tell us. Yet U.S. democracy took form during one of the most radical periods of human history, the Age of Revolution when the political world appeared remade and the promise of freedom unlimited. Between the 1780s and the War of 1812, increasingly radical political movements crisscrossed the Atlantic challenging absolute monarchies, establishing post-colonial republics and questioning the legitimacy of human slavery. Born of such momentous times, how were U.S. citizenship and democracy constituted as powerful instruments of racial exclusion? How were the majority of US citizens and their political leaders able to reconcile their commitment to the equality of all men with the centuries-old practice of chattel slavery? This essay ponders that conundrum through an exploration of a rapidly growing literary genre, the Barbary captivity narratives, cheaply printed popular accounts of the seizure and enslavement of American sailors by Barbary “pirates.” Focusing on the period between the 1780s and the War of 1812, that epic time when revolutionary fervor — and most especially the Haitian Revolution — made the contradictory interplay of Atlantic slavery and universal rights impossible to ignore, this article will explore the role popular representations of white and black enslavement played in the construction of the new U.S. republic and U.S. citizenship.Less
From the nation’s founding inclusion in and exclusion from the U.S. body politic has been racialized. Citizenship and whiteness have been defined in opposition to slavery and blackness, the free white man celebrated as the prototype of the liberty-loving American citizen. “The very structure of American citizenship is white,” political philosophers and historians repeatedly tell us. Yet U.S. democracy took form during one of the most radical periods of human history, the Age of Revolution when the political world appeared remade and the promise of freedom unlimited. Between the 1780s and the War of 1812, increasingly radical political movements crisscrossed the Atlantic challenging absolute monarchies, establishing post-colonial republics and questioning the legitimacy of human slavery. Born of such momentous times, how were U.S. citizenship and democracy constituted as powerful instruments of racial exclusion? How were the majority of US citizens and their political leaders able to reconcile their commitment to the equality of all men with the centuries-old practice of chattel slavery? This essay ponders that conundrum through an exploration of a rapidly growing literary genre, the Barbary captivity narratives, cheaply printed popular accounts of the seizure and enslavement of American sailors by Barbary “pirates.” Focusing on the period between the 1780s and the War of 1812, that epic time when revolutionary fervor — and most especially the Haitian Revolution — made the contradictory interplay of Atlantic slavery and universal rights impossible to ignore, this article will explore the role popular representations of white and black enslavement played in the construction of the new U.S. republic and U.S. citizenship.
Stephen Jacobson
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807832974
- eISBN:
- 9781469605494
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807899175_jacobson
- Subject:
- Law, Legal History
Offering a window into the history of the modern legal profession in Western Europe, this book presents a history of lawyers in the most industrialized city on the Mediterranean. Far from being mere ...
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Offering a window into the history of the modern legal profession in Western Europe, this book presents a history of lawyers in the most industrialized city on the Mediterranean. Far from being mere curators of static law, Barcelona's lawyers were at the center of social conflict and political and economic change, mediating between state, family, and society. Beginning with the resurrection of a decadent bar during the Enlightenment, this book traces the historical evolution of lawyers throughout the long nineteenth century. Among the issues it explores are: the attributes of the modern legal profession; how lawyers engaged with the Enlightenment; how lawyers molded events in the Age of Revolution and helped consolidate a liberal constitutional order; why a liberal profession became conservative and corporatist; and how lawyers promoted fin-de-siecle nationalism. From the vantage point of a city with a distinguished legal tradition, the book provides fresh insight into: European social and legal history; the origins of liberal professionalism; education, training, and the practice of law in the nineteenth century; the expansion of continental bureaucracies; and the corporatist aspects of modern nationalism.Less
Offering a window into the history of the modern legal profession in Western Europe, this book presents a history of lawyers in the most industrialized city on the Mediterranean. Far from being mere curators of static law, Barcelona's lawyers were at the center of social conflict and political and economic change, mediating between state, family, and society. Beginning with the resurrection of a decadent bar during the Enlightenment, this book traces the historical evolution of lawyers throughout the long nineteenth century. Among the issues it explores are: the attributes of the modern legal profession; how lawyers engaged with the Enlightenment; how lawyers molded events in the Age of Revolution and helped consolidate a liberal constitutional order; why a liberal profession became conservative and corporatist; and how lawyers promoted fin-de-siecle nationalism. From the vantage point of a city with a distinguished legal tradition, the book provides fresh insight into: European social and legal history; the origins of liberal professionalism; education, training, and the practice of law in the nineteenth century; the expansion of continental bureaucracies; and the corporatist aspects of modern nationalism.
