Review of The Last Slave Ship: The True Story of How Clotilda Was Found, Her Descendants, and an Extraordinary Reckoning, by Ben Raines

In 1860 the Clotilda brought the last known shipment of African slaves in U.S. history into Mobile Bay, well over fifty years after the practice had been outlawed by the federal government. The ship was scuttled north of Mobile after its human cargo offloaded. The passengers were eventually distributed to plantations in south and central Alabama owned by those with connections to the scheme. After emancipation a few of the survivors of the Clotilda’s harrowing journey formed a small community immediately north of downtown Mobile which came to be known as Africatown. Organically developing over the years and heavily influenced by the customs of the African homeland of its founders, Africatown was a unique entity, but one that was underserved, mired in poverty, and subject to some of the worst industrial pollution in the region in the years after its founders passed away. The incredible saga of the ship, its survivors, and the community they founded has long been of note to those with an interest in Gulf Coast history. Its details were first recorded at the turn of the twentieth century and have become the subject of serious investigation by a series of scholars beginning in the early 1900s. The finding of the remains of the ship in 2019 by journalist Ben Raines, though, has triggered an enthusiastic renewed interest in the story of Clotilda and Africatown unlike anything seen previous. His book, The Last Slave Ship, adds significantly to this historiography of the subject and points the way towards future developments in the story.

Raines’ account of the ordeal of Clotilda’s passengers, the people who schemed their purchase, and the community they founded, is a highly approachable and engrossing narrative delivered by an experienced journalist and author. Raines is an accomplished environmental reporter, a well-traveled guide of tours into the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, and author of the noted book Saving America’s Amazon. He brings a wealth of personal knowledge to the story he shares, which is highlighted by the fact that he discovered the remains of the ship in the murky waters north of Mobile in 2019. Indeed, a primary reason Raines’ book will be of interest to many readers will be his recounting of how the actual ship was found. The story of his dogged persistence in attempting to locate the ship was distributed far and wide long before its actual finding, as he misidentified a wreck prior to locating the actual ship and the story made headlines across the country at one point. From the experience Raines’ learned a lot that is important for local historians to know—namely that the stretch of river where the ship was founded is a veritable ship graveyard with numerous other stories awaiting discovery. But his success in finding the ship, conclusively documented as the Clotilda by a team of nationally-acclaimed maritime archaeologists, is just the beginning of the story Raines tells in The Last Slave Ship.

Raines connects with descendants of the Clotilda survivors and even includes accounts of his visit to their homeland in Africa in the book as he attempts to help readers make sense of how to understand the full arc of this incredible story. He recounts in detail the story of how the Clotilda made its infamous run, explaining the origins of the effort in a bet made by wealthy Mobile businessman Timothy Meaher. He chronicles the voyage by Captain William Foster and the transformation of the ship from a cargo vessel into a slave ship he oversaw as well as how it evaded British anti-slaving patrols en route to the coastal African kingdom of Dahomey, in present-day Benin. Once there Foster arranged for the purchase of 110 captives being held in the barracoons, or slave pens, by the powerful ruler of a coastal kingdom who terrorized area villages for generations. Those transported to America as slaves had been captured and sold as part of a longstanding international slave trade involving African chieftains, European middlemen, and New World buyers. Hence the fateful voyage of the Clotilda serves as a touchstone for a much broader human tragedy than its lone trip. At current, the ship stands as the only documented, intact, slave ship known to have made the infamous transatlantic voyage to America. Raines’ follows the trail of the Clotilda until it was scuttled and its occupants offloaded in the swampy environs of the lower Mobile-Tensaw Delta and eventually distributed to regional plantations.

Raines then turns his attention to the lives of the Clotilda captives after emancipation and focuses on how a small group of them attempted to form their own community in the 1860s.  Along the way readers learn the stories of such individuals as Cudjo Lewis, Sally “Redoshi” Smith, and Pollee Allen, as well as the physical and social structure of the close-knit community they founded. Raines explains their appreciation for their homeland and the way the values they were taught were kept with determination in the face of incredible odds. Raines explains some of the many challenges faced by the community over the years, ranging from poverty and lack of access to city services to environmental degradation wrought by its proximity to toxic industrial pollutants. Raines, who has worked for years as an environmental reporter, has a unique understanding of the continuing legacy of environmental pollution which has haunted the Africatown community over the years and this is an important part of the story he tells.

