Model Empire, Lost City: Ancient Carthage and the Science of Politics in Revolutionary America
By Caroline Winterer
Ancient Carthage (ca. 804–146 BCE), mighty rival to Rome for supremacy in the ancient Mediterranean, is here restored to its important place in early modern British and revolutionary American political thought. Along with ancient Greece and Rome, Carthage supplied early British empire builders with an example of an enduring, stable republic that was also a profitable sea empire. Britons frequently summoned Carthage as an example as they founded colonies in the Atlantic. The ancient republic also captivated James Madison and John Adams in the 1780s as they sought a model for the new American Republic that was both politically stable and expansively commercial. Yet since most of its archaeological and literary remains had not survived, Carthage also exposed problems in the emerging idea that politics could be a science that rested on knowable facts and principles. How could politics claim to be empirical if its evidentiary base rested on examples such as Carthage, about which frustratingly little could be discovered? The article suggests that some of the epistemological dilemmas revealed by the case of Carthage in the Constitution-making period marked the beginning of a modern era in which political science turned away from antiquity and toward other sources of evidence.
Order and Authority in New Netherland: The 1653 Remonstrance and Early Settlement Politics
By Simon Middleton
Anglo-Dutch relationships inflected debates concerning order and authority in early New Netherland. The article focuses in particular on a remonstrance drawn up by English and Dutch settler representatives at a meeting convened at the height of the First Anglo-Dutch War, 1652–53, when the colony’s future as a West India Company colony looked uncertain. Tracing the earlier settlement (some may call it infiltration) of those who served as English representatives, the article investigates the role of key English figures in debates concerning the administration of this Dutch colony. Thereafter, and acknowledging the interpretive limits connections drawn between motives and the meaning of political arguments, the article evaluates the settlers’ arguments for what they indicate of a common European heritage and political language. It was this heritage and language of politics, invoking themes and experiences we might label civic-humanist, that allowed the settlers to construct the kind of alliance indicated by a 1653 remonstrance. Particularly noteworthy, and perhaps the reason that colonial governors such as Petrus Stuyvesant have enjoyed such unenviable historiographical reputations, is the stress the settlers placed on the relationship between the civility of officeholders—extending to words, manners, and disposition—and the legitimacy of their provincial authority.
The British Army, “Military Europe,” and the American War of Independence
By Stephen Conway
Recent British scholarship, reacting against the dominance of the Atlantic perspective, has sought to highlight the European orientation of the eighteenth-century British and Irish. This article emphasizes, and seeks to demonstrate, European consciousness in the British army employed to put down the American rebellion. The transfer of personnel, technology, ideas, and institutions among the different European armies, and their common commitment to the Eurocentric laws of war and a shared military etiquette, all helped to create the sense of a European occupational fraternity that transcended national distinctions. British and Irish military men were an integral part of this transnational soldierly society. The place of the British army in military Europe should matter to historians of the Revolution because it helps to explain why so many British officers and even common soldiers reacted so negatively to Americans in arms, both rebels and loyalists. The British army’s superciliousness, resented bitterly by many Americans, probably owed less to the contempt that metropolitan Britons had for provincials than to the feelings of superiority European professional soldiers felt for military amateurs.
Sources and Interpretations
Reassessing the “Sankofa Symbol” in New York’s African Burial Ground
By Erik R. Seeman
This article reconsiders the origins of a heart-shaped design made out of tacks on a coffin lid excavated in Manhattan’s African Burial Ground. Scholars have claimed that this design was a sankofa symbol of the Akan people of West Africa’s Gold Coast. But there is no evidence of the sankofa symbol in West African deathways before the twentieth century. Moreover archaeologists have found numerous examples of hearts made out of tacks on eighteenth-century Anglo-American coffin lids. The African Burial Ground heart, therefore, is most likely an Anglo-American mortuary emblem. Other grave goods unearthed from this cemetery, however, are undoubtedly of African origin. Considered as a whole, the material record of the African Burial Ground demonstrates the hybrid deathways that Africans created in eighteenth-century urban settings.
“Slideing into Monarchical Extravagance”: Cato at Valley Forge and the Testimony of William Bradford Jr.