Daniel L. Schafer
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780813044620
- eISBN:
- 9780813046341
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813044620.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
During the 1790s, Zephaniah Kingsley Jr. was a ship captain engaged in sugar and coffee trade in the West Indies. In 1793, his ship was seized by a French privateer and sold at an Admiralty Court ...
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During the 1790s, Zephaniah Kingsley Jr. was a ship captain engaged in sugar and coffee trade in the West Indies. In 1793, his ship was seized by a French privateer and sold at an Admiralty Court auction at Charleston. With France and Britain at war and privateers capturing commercial vessels owned by citizens of an enemy nation, Kingsley decided to change his British nationality to that of a neutral nation. He pledged loyalty to the United States, and continued his maritime trade in the West Indies with an added degree of protection while sailing under a neutral flag. Between 1793 and 1797, while a massive slave rebellion against the French colonial government was underway in Saint-Domingue, the French colony on the Island of Hispaniola, Kingsley traded for coffee in the southern province then under military control of Britain. The United States then became involved in an undeclared naval war against France, however, endangering Kingsley’s neutral trading status. In 1798, he moved to the Danish Island of St. Thomas and pledged loyalty to neutral Denmark.Less
During the 1790s, Zephaniah Kingsley Jr. was a ship captain engaged in sugar and coffee trade in the West Indies. In 1793, his ship was seized by a French privateer and sold at an Admiralty Court auction at Charleston. With France and Britain at war and privateers capturing commercial vessels owned by citizens of an enemy nation, Kingsley decided to change his British nationality to that of a neutral nation. He pledged loyalty to the United States, and continued his maritime trade in the West Indies with an added degree of protection while sailing under a neutral flag. Between 1793 and 1797, while a massive slave rebellion against the French colonial government was underway in Saint-Domingue, the French colony on the Island of Hispaniola, Kingsley traded for coffee in the southern province then under military control of Britain. The United States then became involved in an undeclared naval war against France, however, endangering Kingsley’s neutral trading status. In 1798, he moved to the Danish Island of St. Thomas and pledged loyalty to neutral Denmark.
Kenneth R. Aslakson
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814724316
- eISBN:
- 9780814724972
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814724316.003.0002
- Subject:
- Law, Legal History
This chapter provides the socioeconomic framework of New Orleans in the Age of Revolution, and locates the city's free people of color within this framework. The city was characterized by the rising ...
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This chapter provides the socioeconomic framework of New Orleans in the Age of Revolution, and locates the city's free people of color within this framework. The city was characterized by the rising new industries, busy markets, crowded streets, and newly built suburbs. Unlike comparable cities such as New York, Boston, and Philadelphia—where the developing industrial and commercial economies were based on free labor—New Orleans was rapidly emerging as a slave society. As such, the city became tied to the Caribbean slave societies through the Gulf of Mexico. Within this socioeconomic framework, the free people of color made a living primarily in the manufacturing, commercial, and service sectors.Less
This chapter provides the socioeconomic framework of New Orleans in the Age of Revolution, and locates the city's free people of color within this framework. The city was characterized by the rising new industries, busy markets, crowded streets, and newly built suburbs. Unlike comparable cities such as New York, Boston, and Philadelphia—where the developing industrial and commercial economies were based on free labor—New Orleans was rapidly emerging as a slave society. As such, the city became tied to the Caribbean slave societies through the Gulf of Mexico. Within this socioeconomic framework, the free people of color made a living primarily in the manufacturing, commercial, and service sectors.
Kenneth R. Aslakson
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814724316
- eISBN:
- 9780814724972
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814724316.003.0002
- Subject:
- Law, Legal History
This chapter provides the socioeconomic framework of New Orleans in the Age of Revolution, and locates the city's free people of color within this framework. The city was characterized by the rising ...
More
This chapter provides the socioeconomic framework of New Orleans in the Age of Revolution, and locates the city's free people of color within this framework. The city was characterized by the rising new industries, busy markets, crowded streets, and newly built suburbs. Unlike comparable cities such as New York, Boston, and Philadelphia—where the developing industrial and commercial economies were based on free labor—New Orleans was rapidly emerging as a slave society. As such, the city became tied to the Caribbean slave societies through the Gulf of Mexico. Within this socioeconomic framework, the free people of color made a living primarily in the manufacturing, commercial, and service sectors.
