Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Dangerous Ambition: Character Analysis Of Major General Horatio Gates, Harold Allen Skinner Jr.

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

Historian Robert Middlekauff describes Revolutionary War-era America as a society of the twice-born, people profoundly influenced by both radical English Whig ideology and the reformed Protestantism of the Great Awakening.[1] Historians have studied the influence of Christianity on many of the leading figures of the American Revolution, with the notable exception of Major General Horatio Gates. Gates’ military career presents a paradox to military historians: how could the victor at Saratoga in 1778 suffer ignominious defeat at Camden in August 1780? This paper will argue that Horatio Gates’ misfortunes during the American Revolution were due principally to his unregenerate …

"By The Glory Of Our Fathers": Theodore Parker And The American Revolution, Benjamin E. Park

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Just like any significant historical event, the Memory and ideals of the American Revolution became an important point of reference for the many rhetoricians that followed. Politicians, reformers, and ministers used the "spirit" or "age" the Revolution as an authoritative text for their modern agendas. As a result, the meaning of the event became malleable, with many people claiming a different lesson to be used for their specific cause. Theodore Parker, a Bostonian Transcendentalist minister writing during the two decades prior to the Civil War, was one of these individuals. He hearkened back to the Revolution as a way to …

"Born For Liberty" The Emergence Of Female Patriotism During The American Revolution, Anne Bennett

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Esther Reed, a colonial woman who lived during the American Revolution, praised the women of her time: "Born for liberty, disdaining to bear the irons of a tyrannic [sic] Government, we associate ourselves to the grandeur of those ... who have broken the chains of slavery, forged by tyrants in the times of ignorance and barbarity."

"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 Black American Revolution: The American Revolution As Experienced By African Americans, Amy Kurian

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

This paper focuses on how the American Revolution mobilized the enslaved and free black population in a way that constitutes a "Black American Revolution." In particular, the enslaved population engaged in multiple efforts for freedom, ranging from fighting in the Revolutionary War to writing petitions to state legislatures. First, I present how the "slavery metaphor" propagated by white Loyalists indicates the inherent differences in how the white and black populations experienced the Revolution. There is an overall discussion of the various methods the enslaved used in their attempts to gain freedom: military service, slave petitions, freedom suits, and escape. I …

A Spirit Of Revolution: The Story Of Lt. Colonel John Laurens, Sophia A. Fossati

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

Though he has become a figure all but forgotten or merely glossed over, John Laurens (1754-1782) was the purest form of an early American hero, a pioneer for proto-abolitionism in the South, and a queer historical figure. His complex character and legacy is deserving of recognition and remembering. In this article, I intend to do just that by giving a brief historical summary of his life and person.

"The Last King Of America" By Andrew Roberts- A Review, Michael A. Smith

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

"The Last King of America" by Andrew Roberts is a meticulously researched and engaging account of King George III's reign over the American colonies. Roberts dispels myths surrounding George III and explores his efforts to maintain control over the colonies, the tensions that led to the Revolutionary War, and the eventual loss of American territories. This thought-provoking book delves into the more significant themes of monarchy, colonialism, and revolution while offering fresh insights into a pivotal historical moment. Roberts' narrative skill and thorough research make "The Last King of America" an essential read for history enthusiasts and general readers.

Negotiating Liberty: Fine Ceramics For The U.S. American Market Before 1860, Presley Rodriguez

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues that the rise of the consumer market toward the end of the eighteenth century led to the production of decorated fine ceramics that became powerful modes of popularizing new ideas in the United States regarding independence, national symbols, and abolitionism.