Raines makes much of the rich irony that lies in the fact that the descendants of Timonthy Meaher still own much of the land adjacent to where the ship was found and the community of Africatown itself. He details the difficulty with which the descendants of the enslavers and the enslaved have wrestled with their troubled but intertwined past, using their individual reconciliation, slow-coming and still incomplete, as a springboard to discussion of a larger reckoning with the tragic story the Clotilda represents and the story of triumph its survivors wrote in the years after their forced migration to Alabama. He is clearly optimistic about the future ability of locals and the broader public to come to terms with the story he tells, learn from it, and interpret it as an important but long-overlooked and critical chapter in both regional and national heritage. After reading this engaging book, one would have to be a cynic indeed to disagree that the possibility does exist. The Last Slave Ship is an important and timely book, well worth your time if you want to know more about the Clotilda story in the broadest sense.

JMB 

Review of Napoleon: Spirit of the Age: 1805-1810, by Michael Broers

Napoleon’s empire reached its zenith during the years 1805-1810.  During these years, he won his greatest military victories and France’s territorial grasp stretched across most of Europe. Underneath these successes, however, were signs that perhaps Napoleon’s aura of invincibility was fading. Author Michael Broers describes these years in the second of his three-volume analysis of the French emperor with Napoleon, The Spirit of the Age: 1805-1810.

Broers first volume, Napoleon, Solider of Destiny, charted the Corsican upstart from his birth through 1805. It was a solid accounting of the famed general, but lacked the excitement and drama that any narrative of Napoleon deserves. This second volume traces Napoleon’s expansion of his empire by concisely explaining the politics and intrigue of the era and also providing a much-more thrilling account of his military exploits, correcting a flaw in the author’s earlier volume.

Napoleon’s military campaigns are explained in great detail and with consummate skill. Broers starts with Napoleon’s defeat of the Austrian and Russian coalition with victories at Ulm and of course Austerlitz, still considered Napoleon’s greatest triumph. The author excels in not only describing the famed battle, but also with his narrative of the night before, a night Napoleon called one of the finest evenings of his life. From here, Broers goes on to describe Napoleon wrecking the once proud Prussian empire at Jena and Auerstadt. By 1806, Napoleon seemed invincible. It was around this time that German Philosopher Georg Wilhelm Freidrich Hagel described viewing Napoleon on horseback; a “wonderful sensation to see such an individual, who, concentrated here at a single point, astride a horse, reaches out over the world and masters it . . . The spirit of the age, who commands history.”  And with Austria and Prussia having been defeated, and being unable to reach the hated British, he set his sight on attacking the Russians. At this point, chinks in the armor first appeared.

The battle of Eylau, fought in a blizzard in February 1807, changed everything. Napoleon always sought a conclusive battle to force his opponent to the negotiating table, but here, he failed to achieve one. Russian forces abandoned the field but were not defeated. Broers describes how the slaughter was a major shock to Napoleon who was also forced to retreat to gather supplies. He wrote one of his marshals that “The Russians have done us great harm,” which was the truth hidden underneath the emperor’s vast propaganda machine. Napoleon was eventually able to secure a meaningful victory a few months later at Friedland which finally drove Czar Alexander to the famed meeting at Tilsit.

Napoleon dreamed of a Europe divided into two spheres of influence: French and Russian. He hoped these goals were fulfilled during the meetings at Tilsit with Alexander and temporarily, they were. For instance, the Czar agreed to participate in Napoleon’s continental blockade. With this peace with Russia, Napoleon hoped there could be peace for him to simply rule his empire. He would be mistaken, however, as new challenges and problems developed.