Less
This chapter provides the socioeconomic framework of New Orleans in the Age of Revolution, and locates the city's free people of color within this framework. The city was characterized by the rising new industries, busy markets, crowded streets, and newly built suburbs. Unlike comparable cities such as New York, Boston, and Philadelphia—where the developing industrial and commercial economies were based on free labor—New Orleans was rapidly emerging as a slave society. As such, the city became tied to the Caribbean slave societies through the Gulf of Mexico. Within this socioeconomic framework, the free people of color made a living primarily in the manufacturing, commercial, and service sectors.
Rushton Edward
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781781381441
- eISBN:
- 9781781382189
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781781381441.003.0010
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
This section identifies the book’s domain and key concerns, responding to the remarkable complexity of the Edward Rushton’s personal, political and aesthetic stance, with a view to a thoroughgoing ...
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This section identifies the book’s domain and key concerns, responding to the remarkable complexity of the Edward Rushton’s personal, political and aesthetic stance, with a view to a thoroughgoing critical re-evaluation. Rushton’s eventful biography is reconstructed on the basis of available sources, which help delineate the terms of the writer’s political commitment in the Age of Revolution, no less than his intellectual and artistic understanding. The current debate on labouring class poetry offers an appropriate framework to introduce the book’s rationale, i.e. the investigation of the writer’s extreme consistency in the conjunction of the aesthetic and ideological. The writer’s rebellious poetics entailed the consistent advocacy of those in the margins – whose voices are seldom, if ever, heard – and was deployed through experimenting with various poetic forms, whether it be the Gothic ballad that gives voice to a forsaken woman’s ghost, or the ‘anti-pastoral’ set in the Caribbean, or the celebration of the Haitian Revolution in its leader’s own voice. A discussion of the book structure, with its partition into two main sections, dedicated to investigating Rushton’s ‘Local’ and ‘Global Radicalism’, announces the book’s attempt to embrace the full range of Rushton’s personal, political, and aesthetic insight.Less
This section identifies the book’s domain and key concerns, responding to the remarkable complexity of the Edward Rushton’s personal, political and aesthetic stance, with a view to a thoroughgoing critical re-evaluation. Rushton’s eventful biography is reconstructed on the basis of available sources, which help delineate the terms of the writer’s political commitment in the Age of Revolution, no less than his intellectual and artistic understanding. The current debate on labouring class poetry offers an appropriate framework to introduce the book’s rationale, i.e. the investigation of the writer’s extreme consistency in the conjunction of the aesthetic and ideological. The writer’s rebellious poetics entailed the consistent advocacy of those in the margins – whose voices are seldom, if ever, heard – and was deployed through experimenting with various poetic forms, whether it be the Gothic ballad that gives voice to a forsaken woman’s ghost, or the ‘anti-pastoral’ set in the Caribbean, or the celebration of the Haitian Revolution in its leader’s own voice. A discussion of the book structure, with its partition into two main sections, dedicated to investigating Rushton’s ‘Local’ and ‘Global Radicalism’, announces the book’s attempt to embrace the full range of Rushton’s personal, political, and aesthetic insight.
Susan E. Klepp
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807833223
- eISBN:
- 9781469600796
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807838716_Klepp
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
In the Age of Revolution, how did American women conceive their lives and marital obligations? By examining the attitudes and behaviors surrounding the contentious issues of family, contraception, ...
