Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Patriots Or Rebels: Ethical Debate Behind The American Revolution, Nicolette Falvo

History Department Theses

This paper, "Patriots or Rebels: Ethical Debate Behind the American Revolution," critically examines the justification and historical significance of the American Revolution. It argues that the motivations behind the revolutionary war and the colonists' outrage against British policies were complex and multifaceted, prompting scrutiny of the legitimacy of their actions. Central to this analysis is the colonists' deliberate choice to establish a democratic republic, diverging from the English monarchy, and an evaluation of the contemporary state of American governance. Drawing on Gordon S. Wood's "The Radicalism of the American Revolution," which highlights its transformative impact on American society and political …

"In The Footsteps Of Hercules": The Influence Of Classical Antiquity On Eighteenth-Century Militaries, Scott Madere

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This project examines the pervasive influence of ancient Roman and Greek figures, historical events, literature, and military methods on the leaders and practitioners of eighteenth-century warfare. Rulers, generals, military theorists, and officers frequently consulted classical histories and literature for solutions to the common military problems of the period – tactical, operational, and strategic – showing remarkable faith in ancient military methods despite their growing dependence on gunpowder weaponry and related technologies. This dissertation examines why this was the case and concludes that classical antiquity not only maintained the credibility of its wisdom in the context of modern warfare, but also …

The Impact Of The Saratoga Campaign Of 1777 Upon The Communities Of Upstate New York During The American Revolution, Matthew J. Hamm

Theses

From the spring of 1776 to the summer of 1777, there was a looming threat to the northern region of the colony of New York bordering Canada. Across the border, British forces were marshaling for an invasion. Finally, in June of 1777, the inevitable came true; British General John Burgoyne moved south from St. John’s toward Lake Champlain in upstate New York with an army numbering approximately 9,500. This diverse force consisted of British army regulars, hired German troops, Indian allies, Canadian volunteers and loyalists, and a glut of camp followers, who helped support Burgoyne’s army. His aim was to …

“What Have We Got To Celebrate?”: Native American Contestation To Commemoration During The Late 20th Century, Jennifer C. Tennison

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how Indigenous groups in the United States have contested mainstream historical narratives of America’s founding during major commemorative events in the late twentieth century. To analyze this, I have examined two major national commemorative events during which Native Americans spearheaded a marked shift in the popular interpretation of national origins. The first event I analyze is the 1976 Bicentennial of the American Revolution; the second event is the 1992 Columbus Quincentenary. Native Americans contested the ways that the federal planning bodies for both events represented the history of the nation’s founding. How could they be called on …

Wretches, Rogues, And Rebels: Smugglers In English Print Culture 1660-1766, Jacob M. Jones

History Dissertations

This dissertation examines smugglers as they appeared in English print culture from their first appearance as "smuckellors" in a 1661 Royal Proclamation to 1766 when Parliament repealed the Revenue Act of 1764 amid protests over the government's crackdown on the vital molasses smuggling trade. Since the nineteenth century, historians have focused on community acceptance of smuggling, arguing that most Britons did not believe smuggling was criminal. However, this dissertation reveals a strong counter-narrative that has not been fully explored. From the nineteenth century onward, smugglers were romanticized and depicted as "honest thieves" and integral parts of coastal British communities. In …

Praying Soldiers: Experiencing Religion As A Revolutionary War Soldier Fighting For Independence, Roberto Oscar Flores De Apodaca

Theses and Dissertations

While enduring the hardships of battle, many Revolutionary War soldiers recorded more about their personal religious lives than perhaps any other single topic. They especially enjoyed cataloging events they ascribed to divine intervention, listing their daily religious routines, and commenting on first time encounters with religious others. New and extreme circumstances tested the religious preconceptions of those who enlisted in ways that they had rarely encountered in civilian life. Their religion took on new importance for them as soldiers relied on it both as an interpretive lens and as a source of stability amid a chaotic war. My dissertation examines …

“The Spirit Of Revolution:” The Impact Of Rum On The Formation Of The United States, Charles Streator

