Cynthia D Johnson: Courting Rebellion, Gebunden

Klappentext

Between 1772 and 1774, a series of increasingly brazen incidents unfolded in colonial New England: the Pine Tree Riot over the King's protected timber (1772); the attack on HMS Gaspee , in which its commander was shot, its crew captured, and the vessel burned (1772); and the raid on Fort William and Mary, where colonists seized the Crown's gunpowder and arms (1774). Despite arrests, investigations, depositions, and rewards offered by British officials, meaningful judicial consequences failed to materialize. Cynthia D. Johnson's Courting Rebellion: Colonial Justice, Riot, and the Road to the American Revolution examines how the failure of colonial courts to adjudicate these cases contributed to the erosion of royal authority in New Hampshire and Rhode Island and helped lead to open conflict.

Dr. Johnson draws on scores of archival sources, including court documents, depositions, journals, newspapers, and contemporary accounts by royal and colonial officials, to trace the legal aftermath of these momentous episodes in our country's history. Her work uncovers a complex network of lawyers and resistance leaders bound by family connections and community alliances that shaped the course of these actions. As case after case stalled or failed to produce real punishment, colonists faced ever fewer legal penalties for ever-bolder acts of defiance. Each successive undertaking carried greater risk--and greater potential reward--for those challenging the Crown's authority.

Courting Rebellion also finds Paul Revere in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in December 1774, months before his famous April 1775 ride. There, his warning of impending British military action, which prompted the raid on Fort William and Mary, offered yet one more sign of just how rapidly tensions were escalating in New England.

The legal and political circumstances that paved the road to open rebellion are an often-overlooked dimension of our colonial history. Original, deeply researched, and judiciously written, Courting Rebellion fills a significant gap in the Revolutionary War literature.