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In the Age of Revolution, how did American women conceive their lives and marital obligations? By examining the attitudes and behaviors surrounding the contentious issues of family, contraception, abortion, sexuality, beauty, and identity, this book demonstrates that many women—rural and urban, free and enslaved—began to radically redefine motherhood. They asserted, or attempted to assert, control over their bodies, their marriages, and their daughters' opportunities. Late-eighteenth-century American women were among the first in the world to disavow the continual childbearing and large families that had long been considered ideal. Liberty, equality, and heartfelt religion led to new conceptions of virtuous, rational womanhood and responsible parenthood. These changes can be seen in falling birthrates, in advice to friends and kin, in portraits, and in a gradual, even reluctant, shift in men's opinions. Revolutionary-era women redefined femininity, fertility, family, and their futures by limiting births. Women might not have won the vote in the new Republic, they might not have gained formal rights in other spheres, but, the book argues, there was a women's revolution nonetheless.Less
In the Age of Revolution, how did American women conceive their lives and marital obligations? By examining the attitudes and behaviors surrounding the contentious issues of family, contraception, abortion, sexuality, beauty, and identity, this book demonstrates that many women—rural and urban, free and enslaved—began to radically redefine motherhood. They asserted, or attempted to assert, control over their bodies, their marriages, and their daughters' opportunities. Late-eighteenth-century American women were among the first in the world to disavow the continual childbearing and large families that had long been considered ideal. Liberty, equality, and heartfelt religion led to new conceptions of virtuous, rational womanhood and responsible parenthood. These changes can be seen in falling birthrates, in advice to friends and kin, in portraits, and in a gradual, even reluctant, shift in men's opinions. Revolutionary-era women redefined femininity, fertility, family, and their futures by limiting births. Women might not have won the vote in the new Republic, they might not have gained formal rights in other spheres, but, the book argues, there was a women's revolution nonetheless.
Hannah Weiss Muller
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- July 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190465810
- eISBN:
- 9780190465841
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190465810.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
The Introduction situates this study historiographically and synthesizes an array of literature relating to the Age of Revolution and to subjecthood and citizenship more generally. It first ...
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The Introduction situates this study historiographically and synthesizes an array of literature relating to the Age of Revolution and to subjecthood and citizenship more generally. It first identifies the historical inaccuracies that result from the recurrent opposition of subject and citizen and from the tendency to view subjects as inferior precursors to citizens. It then explains how identifying as British subjects lay at the heart of individuals’ relationships to one another, to their sovereign, and to the empire. The introduction clarifies the book’s focus on the three decades after the Seven Years’ War and offers an overview of each chapter’s goals and arguments.Less
The Introduction situates this study historiographically and synthesizes an array of literature relating to the Age of Revolution and to subjecthood and citizenship more generally. It first identifies the historical inaccuracies that result from the recurrent opposition of subject and citizen and from the tendency to view subjects as inferior precursors to citizens. It then explains how identifying as British subjects lay at the heart of individuals’ relationships to one another, to their sovereign, and to the empire. The introduction clarifies the book’s focus on the three decades after the Seven Years’ War and offers an overview of each chapter’s goals and arguments.
Daniel L. Schafer
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780813044620
- eISBN:
- 9780813046341
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813044620.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
Zephaniah Kingsley Jr., 1765–1843, was born in England, reared in Charleston, South Carolina during the American Revolution, and moved to British New Brunswick when his merchant father was banished ...
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Zephaniah Kingsley Jr., 1765–1843, was born in England, reared in Charleston, South Carolina during the American Revolution, and moved to British New Brunswick when his merchant father was banished with other Loyalists. He became a ship captain engaged in Atlantic commerce, buying sugar and coffee in the Caribbean and slaves in Africa, and exchanging British nationality for loyalty to the United States, Denmark, and Spain to enhance his trade. Abolition of the Atlantic slave trade prompted Kingsley to become a plantation and slave owner in Spanish East Florida, and an advocate of liberal manumission policies found in Spanish laws on race and slavery. Kingsley practiced the humane and patriarchal system of labor discussed in his monograph, A Treatise on the Patriarchal. Kingsley is also remembered for his unorthodox family. Although never married, he fathered children by several enslaved women on his plantation and lived with them in coterminous relationships that lasted for decades. Anta Majigeen Njaay, Kingsley’s only acknowledged “wife,” was of royal lineage in the Kingdom of Jolof in Senegal before being captured in a slave raid. The 1821 American annexation of Florida brought severe laws regulating slavery, banning emancipation, and threatening rights and freedoms of free persons of color. Kingsley responded by purchasing thirty thousand acres of land near Puerto Plata, Haiti (now the Dominican Republic), and establishing a thriving agricultural settlement. Between 1836 and 1840, his extended family and more than fifty slaves (emancipated) moved to this refuge. Descendants still live in the area.Less
Zephaniah Kingsley Jr., 1765–1843, was born in England, reared in Charleston, South Carolina during the American Revolution, and moved to British New Brunswick when his merchant father was banished with other Loyalists. He became a ship captain engaged in Atlantic commerce, buying sugar and coffee in the Caribbean and slaves in Africa, and exchanging British nationality for loyalty to the United States, Denmark, and Spain to enhance his trade. Abolition of the Atlantic slave trade prompted Kingsley to become a plantation and slave owner in Spanish East Florida, and an advocate of liberal manumission policies found in Spanish laws on race and slavery. Kingsley practiced the humane and patriarchal system of labor discussed in his monograph, A Treatise on the Patriarchal. Kingsley is also remembered for his unorthodox family. Although never married, he fathered children by several enslaved women on his plantation and lived with them in coterminous relationships that lasted for decades. Anta Majigeen Njaay, Kingsley’s only acknowledged “wife,” was of royal lineage in the Kingdom of Jolof in Senegal before being captured in a slave raid. The 1821 American annexation of Florida brought severe laws regulating slavery, banning emancipation, and threatening rights and freedoms of free persons of color. Kingsley responded by purchasing thirty thousand acres of land near Puerto Plata, Haiti (now the Dominican Republic), and establishing a thriving agricultural settlement. Between 1836 and 1840, his extended family and more than fifty slaves (emancipated) moved to this refuge. Descendants still live in the area.