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis explores the impact of rum, be it the distillation, consumption, or trade of it, upon the formation of the American Revolution and the desire of American Colonists for independence. Through the analysis of three distinct subfactors: rum as an economic force, rum as a political tool, and the cultural and societal impacts of the rum trade and its subsequent removal from the American ethos, this project contends that rum as a commodity became a driving factor in the creation of the United States. While much has been written on the roles of stamps, sugar, and tea in the …

Imagining A New Nation: Patriotism And National Identity In The Writing Of Late-18th Century American Women, Aysia S. Brenner

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Benedict Anderson defined the nation as “an imagined political community” that is “imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.” The research for this paper began with a desire to know how American women in the time leading up to, during, and immediately after the American Revolution and War of Independence did or did not imagine themselves as members of the newly emerging political community eventually known as the United States of America. As tensions between the Colonies and Great Britain increased, as tea was dumped in Boston harbor, and as independence was declared in 1776, how did women make sense …

Men Set On Fire. Algernon Sidney & John Adams: Remodeling Anglo-American Republicanism, Deborah B. Charnoff

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation systematically examines the republican political ideas of the relatively unknown seventeenth-century English aristocratic Algernon Sidney, a passionate author and political activist who was executed for his ideas, and the famous but generally misunderstood eighteenth-century American revolutionary, Founder, and second President of the United States, John Adams. Republicanism is an entangled field of intellectual history in which historians, political scientists, legal scholars, and others have grappled for years, often without regard to the work of those in disciplines other than their own; yet we have consistently failed to take into account critical elements that inform the tradition, indeed, one …

“All Men Would Be Tyrants If They Could”: Three New England Women’S Perspectives On Political And Domestic Tyranny During The Revolutionary Era, Austen K. Smith

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis examines female perspectives of tyranny within the political and domestic realms. Combining a close reading of their written works with biographical studies of their lives, this thesis looks specifically at three elite, highly literate New England women: Abigail Adams, Mercy Otis Warren, and Judith Sargent Murray. These women were unable to formally participate in the political sphere, yet through their writing they responded to and offered commentary on the Revolution. Utilizing the same language and arguments they and other male patriots used in the Revolution, these three women innovated, following arguments about tyranny through to their natural conclusion, …

Navigating Wilderness And Borderland: Environment And Culture In The Northeastern Americas During The American Revolution, Daniel S. Soucier

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the evolving interactions of nature and humans during the major military campaigns in the northern theatre of the American War for Independence (1775 – 1783) as local people, local environments, and military personnel from outside the region interacted with one another in complex ways. Examining the American Revolution at the convergence of environmental, military, and borderlands history, it elucidates the agency of nature and culture in shaping how three military campaigns in the “wilderness” unfolded. The invasion of Canada in 1775, the expedition from Quebec to Albany in 1777, and the invasion of Iroquoia in 1779 are …

Referendum On The Revolution: The Pennsylvania Constitutional Debate, 1776-1784, Tristan James New

Online Theses and Dissertations

The Pennsylvania constitution of 1776 ignited an extensive and intractable debate that remained at the center of the state’s politics throughout the Revolutionary period. This debate encompassed disagreement over a broad range of questions relating to the relationship between government and society, many of which brought into question the implications of the concept of popular sovereignty for governmental structure and popular political agency. Competing notions regarding these issues, while expressed within a general framework of consensus concerning the source of political authority [the people], revealed fundamentally different visions of governmental order. Partisans presented these visions as inextricably connected to their …

The Relationship Between The Methodist Church, Slavery And Politics, 1784-1844, Brian D. Lawrence

Theses and Dissertations

The Methodist church split in 1844 was a cumulative result of decades of regional instability within the governing structure of the church. Although John Wesley had a strict anti-slavery belief as the leader of the movement in Great Britain, the Methodist church in America faced a distinctively different dilemma. Slavery proved to be a lasting institution that posed problems for Methodism in the United States and in the larger political context. The issue of slavery plagued Methodism from almost its inception, but the church functioned well although conflicts remained below the surface. William Capers, James Osgood Andrew, and Freeborn Garrettson …

Remembering The Revolution: Monuments And Commemorations Of American Revolutionary War Sites In New York, Brant W. Venables

