UMD Theses and Dissertations
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Item CHAOS AND CONSPIRACY: THE HAGERSTOWN DRAFT RIOTS AND THE WHISKEY REBELLION(2024) Lowery, Kourtney Renea; Brewer, Holly; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)ABSTRACT Title of Thesis: CHAOS AND CONSPIRACY: THE HAGERSTOWN DRAFT RIOTS AND THE WHISKEY REBELLION Kourtney Renea Lowery, Master of Arts, 2024 Thesis Directed By: Professor Holly Brewer, Department of History This thesis explores the events of Washington County, MD in September 1794 to re-establish the significance of the Hagerstown Riots and their connection to the Whiskey Rebellion in Pittsburgh as well as to broader revolutionary ideals. The riots were a localized event in which the militia openly disobeyed orders. Citizens soldiers used militarized force to display their opposition to the excise tax and militia draft. Residents and many local leaders also opposed these measures and favored a progressive political and economic system. The Hagerstown Riots are an important microhistory and look at early American rebellion, protestors, and redress of grievances. The protestors at the Hagerstown Riots were angry with the excise tax and economic and political policies that the federal government created policies that were antiquated and unfairly administered. Hamilton’s taxation scheme was modeled on a British taxation system which colonials had fought against. They viewed these policies as created by elites in the federal government. State governments and officials, meanwhile were becoming more egalitarian in places like Maryland, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. Washington County, Maryland showcases these frustrations and changes by retracing the dynamics of the rioters, officials, and militia. It also seeks to resolve why this event has been forgotten. The riots decenter the Whiskey Rebellion from an isolated large uprising in Pennsylvania to a broad movement that includes local events such as the Hagerstown riots, and that started before the American Revolution.Item "The Mobs All Cryd Peace With America": The Gordon Riots and Revolution in England and America(2023) Michalak, Lauren K; Brewer, Holly; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In June 1780, London was brought to its knees by a week-long insurrection. Rioters broke open and set ablaze nearly all of London’s prisons, ransacked and burned the properties of government officials, and attacked the Bank of England. The riots were in response to the British government’s rejection of a mass petition demanding the repeal of a 1778 law granting rights to Catholic subjects to encourage enlistment in the military to fight in the American Revolutionary War. The rioters’ reaction to the rejected petition reflected broader, transatlantic concerns about government operating without the consent of the governed, echoing grievances raised by American colonists prior to their declaring independence. To regain control over London, George III ordered 15,000 troops into the city, commanding them to bypass the necessary approval of civil magistrates and fire-at-will, hence abandoning legal restrictions on his power. After the insurrection was over, American Patriots and Loyalists deliberated at length over their meaning; many Britons, in turn, blamed the riots on dangerous ideologies and American conspirators. This dissertation explores how the June 1780 riots demonstrate the connections between the American Revolution and wider struggles across the British empire. While building on scholarship of the riots, British politics, and the American Revolution, I argue that these riots brought the American rebellion home to British soil, posing a significant challenge to the stability of the British nation and empire. I examine how the riots gave rise to rumors about the true culprit behind the uprising, with different groups laying blame at the feet of Catholics or Methodists, or as a plot of the British Ministry or the Americans and French. I interrogate how Patriots and Loyalists utilized the riots to reaffirm commitment to their political ideologies. I explore how news of the insurrection influenced delicate diplomatic negotiations amidst an imperial war. By investigating the myriad connections between the London riots and the American Revolution, I show how power was contested on both sides of the Atlantic and how ideas and information spread and shaped political ideology. In doing so, I argue that the London riots were a crucial event during the American Revolution.Item "A Decent External Sorrow": Death, Mourning, and the American Revolution(2022) Dye, Dusty Marie; Bell, Richard; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation argues that the study of eighteenth-century deathways provide important perspectives on the lives and experiences of those who lived through the colonial era, the Imperial Crisis, the American Revolution, and the early national period. Beginning with a broad survey of funereal culture in colonial America, it shows that individuals used their mourning customs to make public and private statements about a variety of topics ranging from proper social relationships to intimate matters of religious conviction and personal feelings. It also demonstrates that, as Americans faced the numerous challenges and changes of the eighteenth century, they adapted their funeral customs to suit new circumstances and worldviews. Thus, as tensions arose between Great Britain and its North American colonies over issues of Parliamentary policy, American protestors expressed their discontent by staging mock funerals and executions of government officials. At the same time, they boycotted imported mourning accessories in an attempt, not only to put economic pressure on Britain, but also to demonstrate a willingness to sacrifice public status and private comfort to preserve colonial liberties. When American resistance to British rule broke out into armed conflict, wartime disruptions to burial customs required further changes and new understandings of funeral rites. By both tradition and official regulations, differences