Hannah Weiss Muller
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- July 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190465810
- eISBN:
- 9780190465841
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190465810.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
In the aftermath of the Seven Years’ War, when a variety of conquered and ceded territories became part of an expanding British Empire, crucial struggles emerged about what it meant to be a “British ...
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In the aftermath of the Seven Years’ War, when a variety of conquered and ceded territories became part of an expanding British Empire, crucial struggles emerged about what it meant to be a “British subject.” In Grenada, Quebec, Minorca, Gibraltar, and Bengal, individuals debated the meanings and rights of subjecthood, with many capitalizing on legal ambiguities and local exigencies to secure access to political and economic benefits. In the hands of inhabitants and colonial administrators, subjecthood became a shared language, practice, and opportunity as individuals proclaimed their allegiance to the crown and laid claim to a corresponding set of protections. Approaching subjecthood as a protean and porous concept, rather than an immutable legal status, Subjects and Sovereigns demonstrates that it was precisely subjecthood’s fluidity and imprecision rendered it useful to a remarkably diverse group of individuals. This book revisits the traditional bond between subject and sovereign, arguing that this relationship endured as a powerful site for claims-making throughout the eighteenth century. Muller analyzes both legal understandings of subjecthood, as well as the popular tradition of declaring rights, to demonstrate why subjects believed they were entitled to make requests of their sovereign. She reconsiders narratives of upheaval and transformation during the Age of Revolution and insists on the relevance and utility of existing structures of state and sovereign. Emphasizing the stories of subjects who successfully leveraged their loyalty and negotiated their status, Subjects and Sovereign also explores how and why subjecthood remained an organizing and contested principle of the eighteenth-century British Empire.Less
In the aftermath of the Seven Years’ War, when a variety of conquered and ceded territories became part of an expanding British Empire, crucial struggles emerged about what it meant to be a “British subject.” In Grenada, Quebec, Minorca, Gibraltar, and Bengal, individuals debated the meanings and rights of subjecthood, with many capitalizing on legal ambiguities and local exigencies to secure access to political and economic benefits. In the hands of inhabitants and colonial administrators, subjecthood became a shared language, practice, and opportunity as individuals proclaimed their allegiance to the crown and laid claim to a corresponding set of protections. Approaching subjecthood as a protean and porous concept, rather than an immutable legal status, Subjects and Sovereigns demonstrates that it was precisely subjecthood’s fluidity and imprecision rendered it useful to a remarkably diverse group of individuals. This book revisits the traditional bond between subject and sovereign, arguing that this relationship endured as a powerful site for claims-making throughout the eighteenth century. Muller analyzes both legal understandings of subjecthood, as well as the popular tradition of declaring rights, to demonstrate why subjects believed they were entitled to make requests of their sovereign. She reconsiders narratives of upheaval and transformation during the Age of Revolution and insists on the relevance and utility of existing structures of state and sovereign. Emphasizing the stories of subjects who successfully leveraged their loyalty and negotiated their status, Subjects and Sovereign also explores how and why subjecthood remained an organizing and contested principle of the eighteenth-century British Empire.
