Contested Boundaries – serie

After the American Revolution, enslaved and free blacks who had been loyal to the British cause arrived in the Bahamas, drawn by British promises of liberty and land. Freedom and Resistance shows how black loyalists struggled to find freedom, clashing with white loyalists who tried either to bind them to illegal indentured contracts or to enslave them.Despite these challenges, black loyalists made significant contributions to Bahamian society. They advanced ideas of civil liberty through political activism and armed resistance, built churches and schools that became the foundations of self-reliant black communities, and participated in the emerging market economy. Comparing the experiences of these Bahamians to those of other black loyalist communities in Jamaica and Nova Scotia, Christopher Curry adds a new global dimension to the freedom struggle that spread from the American Revolution.

Broadening the idea of “borderlands” beyond its traditional geographic meaning, this volume features new ways of characterizing the political, cultural, religious, and racial fluidity of early America. Borderland Narratives extends the concept to the Ohio Valley and other North American regions not typically seen as borderlands, far from the northern Spanish colonial frontier. It also shows how the term has been used in recent years to describe unstable spaces where people, cultures, and viewpoints collide. A timely assessment of the dynamic field of borderland studies, this volume argues that the interpretive model of borders is essential to understanding the history of the colonial United States.

Despite serving his country for 50 years and being among the most qualified men to hold the office of president, James Monroe is an oft-forgotten Founding Father. In this book, Brook Poston reveals how Monroe attempted to craft a legacy for himself as a champion of American republicanism. Monroe's dedication to the vision of a modern republic built on liberty began when he joined the American Revolution. His devotion to the cause further developed under his apprenticeship to Thomas Jefferson. These experiences spurred him to support the virtues of republicanism during the French Revolution, where he tried to create an alliance between the United States and the French republic despite ire from the U.S. Federalist party. As he climbed the political ranks, Monroe’s achievements began to add up: he played a significant role in the Louisiana Purchase, helped lead the fight against Great Britain in the War of 1812, oversaw the acquisition of Florida from Spain, and created the Monroe Doctrine to protect the Americas from the influence of European monarchies. Focusing exclusively on America’s fifth president and his complete commitment to republicanism, this book offers new interpretations of James Monroe as a patriot who dedicated his life to what he believed was perhaps the most important cause in human history.A volume in the series Contested Boundaries, edited by Gene Allen Smith.

In 1840, twenty-three-year-old George Long Brown migrated from New Hampshire to north Florida, a region just emerging from the devastating effects of the Second Seminole War. This volume presents over seventy of Brown’s previously unpublished letters to illuminate day-to-day life in pre?Civil War Florida.Brown’s personal and business correspondence narrates his daily activities and his views on politics, labor practices, slavery, fundamentalist religion, and the local gossip. Having founded a successful mercantile establishment in Newnansville, Brown traveled the region as far as Savannah and Charleston, purchasing sea island cotton and other goods from plantations. He also bartered with locals and circulated among the judges, lawyers, and politicians of Alachua County. The Letters of George Long Brown provides an important eyewitness view of north Florida’s transformation from a subsistence and herding community to a market economy based on cotton, timber, and other crops, showing that these changes came about in part due to an increased reliance on slavery. Brown’s letters offer the first social and economic history of one of the most important yet little-known frontiers in the antebellum South.A volume in the series Contested Boundaries, edited by Gene Allen Smith.

For almost two centuries North America has been a major destination for international migrants, but from the late nineteenth century onward, governments began to regulate borders, set immigration quotas, and define categories of citizenship. To develop a more dimensional approach to migration studies, the contributors to this volume focus on people born in the United States and Canada who migrated to the other country, as well as Japanese, Chinese, German, and Mexican migrants who came to the United States and Canada. These case studies explore how people and ideas transcend geopolitical boundaries. By including local, national, and transnational perspectives,the editors emphasize the value of tracking connections over large spaces and political boundaries.Entangling Migration History ultimately contends that crucial issues in the United States and Canada, such as labor and economic growth and ideas about the racial or religious makeup of the nation are shaped by the two countries’ connections to each other and the surrounding world.

Too easily we forget that the process of European colonization was not simply a matter of armed invaders elbowing themselves into position to take charge. As John Juricek reminds us, the road to revolution was paved in part by complicated negotiations with Indians, as well as unique legal challenges.By 1763, Britain had defeated Spain and France for dominance over much of the continent and renewed efforts to repair relations with Indians, especially in the southern colonies. Over the ensuing decade the reconstitution of British-Creek relations stalled and then collapsed, ultimately leading the colonists directly into the arms of the patriot cause.Juricek’s expertise uniquely situates him to examine and explain how British failures, including the growing gap between promises and actions, led not only to a loss of potential allies among the Creeks but also to the rapid conversion of dutiful British subjects into outraged revolutionaries.