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

Memorials and monuments at military heritage sites track the ways American society constructs and then reconstructs its understandings of important events. They present enticing material culture for study by archaeologists seeking to analyze the layers of meaning and the social and chronological transformations in the heritage narratives at military sites. With the prominence of recent national discourses surrounding the heritage narratives presented by Civil War Confederate monuments, there is a paramount need for archaeologists to lend their expertise in material culture studies to these dialogues. I also believe it remains important to expand this critical examination of Civil War monuments …

Samuel Adams And John Hancock: The Relationship That Determined The Formation Of America, Bruce D. Griffiths

Theses and Dissertations

This paper argues that the relationship between Samuel Adams and John Hancock and their cooperation played critical/pivotal roles, especially in garnering New England support for the beginning of the American Revolution as well as the ratification of the Constitution.

Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story: A Case Study Of Hamilton: An American Musical To Understand The Effect Of Engaging The Past In The Culture Of Today, Adrianna C. Halsey

Selected Honors Theses

This thesis is a look into how Alexander Hamilton has been portrayed on stage in the musical Hamilton: An American Musical, written by Lin-Manuel Miranda. The goal of this research is to show that this musical is not history, but rather a commentary on current culture through one of America’s favorite stories (that of the Revolution.) In this show, past figures have been used to discuss the issues of modern America, and that is now being sold as history. This has been discovered through the analysis of primary and secondary sources of the time period, as well as through a …

Friend From France: The Popular Image Of The Marquis De Lafayette In Early America, Elisabeth Iacono

Honors Theses and Capstones

This paper addresses the impressions the Marquis de Lafayette made upon the American people during the American Revolution and his return tour in 1824. As someone who has admired Lafayette since I was young, I was aware of the fact that many locations are named after the general and that he plays a prominent role in shows such as the Broadway musical Hamilton. I wanted to study why Lafayette had such an impact on the American people, and why he has been memorialized in a positive manner. As a promoter of liberty, Lafayette was embraced by the colonists for his …

Settlement In The Old Northwest Frontier And The Merging Of Culture, 1750 -1790, Sandra K. Ellefsen

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

SETTLEMENT IN THE OLD NORTHWEST FRONTIER

AND THE MERGING OF CULTURE, 1750 -1790

An Abstract of the Thesis by Sandra Ellefsen

During the late 1700s, the Cumberland Gap in the Appalachian Mountain Chain became the main corridor that precipitated settlement into Kentucky. Along this frontier line, settlers had to contend with various Native American tribes, and settlement on the frontier from the beginning of colonization irrevocably altered the Native American way of life. Warfare, encroachment, and disease caused the Native American population to decline drastically in the process of contact; often as a result, Native tribes chose to adopt many …

The Destruction Of Property And The Radical Nature Of The Boston Tea Party, Holly K. Nehls

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

For Country, Liberty, And Money: Privateering And The Ideologies Of The American Revolution, Scott D. Wagner

Senior Independent Study Theses

Along with service in the Continental Army and Navy and the various state militias, American patriots during the Revolutionary War had the option of sailing aboard privateers, private ships authorized to attack British commerce during the war. Where studies analyzing other military forces during the Revolution have been more nuanced, scholars that have looked at privateering have either focused on its strategic effectiveness during the conflict or merely written it off as a profit-driven phenomenon of maritime plunder. Privateering played a role in the course of the Revolution to a degree, but more importantly the practice was influenced by the …

Revolutionary Era Women In War: A Move For Societal Reform, Claire Williams

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

As tensions grew in the British colonies in the late eighteenth century, colonists began expressing their new hopes for an independent nation. While the call to action for the physical fight against the British was directed toward men, women could not help but respond in kind. After centuries of domestic confinement and the new Enlightenment period showing possibilities for secondary roles, women used the coming war as a showcase for their capabilities. Some chose to act on the home front, boycotting British goods and fundraising for the soldiers, while others stepped outside of their bounds and participated in battle. Later …

Kentucky's First Statesman : George Nicholas And The Founding Of The Commonwealth., Benjamin Michael Gies