By Mark Evans Bryan
In May 1778 officers of the encamped Continental army performed Joseph’s Addison’s tragedy for an audience that included George Washington. The author investigates the material circumstances of theatrical production in the cantonment, the position and predicament of theater during the period of the American Revolution, and the perspective of the only witness whose account is extant. Though traditional interpretations of the traces of this Cato have understood the performance as a reflection of the republican virtues of the play’s embattled hero, the evidence from a young William Bradford—who demonstrated a great enthusiasm for drama as well as a conservative interpretation of the article that enjoined theater production in the Continental Congress’s 1774 nonimportation accord—suggests that the play’s performance points instead to the aristocratic impulse of the striving subalterns in Washington’s army and the persistence of desire for proscribed imperial indulgences, even in the direst periods of privation in revolution.
"Kifungu cha kwanza cha kitabu ""Lost City: Ancient Carthage and the Science of Politics in Revolutionary America"" kilichoandikwa na Caroline Winterer, ni ""Kifungu cha kwanza cha kitabu cha Carthage.""" "Mwanzo wa karne ya 14 (mwaka wa 804-146 KK) alikuwa ""mshindani mkubwa wa Roma kwa ajili ya utawala katika Mediterania ya kale,"" na hapa alirudishwa mahali pake muhimu katika mawazo ya kisiasa ya mapema ya kisasa ya Uingereza na Marekani." Pamoja na Ugiriki na Roma ya kale, Carthage iliwapa wajenzi wa kwanza wa milki ya Uingereza mfano wa jamhuri ya kudumu, thabiti ambayo pia ilikuwa milki ya bahari yenye faida. Mara nyingi Waingereza walitaja Carthage kuwa kielelezo walipoanzisha makoloni katika Bahari ya Atlantiki. Jamhuri ya zamani pia iliwavutia James Madison na John Adams katika miaka ya 1780 wakati walipotafuta mfano wa Jamhuri mpya ya Amerika ambayo ilikuwa imara kisiasa na ya kibiashara. Hata hivyo, kwa kuwa mabaki yake mengi ya kiakiolojia na ya fasihi hayakuhifadhiwa, Carthage pia ilifunua matatizo katika wazo linaloibuka kwamba siasa inaweza kuwa sayansi ambayo ilitegemea ukweli na kanuni zinazoweza kujulikana. """Je, siasa inawezaje kudai kuwa ya kihistoria ikiwa msingi wake wa ushahidi unategemea mifano kama vile Carthage, ambayo kwa kusikitisha kidogo inaweza kugunduliwa?" Makala hiyo inadokeza kwamba baadhi ya matatizo ya epistemolojia yaliyotambuliwa na kesi ya Carthage katika kipindi cha kutengeneza Katiba iliashiria mwanzo wa enzi ya kisasa ambapo sayansi ya siasa iligeuka kutoka kwa kale na kuelekea vyanzo vingine vya ushahidi. "Kutoka kwa ""Utaratibu na Mamlaka katika New Netherland: The 1653 Remonstrance and Early Settlement Politics"" na Simon Middleton, uhusiano wa Uingereza na Uholanzi ulibadilisha mjadala kuhusu utaratibu na mamlaka katika New Netherland ya mapema." Makala hiyo inazungumzia hasa maandishi yaliyoandikwa na wawakilishi wa wahamiaji wa Uingereza na Uholanzi katika mkutano ulioandaliwa wakati wa Vita vya Kwanza vya Uingereza na Uholanzi, wakati wakati wa baadaye wa koloni kama koloni ya Kampuni ya West India ilionekana kuwa isiyo na uhakika. "Kuchunguza ""kuingia kwa Uingereza"" kwa wale waliotumikia kama wawakilishi wa Kiingereza, makala hiyo inachunguza jukumu la watu muhimu wa Kiingereza katika mjadala kuhusu utawala wa koloni hii ya Uholanzi." Baada ya hapo, na kutambua mipaka ya tafsiri ya uhusiano uliochorwa kati ya nia na maana ya hoja za kisiasa, makala inathamini hoja za wahamiaji kwa kile wanachokionyesha ya urithi wa kawaida wa Ulaya na lugha ya kisiasa. "Hiyo ilikuwa urithi na lugha ya siasa, ikitoa mandhari na uzoefu