Fear and the Shaping of Early American Societies (2024)

The Huguenot Home: Consumption Practices and Identity in Early 18th-Century New York City

2013

"While there is a great body of historical archaeological work that has been performed in many colonial cities (e.g., Mrozowski 2006; Rothschild 1990; Wall 1994), the development of colonial New York City is ripe for further study. Rothschild (1990) has shown that throughout the eighteenth century in New York City, residents began to construct their identities around economics and class, while the earlier preeminence of ethnicity as the paramount aspect of identity began to fade. Rothschild’s (1990) work and others beg the question of how, when, and at what tempo class took over as a rallying point of social identity during the eighteenth century. Using artifacts from the Stadt Huys and 7 Hanover Square archaeological projects in New York City, this project addresses the question of whether the consumption practices of two contemporaneous French Huguenot households can be identified in eighteenth-century deposits in New York City and if so, whether they can provide a window into the accretion of economic identity in the eighteenth-century city. Namely, how did the households of Louis Carré, a Huguenot, and Simeon Soumaine, born in England but with Huguenot ancestry, adjust to and negotiate social and material life in the dynamic early eighteenth-century city? Engaging the artifacts associated with these households in addition to historical documents and research, this project also addresses larger questions about the city’s developing consumer culture and market of goods. This project shows that occupation- and class-based distinctions had begun to arise in social identity formation during the early eighteenth century, wherein these two wealthy Huguenot households could invoke their gentility while at the same time engaging with their personal tastes and preferences in the wider market of early eighteenth-century New York City."

"A Variety of Peoples": The Non-English Composition of British America

This chapter will examine the multitudinous ancestral origins of the people who lived in the British American colonies, from the beginnings of colonial attempts in the 1580s to the Peace of Paris in 1783, which resulted in the recognition that part of British America was now the United States of America. Far from the homogenous population that nationalistic monikers imply, the population of British America was truly Atlantic in nature, meaning they included people from Europe, Africa, and the Americas. First of all, we will revisit the debates within England on how the colonies would be populated. Next, we will examine how the English colonies were truly British in nature, as people from England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales found their way to the North American colonies. Furthermore, we will meet several different European groups who played significant factors in British America: peoples from the German-speaking territories, the low countries of the Dutch republic, Scandinavia, France, and Spain. Finally, we will look at several groups that are often overlooked when talking about the non-English composition of British America: Africans and Native Americans. Along the way, we will meet several individuals, Conrad Weiser and Olaudah Equiano, who typify the multi-ethnic composition of the British colonies.

“A bloody conspiracy”: Race, Power and Religion in New York's 1712 Slave Insurrection

Fear and the Shaping of Early Modern American Societies, Leiden, Brill, 2016

American Nations

- Colin Woodard History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America

Search for a New Land: Imperial Power and Afro-Creole Resistance in the British Leeward Islands 1624-1745

2011

The Origins of Empire British Overseas Enterprise to the Close of the Seventeenth Century (series: THE OXFORD HISTORY OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE), VOLUME I, Nicholas Canny

From the founding of the colonies in North America and the West Indies in the seventeenth century to the reversion of Hong Kong to China at the end of the twentieth, British imperialism was a catalyst for far-reaching change. British domination of indigenous peoples in North America, Asia, and Africa can now be seen more clearly as part of the larger and dynamic interaction of European and non-western societies. Though the subject remains ideologically charged, the passions aroused by British imperialism have so lessened that we are now better placed than ever to see the course of the Empire steadily and to see it whole. At this distance in time the Empire's legacy from earlier centuries can be assessed, in ethics and economics as well as politics, with greater discrimination. At the close of the twentieth century, the interpretation of the dissolution of the Empire can benefit from evolving perspectives on, for example, the end of the cold war. In still larger sweep, the Oxford History of the British Empire as a comprehensive study helps us to understand the end of the Empire in relation to its beginning, the meaning of British imperialism for the ruled as well as the rulers, and the significance of the British Empire as a theme in world history.

Church, State, and Race: The Discourse of American Religious Liberty, 1750-1900 (Lanham, MD: 2012)

The Ties That Bound: The Formation of Anglo-America, 1617-1667

A Letter from Carolina, 1688: French Huguenots in the New World

2007

“‘Nothing but Death before my Eyes’: Mending Broken Spirits and Repairing Defensive Walls in Colonial Charleston,” Atlantic Studies 12, no. 4 (2015): 457–81.

This article examines how hurricanes shaped the English settlement in South Carolina. Similar to other settlements in the Anglo-Atlantic, colonists encountered many risks and dangers. However, settlers residing in colonies where hurricanes routinely happened faced even greater risks and volatility because the storms occurred with little warning and were capable of causing widespread economic destruction, social chaos, and loss of life. This article argues that in the wake of the hurricanes that struck South Carolina in 1752, colonial authorities were afforded an opportunity to recast Charleston’s urban landscape. The destruction the storms caused to the colony was dramatic and horrifying. The most troubling issue for colonial officials was the damage hurricanes caused to Charleston’s fortifications. The defensive works throughout the town and colony were a fundamental component that shaped the colony’s development and English imperialism in the circum-Caribbean. It further argues that as colonial authorities began to rebuild the defensive walls and fortifications in Charleston, the unexpected arrival of a thousand Acadian refugees provided a valuable labor resource that both taxed charitable coffers and aided in the transformation of the urban landscape. The rebuilding of Charleston’s fortifications illustrates how colonists responded to the destructive forces of hurricanes while further demonstrating the uncertainty of living in the Anglo- Atlantic, where hundreds of war-torn refugees could arrive as suddenly as hurricanes.