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In late 1789, Colonel George Nicholas arrived in the Kentucky District from eastern Virginia. Nicholas’s political astuteness prompted his swift rise to prominence in the Kentucky District’s political affairs. In 1792 Nicholas asserted himself as the Kentucky Constitution of 1792’s primary author. Nicholas’s Kentucky Constitution of 1792 mirrored the federal Constitution of 1787 that had earlier been rejected by Kentuckians in the 1788 Virginia Ratifying Convention. The Kentucky Constitution of 1792 placed the Kentucky District square within the ethos of the Anglo – American constitutional tradition and secured the proposed Commonwealth of Kentucky’s separation from the district’s “parent-state,” the Commonwealth …

"The Nest Of Tories Which Has Invested This Precinct": The Loyalists Of Newburgh, New York, Kieran John O'Keefe

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This thesis uses a case study approach to examine loyalism during the American Revolution, by considering the Loyalists of Newburgh, New York. I examine the Loyalist community by exploring its origins before the Revolution, analyzing its composition, examining the Loyalists' wartime experiences, and by considering their post-war exile. Studying Newburgh's Loyalists allows for a nuanced understanding of loyalism both in the Hudson Valley and more generally. I argue that migration, religion, wealth, and geographic location shaped Loyalist communities and their experiences.

My thesis is divided into four chapters, the first of which considers the origins of the Loyalist community, which …

Trading Identities: National Identity, Loyalty, And Backcountry Merchants In Revolutionary America, 1740-1816, Timothy Charles Hemmis

Dissertations

This project tracks the lives a select group of Philadelphia frontier merchants such as George Morgan, David Franks, and others from 1754-1811. “Trading Identities” traces the trajectory of each man’s economic and political loyalties during the Revolutionary period. By focusing on the men of trading firms operating in Philadelphia, the borderlands and the wider world, it becomes abundantly clear that their identities were shaped and sustained by their commercial concerns—not by any new political ideology at work in this period. They were members not of a British (or even American) Atlantic World, but a profit-driven Atlantic World. The Seven Years’ …

James Wilson And Anglo-American Customary Constitutionalism., Sean Allen Southard

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

“A More Stainless And Splendid Name?” Contrasting The Wartime And Peacetime Strategies Of William Pitt, Earl Of Chatham, 1757-1778, Lori Ann Holmes

History Theses

In 1757, a global struggle ensued between Great Britain and France. Britain had faltered in the early stages of the Seven Years’ War until William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, became the Southern Secretary of State. During his tenure, he shifted the focus away from Europe, instead focusing on North America. It was the strategy he employed that destroyed the French Empire in the New World and created the large and powerful British Empire. It was his success that elevated him to popularity in both Britain and the Thirteen American Colonies. His success would cause King George III to grant him …

Dishonoured Americans: Loyalist Manhood And Political Death In Revolutionary America, Timothy J. Compeau

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation offers a new reading of the loyalist experience by drawing on the insights and methodologies of cultural history and the anthropological study of honour, as well as the history of masculinity, to contextualize the class and gender-based concerns embedded in patriot and loyalist written records. American revolutionaries attacked loyalist men using deeply gendered language and symbols, and succeeded in dishonouring loyalism in general, while also driving individual loyalists from their communities. Male loyalists relied on the same culture of honour to rationalize their experiences, justify their continued allegiance to the Crown, and transform injuries intended as marks of …

Thomas Johnson: Gentleman, Vermonter, Patriot, Angela Nicole Grove

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This thesis is a micro-history of the formation of the various identities that shaped the Revolutionary War experiences of one eighteenth-century Vermonter (Thomas Johnson) whose life is documented in a manuscript collection at the Vermont Historical Society. I break down Johnson's identities into three levels: social class, state, and national. My argument is that what it meant to be a provincial gentleman, to be a Vermonter, and to be an American were still being constructed at the time of the Revolution and were therefore in a state of flux. The fluid nature of these identities shows us how America's founding …

"Life, Liberty..." And The Law: John Adams' Political Thought During The American Revolution, Kelsey Anne Diemand

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

From Subject To Citizen, Or, "At Once Everyone Seemed To Come Alive": Hessian Mercenaries Gain Autonomy And Self Define During The American Revolution, 1776-1783, Perceval Jack Inkpen

Senior Projects Spring 2014

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.