American Sanctuary: Mutiny, Martyrdom, and National Identity

American Sanctuary: Mutiny, Martyrdom, and National Identity in the Age of Revolution

From â€œone of the most wide-ranging and imaginative historians in America today; there is no one else quite like him in the professionâ€ (Gordon S. Wood)â€”a dazzling and original work of history.Â

A. Roger Ekirchâ€™s American Sanctuary begins in 1797 with the bloodiest mutiny ever suffered by the Royal Navyâ€”on the British frigate HMS Hermione, four thousand miles from Englandâ€™s shores, off the western coast of Puerto Rico. In the midst of the most storied epoch in British seafaring history, the mutiny struck at the very heart of military authority and at Britainâ€™s hierarchical social order. Revolution was in the air: America had won its War of Independence, the French Revolution was still unfolding, and a ferocious rebellion loomed in Ireland, with countless dissidents already arrested.Â

Most of the Hermione mutineers had scattered throughout the North Atlantic; one of them, Jonathan Robbins, had made his way to American shores, and the British were asking for his extradition. Robbins let it be known that he was an American citizen from Danbury, Connecticut, and that he had been impressed into service by the British.Â

John Adams, the Federalist successor to Washington as president, in one of the most catastrophic blunders of his administration, sanctioned Robbinsâ€™s extradition, according to the terms of the Jay Treaty of 1794. Convicted of murder and piracy by a court-martial in Jamaica, Robbins was sentenced by the British to death, hauled up on the fore yardarm of the frigate Acasta, blindfolded with his hands tied behind his back, and hanged.Â

Adamsâ€™s miscalculation ignited a political firestorm, only to be fanned by news of Robbinsâ€™s execution without his constitutional rights of due process and trial by jury. Thomas Jefferson, then vice president and leader of the emergent Republican Party, said, â€œNo one circumstance since the establishment of our government has affected the popular mind more.â€ Congressional Republicans tried to censure Adams, and the Federalist majority, in a bitter blow to the president, were unable to muster a vote of confidence condoning Robbinsâ€™s surrender.Â

American Sanctuary brilliantly lays out in full detail the story of how the Robbins affair and the presidential campaign of 1800 inflamed the new nation and set in motion a constitutional crisis, resulting in Adamsâ€™s defeat and Jeffersonâ€™s election as the third president of the United States.Â

Ekirch writes that the aftershocks of Robbinsâ€™s martyrdom helped to shape the infant republicâ€™s identity in the way Americans envisioned themselves. We see how the Hermione crisis led directly to the countryâ€™s historic decision to grant political asylum to refugees from foreign governmentsâ€”a major achievement in fulfilling the resonant promise of American independence, as voiced by Tom Paine, to provide â€œan asylum for mankind

Country	USA
Author	A. Roger Ekirch
Binding	Kindle Edition
EISBN	9781101871737
Format	Kindle eBook
Label	Pantheon
Manufacturer	Pantheon
NumberOfPages	235
PublicationDate	2017-02-21
Publisher	Pantheon
ReleaseDate	2017-02-21
Studio	Pantheon

American Sanctuary: Mutiny, Martyrdom, and National Identity in the Age of Revolution

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