During the War of 1812, Edward Nicolls of the Royal Marines armed ex-slaves, Red Sticks, and Seminoles to fight alongside the British from a fort erected at Prospect Bluff in the Florida panhandle. This so-called Negro Fort became the largest maroon community ever to emerge in North America. Fervently opposed to slavery, Nicolls galvanized the Prospect Bluff allies with his radical anti-slavery ideology and the promise of freedom, asserting their rights and privileges equal to those of any British subject. At war’s end, Nicolls remained at Prospect Bluff, petitioning American officials to respect the territorial sovereignty of his Indian allies. When diplomacy failed, Nicolls left the fort to his black army of radicalized British subjects and encouraged it to defend the territory against all threats. What developed was a well-organized community that regarded itself as an independent British polity.Nathaniel Millett examines how the Prospect Bluff maroons constructed their freedom, shedding light on the extent and limits of their physical and intellectual fight to claim their rights. He compares their settlement extensively with maroon communities across the Americas, emphasizing the rare opportunity offered by Prospect Bluff to examine black consciousness during the era of slavery.

Broadening the idea of ""borderlands"" beyond its traditional geographic meaning, this volume features new ways of characterizing the political, cultural, religious, and racial fluidity of early America. It extends the concept to regions not typically seen as borderlands and demonstrates how the term has been used in recent years to describe unstable spaces where people, cultures, and viewpoints collide.The essays include an exploration of the diplomacy and motives that led colonial and Native leaders in the Ohio Valley--including those from the Shawnee and Cherokee-to cooperate and form coalitions; a contextualized look at the relationship between African Americans and Seminole Indians on the Florida borderlands; and an assessment of the role that animal husbandry played in the economies of southeastern Indians. An essay on the experiences of those who disappeared in the early colonial southwest highlights the magnitude of destruction on these emergent borderlands and features a fresh perspective on Cabeza de Vaca. Yet another essay examines the experiences of French missionary priests in the trans-Appalachian West, adding a new layer of understanding to places ordinarily associated with the evangelical Protestant revivals of the Second Great Awakening.Collectively these essays focus on marginalized peoples and reveal how their experiences and decisions lie at the center of the history of borderlands. They also look at the process of cultural mixing and the crossing of religious and racial boundaries. A timely assessment of the dynamic field of borderland studies, Borderland Narratives argues that the interpretive model of borders is essential to understanding the history of colonial North America.Contributors: Andrew Frank; A. Glenn Crothers; Rob Harper; Tyler Boulware; Carla Gerona; Rebekah M. K. Mergenthal; Michael Pasquier; Philip Mulder; Julie Winch.

After the American Revolution, enslaved and free blacks who had been loyal to the British cause arrived in the Bahamas, drawn by British promises of liberty and land. Freedom and Resistance shows how Black Loyalists struggled to find freedom, clashing with white loyalists who tried either to bind them to illegal indentured contracts or to enslave them.Despite these challenges, Black Loyalists made significant contributions to Bahamian society. They advanced ideas of civil liberty through political activism and armed resistance, built churches and schools that became the foundations of self-reliant black communities, and participated in the emerging market economy.Christopher Curry highlights the complex ways in which Black Loyalists transplanted and re-inscribed traditions from colonial America into new host societies and in doing so dynamically refashioned their identities and institutions. By comparing the experiences of these Bahamians to those of other Black Loyalist communities in Jamaica and Nova Scotia, he adds a new global dimension to the freedom struggle that spread from the American Revolution.A volume in the series Contested Boundaries, edited by Gene Allen Smith.

Despite serving his country for 50 years and being among the most qualified men to hold the office of president, James Monroe is an oft-forgotten Founding Father. In this book, Brook Poston reveals how Monroe attempted to craft a legacy for himself as a champion of American republicanism. Monroe's dedication to the vision of a modern republic built on liberty began when he joined the American Revolution. His devotion to the cause further developed under his apprenticeship to Thomas Jefferson. These experiences spurred him to support the virtues of republicanism during the French Revolution, when he tried to create an alliance between the United States and the French republic despite ire from the U.S. Federalist party. As Monroe climbed the political ranks, his achievements began to add up: he played a significant role in the Louisiana Purchase, helped lead the fight against Great Britain in the War of 1812, oversaw the acquisition of Florida from Spain, and created the Monroe Doctrine to protect the Americas from the influence of European monarchies. Focusing exclusively on America's fifth president and his complete commitment to republicanism, this book offers new interpretations of James Monroe as a patriot who dedicated his life to what he believed was perhaps the most important cause in human history. A volume in the series Contested Boundaries, edited by Gene Allen Smith.