Polasky - Revolutions without borders : the call to liberty in the Atlantic world

Published with assistance from the foundation established in memory of Amasa Stone Mather of the Class of 1907, Yale College.

Published with assistance from the Annie Burr Lewis Fund.

Endpapers map courtesy of Yale Sterling Memorial Library Map Collection.

Copyright 2015 by Yale University.

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2014030322

ISBN 978-0-300-20894-8 (cloth : alk. paper)

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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

FOR MY ADVISERS ,

Professors Carl Weiner,

Carleton College,

and the late

Gordon Wright,

Stanford University,

border crossers who challenged their students to venture forth in new directions

Contents

Illustrations

MAPS

The Atlantic World

Inset from Nautical Map Intended for the Use of Colonial Undertakings on the W. Coast of Africa, from Carl Wadstrm, An Essay on Colonization

Map of the West Indies, 1760, by Thomas Jefferys

Europe, 1789

Europe, 1799

FIGURES

Louis Sebastien Mercier, Lan deux mille quatre cent-quarante: rve sil en ft jamais, frontispiece

Portrait of Thomas Paine from the original by Charles Wilson Peale

Portrait of Joan Derk van der Capellen by Louis Jacques Cathelin

Satirical print from the Brabant Revolution, Les Biens dautruy ne disiras pour les avoir injustement

A page from Elkanah Watsons journal, September 1779

Portrait of Helen Maria Williams published by Dean and Munday

Frontispiece and title page from Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano

A View of Sierra Leone in 1787, from John Matthews, Voyage la Rivire de Sierra-Leone

Front page from Rvolutions de Paris, 27 November to 4 December 1790

Print depicting Jacobin meeting in Paris, January 1792

Engraving, Rvolte des Ngres St. Domingue, by G. Jacowick

Print of Betje Wolffs garden and library at Lommerlust

Portrait of Mary Wollstonecraft based on painting by John Opie

Miniature of Nancy Shippen Livingston, [Benjamin Trott]

Letter from Amrica Francs Saint John de Crvecoeur Otto to her husband Louis Otto, 11 October 1798

Decree of the French National Convention, 19 November 1792

Dramatis Personae

ADAMS, JOHN. American revolutionary and founding father who spent time engaged in diplomatic service in Europe.

AELDERS, ETTA PALM D. Born in the United Provinces, she traveled to the center of revolutionary politics in Paris, where she established the first womens club.

BARB-MARBOIS, FRANOIS, MARQUIS DE. French consul in Philadelphia who did not fare well in the Caribbean.

BARLOW, JOEL AND RUTH. Connecticut poetturnedEuropean businessman, and his wife, who shared his correspondence.

BARTHLEMY, FRANOIS. French diplomat with experience in Stockholm, Vienna, and London, who accepted a post as minister plenipotentiary to the Swiss cantons.

BELLEY, JEAN-BAPTISTE. Former slave who sailed with the tricolor delegation from Saint-Domingue to France by way of the United States.

BICKER, JAN. Dutch banker who fled the United Provinces with his family when the Prussians invaded.

BRISSOT, JACQUES-PIERRE. French lawyer, pamphleteer, journalist, outspoken abolitionist, and revolutionary. Author of The Philadelphian in Geneva, he witnessed three revolutions.

CAPELLEN TOT DEN POL, JOAN DERK VAN DER. Dutch aristocrat, revolutionary, and author of the 1782 pamphlet An Address to the People of the Netherlands.

CARTWRIGHT, JOHN. Prominent British supporter of the American revolutionaries who led the Society for Constitutional Information.

CRISIER, ANTOINE. French-born Dutch journalist whose pen erected a monument to the American cause more glorious and more durable than brass or marble, in the words of John Adams.

CLARKSON, JOHN. Recruited from the navy to accompany black loyalists from Nova Scotia to Sierra Leone, where he served as their governor.

CLARKSON, THOMAS. Leading British abolitionist, who traveled to Paris on mission to invigorate the sparsely attended Society of the Friends of Blacks.

CLAVIRE, TIENNE. Wealthy banker and senior statesman of the Genevan Revolution who joined Mirabeaus workshop and collaborated with Brissot in Paris.

CLOOTS, [JEAN-BAPTISTE] ANARCHARSIS. Prussian-born Dutch aristocrat and self-proclaimed orator of humanity who died by the guillotine in France.

COBBETT, WILLIAM. Federalist editor of Porcupines Gazette, which condemned the Jacobins in France and the Republicans in America.

CONDORCET, NICOLAS DE. French philosopher and author of Letters of a Citizen of the United States to a Frenchman.

CRVECOEUR [OTTO], AMRICA FRANCS DE. Daughter of Saint John de Crvecoeur, she married Louis Otto and moved to Europe.

CRVECOEUR, SAINT JOHN DE. Son of a French nobleman who fought for the British in Canada and defined his identity during the American Revolution as a New York farmer in the widely read Letters from an American Farmer.

CUGOANO, QUOBNA OTTOBAH. Abducted from a Fante village, he published a blistering attack on the slave trade.

DAWES, WILLIAM. Former governor of penal colony of Botany Bay, who replaced John Clarkson in command of Sierra Leone.

DEKEN, AAGJE. Dutch writer and Betje Wolffs partner and collaborator.

DESMOULINS, CAMILLE. Editor of Rvolutions de France et de Brabant, who was sent to the guillotine by his friend Robespierre.

DUMAS, CHARLES. Frenchman born in a German principality who yearned to represent the newly independent Americans in the United (Dutch) Provinces.

DUMONT, TIENNE. Genevan revolutionary who took exile in Saint Petersburg and London before settling outside of Paris and joining Mirabeaus circle.

DUMOURIEZ, CHARLES. Girondin general and French foreign minister who led troops into the Austrian Netherlands and the United Provinces before falling from favor.

EQUIANO, OLAUDAH. Former slave who purchased his freedom and led the poor blacks of London. He wrote the influential Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa the African, recounting his travels back and forth across the Atlantic.

FALCONBRIDGE ANNA MARIA. Traveled to Sierra Leone with her new husband as the first European woman to chronicle her adventures among the settlers of West Africa.

FRSTER, GEORG. Chronicled voyage with Captain Cook and subsequent travels through revolutionary Europe. He founded the Jacobin Club in Mainz.

FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN. American printer, diplomat, and inventor, he came to represent America to the French.

GEORGE, DAVID. Escaped his Virginia master and founded the first black Baptist church in America before emigrating to Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone.