The Americas as a Theater of War
2008 Annual Seminar
Tuesday, August 5
Session 1: Dunmore’s Strategy and the Floating Town
Chair: Richard Buel, Wesleyan University
James Corbett David, College of William and Mary, “A Refugee’s Revolution: Lord Dunmore and the Floating Town, 1775-1776”
C. Thomas Long, George Washington University, “The British Royal Navy’s Green Water Revolution: Too Big, Too Late”
Session 2: Royalists: Wars of the Counterrevolution
Chair: Kenneth Andrien, The Ohio State University
Marcela Echeverri, New York University, “Popular Royalists, War, and Politics in Southwestern New Granada, 1808-1820”
Monica Ricketts, Long Island University, “The Institutional Foundations of Bourbon Military Success in Peru and Its Long-lasting Political Consequences”
Wednesday, August 6
Session 3: Civilians: War by Other Means
Chair: Bernard Bailyn, Harvard University
Caitlin Fitz, Yale University, “Newspaper Diplomacy in an Age of Revolution: South American Rebels and Royalists in the United States, 1816-1824”
Ruma Chopra, Oberlin College, “New Yorkers’ Vision of Reunion with the British Empire: ‘Quicken Others by our Example’”
Thursday, August 7
Session 4: The Wartime Advantages of Trade
Chair: Mark Szuchman, Florida International University
Fabricio Prado, Emory University, “Trans-Imperial Cooperation in the South Atlantic- Commerce and War in Rio de la Plata and Rio de Janeiro (1777-1805)”
Catia Brilli, Fondazione Einaudi, “The Napoleonic Wars and the Crisis of the Spanish Colonial Order, Premises for the Sardinian Participation in the Atlantic Trade”
Session 5: Buenos Aires as a Warrior State
Chair: Mark Szuchman, Florida International University
Alejandro Rabinovich, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, “Propagation of War and Social Change: The Constitution of a Warrior Society in the Rio de la Plata, from the British Invasions to the Independent State, 1806-1852”
Gabriel DiMeglio, University of Buenos Aires, “A Heavy Burden. The People of Buenos Aires and the Effects of Permanent War During the Independence Period in Southwest Atlantic, 1806- 1828”
Friday, August 8
Session 6: The Rewards of Service: South Carolina and the Highlands
Chair: Fred Anderson, University of Colorado at Boulder
Justin Liles, University of South Carolina, “Thomas Sumter's Law: Race and Slavery in the Carolina Backcountry During the Era of the American Revolution”
Matthew Dziennik, University of Edinburgh, “‘200 acres of free ground:' The Highland Soldier in a Transatlantic Context, 1754-1783”
Lecture
Fred Anderson, University of Colorado at Boulder
“Fitting War into the Story: Thinking about Narrative in Colonial American and Atlantic History”
Saturday, August 9
Session 7: Strategic Struggles for the Interior: French and Indian, American and British
Chair: Fred Anderson, University of Colorado at Boulder
Christian Crouch, Bard College, “Legitimate or Not? Contrasting Boundaries of Violence on the French Atlantic Frontier during Global War”
Kathleen Warnes, Grand Valley State University – Allendale, “Backwater River and British Bluster: America wins the Arms Race on the Detroit River”
Monday, August 11
Session 8: Codes of Conduct: Manliness and Honor
Chair: Geoffrey Plank, University of Cincinnati
Karen Thomas, Cornell University, “In Disagreeable Company: Bad Men in New England's Armies During the Seven Years’ War”
Scott Hendrix, Cuyahoga Community College, “Upright Men who Entered for Steady Advancement: The Centrality of Military Honor and Reputation for Mid-Eighteenth-Century British Army Officers”
Session 9: Piracy and Captivity
Chair: Kris Lane, College of William and Mary
Steven Tobias, University of California, Los Angeles, “Calculating Pain, Imagining Secular History in Barbary”
Mark Hanna, University of California, San Diego, “‘Upon Feign’d Trials:’ Pirates Before the Bar in Newport, Rhode Island and Charles Town, South Carolina 1680-1700”
Tuesday, August 12
Session 10: Brigands and Privateers: Warfare in the Caribbean
Chair: Kris Lane, College of William and Mary
Nadine Hunt, York University, “Privateers and Merchants: Legitimizing the Caribbean trade of Jamaica during the Seven Year’ War”
Jane Seiter, University of Bristol, “The Brigands’ War of 1794-1798: A Landscape of Warfare in the Eastern Caribbean”
Wednesday, August 13
Session 11: Napoleon and Washington
Chair: William O’Reilly, University of Cambridge
Matthew Flynn, University of Arizona, “The Thin Line: George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleonic Warfare in the Atlantic World”
Session 12: Concluding Session