ambao tunaweza kuifananisha na ""civic-humanist,"" ambayo iliwawezesha wahamiaji kujenga aina ya muungano ulioonyeshwa na maandamano ya 1653." Jambo la pekee, na labda sababu kwamba magavana wa kikoloni kama vile Petrus Stuyvesant wamefurahia sifa za kihistoria zisizopendeza, ni mkazo ambao wahamiaji waliweka juu ya uhusiano kati ya adabu ya wamiliki wa ofisi - kupanua maneno, tabia, na tabia - na uhalali wa mamlaka yao ya mkoa. Jeshi la Uingereza, Ulaya ya Kijeshi, na Vita vya Uhuru wa Amerika - Stephen Conway, mwandishi wa The Atlantic, anasema kuwa Uingereza ilikuwa na nguvu kubwa katika kuimarisha uhusiano wa kiuchumi na Ulaya. Makala hii inasisitiza, na inatafuta kuonyesha, fahamu ya Ulaya katika jeshi la Uingereza lililotumiwa kukomesha uasi wa Marekani. Uhamisho wa wafanyakazi, teknolojia, mawazo na taasisi kati ya majeshi tofauti ya Ulaya, na kujitolea kwao kwa sheria za vita za Ulaya na adabu ya kijeshi ya pamoja, yote yalisaidia kuunda hisia ya udugu wa kazi ya Ulaya ambayo ilizidi tofauti za kitaifa. Wanajeshi wa Uingereza na Ireland walikuwa sehemu muhimu ya jamii hii ya wanajeshi wa kimataifa. "Kazi ya jeshi la Uingereza katika Ulaya ya kijeshi inapaswa kuwa muhimu kwa wanahistoria wa Mapinduzi kwa sababu inasaidia kuelezea kwa nini maafisa wengi wa Uingereza na hata askari wa kawaida waliitikia vibaya sana kwa Wamarekani katika silaha, waasi na waaminifu. """ Utukufu wa jeshi la Uingereza, uliopingwa na Wamarekani wengi, labda haukusababishwa sana na dharau ambayo Waingereza wa mji mkuu walikuwa nayo kwa wakazi wa mkoa kuliko kwa hisia za ubora ambazo askari wa kitaalamu wa Ulaya walihisi kwa wapenzi wa kijeshi. "Kutokana na ""Sankofa"" katika New York, Afrika Burial Ground, kwa Erik R. Seeman, makala hii inachunguza tena asili ya moyo-umbo muundo alifanya nje ya tacks juu ya shimo la kaburi kuchimbwa katika Manhattan ""African Burial Ground." Wasomi wamesema kwamba muundo huo ulikuwa ishara ya sankofa ya watu wa Akan wa Pwani ya Dhahabu ya Afrika Magharibi. Lakini hakuna uthibitisho wa ishara ya sankofa katika njia za kifo za Afrika Magharibi kabla ya karne ya ishirini. Isitoshe, wataalamu wa vitu vya kale wamepata mifano mingi ya mioyo iliyotengenezwa kwa misumari kwenye vifuniko vya masanduku ya maiti ya Waingereza na Wamarekani ya karne ya kumi na nane. Kwa hiyo, yaelekea moyo wa mahali pa mazishi ya Waafrika ni alama ya makaburi ya Uingereza na Marekani. Hata hivyo, vitu vingine vya makaburi vilivyopatikana katika makaburi hayo bila shaka ni vya asili ya Afrika. Kwa ujumla, rekodi ya vitu vya makaburi ya Kiafrika inaonyesha njia za mauti za mchanganyiko ambazo Waafrika waliunda katika mazingira ya mijini ya karne ya kumi na nane. "Kutembea katika Uchafu wa Mfalme: Cato katika Valley Forge na Ushuhuda wa William Bradford Jr. ""Kwa Mark Evans Bryan, Machi 1778 maafisa wa jeshi la Bara walifanya msiba wa Joseph Addison kwa watazamaji ambao ni pamoja na George Washington." Mwandishi anachunguza hali ya vifaa vya uzalishaji wa ukumbi wa michezo katika kambi, nafasi na shida ya ukumbi wa michezo wakati wa Mapinduzi ya Amerika, na mtazamo wa shahidi pekee ambaye akaunti yake imehifadhiwa. Ingawa tafsiri za jadi za alama za Cato zimeelewa utendaji kama tafakari ya sifa za jamhuri za shujaa wa mchezo, ushahidi kutoka kwa kijana William Bradford, ambaye alionyesha shauku kubwa kwa mchezo wa kuigiza, pamoja na tafsiri ya kihafidhina ya kifungu cha sheria ya kuagiza uzalishaji wa ukumbi wa michezo katika Mkataba wa Uagizaji wa 1774, inaonyesha kwamba utendaji wa mchezo huo unaonyesha badala yake msukumo wa theocratic wa wanajeshi wa Washington na kuendelea kwa tamaa ya kuachiliwa kwa majeshi ya kifalme.