in military rank usually served as the most important consideration in soldiers’ funerals. However, strict separation between officers and the rank-and-file, and sometimes even broader conventions of “decent” burials, were often subject to the vagaries of war. When casualties were high, or when armies had to move quickly, the disposal of the dead took second place to the imperatives of military strategy. Similarly, the crowded and unsanitary conditions of hospitals and wartime prisons often led to perfunctory or even indecent interments as burial parties struggled to deal with high mortality rates and the callousness of enemy captors. These significant departures from traditional funeral rites often distressed soldiers as they witnessed the deaths of their friends, neighbors, and comrades. Many tried to provide whatever final respects they could to the fallen, even as official rhetoric encouraged them to believe that the approbation of God and country would serve as ample reward for patriots’ sacrifice. In the years after the war, funereal culture became one arena in which Americans attempted to work out the meaning of the ideals that had underpinned the War for Independence. As many began to look forward to the return of traditional mourning practices, the growth of religious freedom and promises of liberty and natural equality encouraged individuals to use their funeral customs to communicate new denominational alliances and to challenge older ideas about social hierarchies. These changes encouraged churches to adapt their approach to the final services that they offered, prompted merchants to return to offering a wide array of mourning accessories, and encouraged the growth of the undertaking profession in America. At the same time, the fallen soldiers of the Revolution, as well as those who survived the conflict, presented special challenges as the nation attempted to grapple with the legacies of the war. Ultimately, the task of finally reconciling with the dead of the American Revolution would fall to later generations as they defined their own relationship to the nation’s founding conflict.Item Transatlantic Validation: American Interest and Interpretation of the Gordon Riots(2015) Michalak, Lauren Kathleen; Brewer, Holly; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This project examines American interest and interpretation of the 1780 London-based Gordon Riots during the American Revolution. Patriot and Loyalist newspapers and personal correspondence is reviewed and analyzed to demonstrate broad interest in the British domestic disturbance and usage of the riots and the government's response to affirm support for Americans' particular position on the war for independence. This interest and interpretation is confirmation of a continued transatlantic dialogue and spread of information post-signing of the Declaration of Independence, and recovers an instance of continued interconnectedness between the British and American publics that informed Patriots and Loyalists' identities and ideologies during the war.Item Difficulties in Loyalism After Independence: The Treatment of Loyalists and Nonjurors in Maryland, 1777-1784(2009) Nath, Kimberly; Ridgway, Whitman; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis examines the difficulties the Maryland legislature encountered with Loyalists and nonjurors after independence. It follows how the legislation passed by the Patriot controlled legislature was implemented from 1777 to 1784. The Maryland legislature first passed legislation to identify those not supporting the American Revolution, mainly the Loyalists and nonjurors. This thesis explores the identification process and then the punitive measures, such as British property confiscation and treble taxes, taken by the legislature. This thesis argues that Patriots succeeded in identifying Loyalists, but struggled to seize all British property and failed to generate vast amounts of revenue.Item An Enlightened American: The Political Ideology of Thomas Hutchinson on the Eve of the Revolutionary Crisis(2008-08-03) Duffy, Shannon Elaine; Olson, Alison G.; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation examines the political, social and philosophical views of Massachusetts' last royal governor, Thomas Hutchinson, as expressed in his 1764-1773 work, the History of Massachusetts-Bay. It is my contention that this work provides unique insights into the ideology of this important eighteenth century figure, and the values that would motivate him during the Revolutionary crisis. Years before the turmoil of the Revolutionary crisis began, Hutchinson had already given deep reflection to many of the same political and philosophical issues that would resurface in the imperial struggle. Hutchinson's historical work, written for both colonial and English audiences, provides significant insight into Hutchinson's political ideology and value system as that struggle opened. I will concentrate my analysis on Volume One, the part of Hutchinson's work written before 1765. This thesis will focus on three issues covered in the first volume: Massachusetts' struggle for religious orthodoxy in the seventeenth century, the colony's early Indian wars and relations with the Indians, and the colonists' century-long struggle with England over their original charter. My dissertation will demonstrate that Hutchinson's worldview was, no less than many of his adversaries in the Revolution Crisis, that of a man of the Enlightenment, and an American with both deep roots and great pride in his native land. Throughout Volume One of the History, Hutchinson stressed the importance of balanced government, the necessity of a just and impartial rule of law, the need for moderation and republican virtue in government, and the dangers of prejudice and popular passion. His views on a wide variety of issues grew, at least in part, out of his understanding of Massachusetts' colonial past, and his immersion in the literature of the American Enlightenment. These views were clearly revealed in the History, a work which has until now been under-utilized as a key into the man's ideology.