Exiled from America: Harvard Historian To Discuss Revolutionary War Loyalists

CHESTERTOWN, MD—History, as we know, is most often told by the victors. But the vanquished have stories of their own. In a March 23 presentation at Washington College, Harvard University historian Maya Jasanoff will reveal some of these stories, tracing the experiences of Americans loyal to the British crown and their forced exodus at the end of the American Revolution.

Jasanoff's talk, "Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World," will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Litrenta Lecture Hall, John S. Toll Science Center on the College campus, 300 Washington Avenue. Sponsored by the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, the program is free and open to the public. A book signing will follow the talk.

Released just last month by Alfred A. Knopf, Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World has already been lauded far and wide as a masterpiece, upending past assumptions about the aftermath of the American Revolution.

"Losers seldom get to write history, but the American loyalists have at last got their historian with Maya Jasanoff," said historian Joseph J. Ellis, while Sean Wilentz noted that her "stunning reinterpretation … affirms her place as one of the very finest historians of the rising generation." British historian William Dalrymple agreed, calling Jasanoff "not just a very good writer, an indefatigable researcher, and a fine historian," but "also a bit of a genius."

When the British army evacuated the United States in 1783, thousands of American loyalists followed in its wake. Their numbers included wealthy white landowners, Mohawk Indians, and formerly enslaved blacks who had won their freedom aiding the British. Having cast their lot with the losing side, they fanned out from the newly-independent United States, seeking a future elsewhere in the British Empire. Some sailed to Britain itself, others to Canada, the Bahamas and the West Indies; still others journeyed even further, to India and Africa.

"This voyage into exile was a trip into the unknown..." Jasanoff writes. "For them, America seemed less 'an Assylum to the persecuted' than a potential persecutor." Yet wherever they went, Jasanoff argues, the American loyalists carried with them some startlingly "American" ideas. Transmitted around the world, these revolutionary legacies helped to redefine the British Empire.

"As revolutions ripple across the Middle East, we can't help but notice how small our world is," said Adam Goodheart, Hodson Trust-Griswold Director of the C.V. Starr Center. "Maya Jasanoff's fascinating book reminds us this isn't a completely new phenomenon. The world was a pretty small place even in 1783."

Maya Jasanoff is John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University, where she teaches courses on modern Britain and the British Empire. She has recently held fellowships at the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress, and the American Council of Learned Societies. Her first book, Edge of Empire: Lives, Culture, and Conquest in the East, 1750-1850 (Knopf, 2005), won the Duff Cooper Prize.

Founded in 1782 under the patronage of George Washington, Washington College is a private, independent college of liberal arts and sciences located in colonial Chestertown on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Based in the Custom House along the colonial waterfront, the College's C.V. Starr Center fosters the art of written history and explores our nation's past—particularly the legacy of its Founding era—in innovative ways, through educational programs, scholarship and public outreach. For more information on the Center, visit http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu.

Pox Americana: Addressing the Strategic and Historical Role of Small Pox During the American War for Independence

Chestertown, MD, January 10, 2002 — The C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington College presents POX AMERICA: THE GREAT SMALL POX EPIDEMIC OF 1775-1782, a lecture by Professor Elizabeth Anne Fenn of George Washington University, on Wednesday, February 6, 2002 at 7:30 p.m. in the College's Hynson Lounge. The event is free and the public is invited to attend.

Professor Fenn's newly published book "Pox Americana" discusses an oft-overlooked aspect of the American Revolution, one that oddly parallels our own contemporary concerns about bio-terrorism: the connection between the scourge of smallpox and the conduct and outcome of the war. The living conditions of soldiers during the Revolution lead to an outbreak of smallpox in 1775, and George Washington ended an outbreak in the North by inoculating American soldiers, perhaps, according to Fenn preventing an early defeat by the British who had increased immunity to smallpox from more frequent European outbreaks. Despite General Washington's efforts, the disease spread in the South, and, as the war ended, increased contact between populations spread the disease as far as Mexico and the Pacific Northwest.

Fenn traces the disease's effect on the North American balance of power in the late 18th Century—the strategic, cultural and historical consequences of disease that might have helped to pave the way for the United States' hegemony over North America. Fenn brings detail to the subject through diaries, letters, presidential papers, and church and burial records that document first-hand the spread of the disease.

The C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington College opened in Fall 2001 to encourage the broad study of American history and culture and the ways we give daily new meaning to what George Washington called "the great experiment." In keeping with the special history and character of Washington College, the Center focuses on the nation's founding moment, ideals and experiences by highlighting contemporary scholarship and research in these areas. For more information, call 410-810-7156.

Why Robert Carter Freed His Slaves: Talk to Address Misunderstood American Revolutionary

Chestertown, MD, October 22, 2001 — The C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington College presents "Forgetting Robert Carter: A Secret History of the American Revolution," a talk by Professor Andrew Levy of Butler University, at 4 p.m., Friday, October 26, 2001, at the College's Custom House on the corner of High and Water Streets, Chestertown. The event is free and the public is invited to attend. A reception will follow the talk.

Robert Carter III was one of the wealthiest and most powerful Virginians at the dawn of the American Revolution and distinguished himself by organizing the largest manumission of slaves in antebellum America. But Carter's motives have been ignored by historians and the place he holds among his fellow revolutionary Virginians has been largely a mystery. According to Professor Levy's recent article in the Spring 2001 issue of The American Scholar: "In the long history of antebellum America, no one else, while living, freed that many slaves; no one even came close. No one walked away from slaveholding and slavery with as much to lose." So why does Carter remain relatively unknown to students and experts of American history? Professor Levy's talk will address this question.

Andrew Levy is the Cooper Professor of English at Butler University in Indianapolis, IN, where he teaches American literature and creative writing and directs the Butler University Writer's Studio. Professor Levy is the author of "The Culture and Commerce of the American Short Story" (Cambridge University Press, 1993), co-author of the creative writing textbook "Creating Fiction" (Harcourt Brace, 1997), and co-editor of "Postmodern American Fiction: A Norton Anthology" (Norton, 1997). His articles have appeared in The American Scholar, Harper's, Dissent, and the Chicago Tribune.