International Intrigue In The American Colonies, Arianna Vicinanza

Graduate Research Conference (GSIS)

Spies have always been a subject of intrigue, nowadays we are surrounded by films, tv series, and books based on undercover business. Usually espionage is associated with WW2 or the Cold War, two periods of times in which espionage and secret agencies were essential in order to gather critical information about the enemy. Despite common belief that secret services developed one century ago, espionage and Spy Rings are as old as time. Espionage is the oldest profession in the world, kings used spies to monitor the enemy or to discover plots going around the royal court. In the American Revolution, …

The Enemy Of My Enemy Is My Friend: George Washington And France, Brent Kyle Meyers

Masters Theses

This thesis looks at how George Washington was able to overcome his personal animosity towards France and ally himself with them during the American Revolution. This animosity originates with Washington’s early interactions with the French during the French and Indian War. It examines how the events during Washington first miliary mission and journey to Fort Le Boeuf, his first military conflict and surrender at Jumonville Glenn, and his service under General Braddock all helped develop that animosity. However, the overcoming of these early negative feelings for Washington was the culmination of three key factors. The first major guiding force was …

A Misguided Attempt To Populate Upper Canada With Loyalists After The American Revolution, Marvin L. Simner

History Publications

Following the American Revolution, and to achieve a more appropriate governing climate, the British Parliament issued the Constitutional Act of 1791 which created, out of a single province, “two separate Canadas, each having a representative government with an elected assembly of its own.” The French-speaking sector became known as Lower Canada while the English-speaking sector was called Upper Canada. [1] What became immediately apparent with this division of the province was the highly disproportionate population in the two distinct sectors, and the potential danger this posed for the security of the province as a whole. In Lower Canada, today known …

Gettysburg Historical Journal 2023

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

Complete Issue of the Gettysburg Historical Journal 2023

To Bigotry No Sanction, To Persecution No Assistance: Jews In The American Revolutionary Period, Ziv R. Carmi

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

While Jews were a small minority in the American colonies, they nonetheless participated in the American Revolution on both sides. This paper aims to evaluate the role of Jewish people in the conflict, contextualizing the experiences of this small minority within the larger narrative of the American Revolution and establishing their importance in the development of religious freedom in the United States. Through the examination of these topics, this paper aims to explore the Revolutionary period from the perspective of the Jewish-American, discussing their often-overlooked experiences in this watershed period within U.S. history.

Muster Table Of The Dauphin Adm 36-9970, The National Archives, Kew, Johannes Schwalm Historical Association

Ships Carrying Returning Germans, 1783

No abstract provided.

“The Mount Atlas Of Independence”: Forgotten Founder Roger Sherman, Kaitlyn Kenney

Masters Theses

Roger Sherman is perhaps the most important forgotten founder of the United States. Best known for creating the Connecticut compromise which reconciled the VA and NJ plans by having the House of Representatives be based on population and having each state have one vote in the Senate, he also was instrumental throughout the founding. He was the only man to sign and help draft every major founding document of the United States, one of a select group of self-taught founders and a man who served in practically every civil service position imaginable. Born in Massachusetts, Sherman would move to Connecticut …

The Foundation Of Freedom: Natural Rights And State Power In Revolutionary Massachusetts, Joshua Paul Dunkelberger

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This research project is an attempt to explain the political mindset which drove the actions of the Massachusetts Patriots during the American Revolution. The British government’s attempts to assert increased control over the American colonies, beginning with the Sugar and Stamp Acts in 1764-1765, initiated a decade-long political struggle between Britain and America. During that struggle, all politically active Americans had to wrestle with questions of where their rights came from, the role of government in relation to those rights, and the constitutional limits of a government’s power over the governed. The question of the origin of rights was thus …

Boston Discusses The Massacre, Jean C. O'Connor

The Montana English Journal

Teachers may use this chapter from The Remarkable Cause: A Novel of James Lovell and the Crucible of the Revolution as a short story for grades 7 – 12., to explore themes of interpersonal conflict, conflict resolution, and the value of law.

The chapter “Boston Discusses the Massacre” is taken from The Remarkable Cause: A Novel of James Lovell and the Crucible of the Revolution (Knox Press, 2020), and used with permission. James Lovell, teacher at the Boston Latin School, discusses the pivotal events of March 5, 1770. As the conflicts that become the American Revolution begin a group of …

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 …

Use Of The Declaration Of Independence As A Military Recruitment Tool During The American Revolution, Marvin L. Simner

History Publications

No abstract provided.

“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 …

Loyalist Preachers During The American Revolution (1765-1783), Christena Renea Leaverton

Masters Theses

“Loyalists were those who remained loyal to the British Crown and did not support America’s fight for independence leading up to, and during, the American Revolution. Being loyal to the crown was the normal practice for all Americans prior to the increasing call for independence.” In the time leading up to and during the American Revolution (1765-1783), Loyalist preachers defended their stance on remaining loyal to Great Britain utilizing Bible themes and specific verses. Oftentimes, as with the Patriots, these Loyalist preachers took these themes and verses out of context or misquoted them. They also used Bible themes and verses …

Prominent Biblical Themes During The Revolutionary War, Jacob Jones

Tenor of Our Times

Ever since humanity has gone to war with itself, both sides of the conflict often times have used respective religious texts to argue that their god or gods were on their side and against their opponents. Saint Augustine promulgated this idea further in his theory of Just War. Colonists during the American Revolution were not exempt from this tendency but participated fully in it. Because of their Calvinistic leanings, influenced by Edwards and the First Great Awakening, North American colonists frequently referenced their own Divine text, the Bible, and went to Sacred Scripture to prove to their side that America …

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 …

Founding Monsters, Maggie Colangelo, Bernard Means

Founding Monsters

The Founding Monsters comic book was created as a science-friendly graphical storytelling framework that tells the story of the Founding Fathers and their obsession with prehistoric megafauna, especially mastodons and giant ground sloths. Founding Monsters combines sequential art (e.g. comic book style) with historical and scientific data. The first mastodon (Mammut americanum) fossils were found in New York in the early 18th century. Later in the 18th century, Thomas Jefferson was sent fossils from what is now West Virginia for what were eventually identified as bones from a giant ground sloth (Megalonyx jeffersoni). The founding fathers, …

Ladylike: The Necessity And Neglect Of Camp Followers In The Continental Army, Emma Ward

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The contributions of female camp followers to the Continental Army are often overlooked in the study of the American Revolution. The lower-class women who followed the army performed services absolutely necessary for its operation and created a vital support network for the fledgling army that could not care for its own needs. Camp followers were therefore integral to the success of the American Revolution, but they rarely receive due credit for their contributions because they acted outside the bounds of eighteenth-century feminine values.

The intent for this thesis is to pull camp followers out of the footnotes of history and …

From Civil Liberties To Social Contract Theory: Hobbes' And Locke's Influence On The Early American Republic, Evan A. Krasner

History - Master of Arts in Teaching

I. Synthesis Essay………………………………..4

II. Primary Documents and Headnotes………...18

III. Textbook Critique……………………………...31

IV. New Textbook Entry…………………………...33

V. Bibliography………………………………….....35

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 …

“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 …

What Can People Learn About The American Revolution Through "Assassin's Creed Iii"?, Katie Kitchell

History Class Publications

Video games have been a source of entertainment for people of all ages since the creation of the first video game, Pong, in 1958. Over time, video games have been improved upon to provide better graphics, better stories, better gameplay, and more fun for the family. Careers are now based on the creation of video games and their development, leading to the rise of companies such as Ubisoft, Nintendo, Electronic Arts, Sony Computer Entertainment, and many others who base their entire company on the creation and selling of video games. Today, they have been integrated as an almost essential …

College Of Liberal Arts And Sciences_Hty 462 American Revolution_Revised Syllabus, Liam Riordan

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Revised syllabus for the History 462: The American Revolution course taught by Liam Riordan, Professor of History, History Department, University of Maine. The revision included a unit on smallpox during the American Revolution. Also, includes cover emails regarding the submission of course material to the Provost Office.