First of all, he failed to get matters under control on the Iberian Peninsula. Napoleon sought to overwhelm Britian’s ally Portugal and better enforce the blockade. To do so, he needed Spain brought under his heel. Spain rose up against him and his brother Jospeh who he put upon the throne. Napoleon had finally gone too far. The “Spanish Ulcer” would put a serious drain on Napoleon for the remainder of his rule. Next, the Austrians rose up again in 1809 and Napoleon suffered a rare loss at Aspern-Essling before winning at bloodbath at Wagram. Third, his placement of his family in key leadership positions failed as siblings such as Joseph (Spain) and Louis (Holland) failed to meet his expectations. Fourth, he completely broke with the Catholic Church in Rome, straining issues on the religious front. Next, he dismissed many of his long-term leaders such as Minister Charles Talleyrand and police head Joseph Fouché. And finally, he finally divorced his wife and confidante Josephine due to her inability to produce an heir. He wanted a Russian princess but had to settle for an Austrian one instead. 

Through nearly 500 pages of text, Broers weaves the reader between all these events in Napoleon’s life. His pace and narrative hold the reader in place as the reader becomes engaged with these crucial years of Napoleon’s reign. As the author recounts, Napoleon won his victories and expanded his empire, but at quite a cost. The Grande Armée had lost too many of its best soldiers and leaders and Napoleon’s siblings could never meet his expectations, severely damaging his chances of controlling Europe through his family dynasty. Napoleon desperately sought an heir who could inherit his empire, but would there be an empire left?  Britain remained a vigilant foe, eager to fund allied countries in their chance at revenge and Russia and Czar Alexander would never become a true ally.  Broers’s third volume awaits my reading, where I hope to see how he describes the emperor’s fall and the end of an empire.

CPW

Review of Madness Rules the Hour: Charleston, 1860 and the Mania for War, by Paul Starobin

Charleston, South Carolina has a rich past stretching back all the way to the 1600s and America’s early colonial era. No chapters in its long and storied saga, however, are more associated with the community’s history than its role in the secession of the Southern states and it serving as the backdrop to the opening shots of the Civil War. Indelible turning points in the nation’s past, they still resonate today as some of the most impactful events on the course of our nation’s development to occur in any American city. In Madness Rules the Hour, journalist Paul Starobin presents a month-by-month account of the pivotal year of 1860 which culminated with South Carolina’s decision of December 20, 1860 to leave the union in a gathering at Charleston’s Institute Hall. I recently had an opportunity to listen to an audiobook version of the title, originally released in 2017.

Starobin’s steady, well-paced narrative explores why the South Carolina coastal city became a home for disunion sentiment and how the movement towards secession slowly gained momentum there. Particularly reliant on the institution of slavery for the production of the cotton exports which funded city government and provided income for the region’s elite, white Charlestonians were especially concerned with any developments that might curtail the labor system. The city was home to one of the largest concentrations of wealth in the South, and those who made their fortunes in cotton saw in any threat to slavery an implicit danger to their financial future. So, too, did middle and lower class white residents, who viewed any restrictions on slavery as restrictions on their own opportunity for economic advancement. With the possibility that a Republican might win the presidency, the tone and tenor of arguments for Southern independence—which had been bandied about for a decade previous with varying degrees of seriousness—increased in volume and urgency in Charleston.

Charleston and the state of South Carolina had a bit more experience with defiance of the federal government than many Southern regions by 1860. The state had single-handedly dared the president to enforce a hated tariff in the early 1830s, only backing down at the last moment when cooler heads prevailed. Yet the spark of disunion had been kindled, and it would burst into flames on occasion over the next quarter century at different points when attempts to control the spread of slavery gained traction in the nation’s capital.

In truth only a vocal minority actually believed that leaving the union would solve the region’s perceived problems, but it would have been hard to discern that in 1860. Powerful community leaders and vocal politicians steadily whipped listeners and readers into a frenzy over the course of the year, using such partisan newspapers at the Mercury as a mouthpiece and dominating discourse on the topic. Those who had reservations about the wisdom of secession learned to keep quiet in the emotional environment, and common sense seemed to be temporarily suspended. A potent mix of fearmongering, overconfidence, and persuasion combined to make disunion, with or without the full support of other slave-holding Southern states, seem a viable remedy for longstanding grievances.

The drama the book presents is punctuated by the Democratic Party convention held in the city in the spring of 1860, the event around which the entire story pivots. Hosting the nominating convention there was originally viewed as a way to mollify right-wing party members in the South who felt they no longer had a voice in the party platform. But in the end southern fire-eaters, with South Carolina politicians in the vanguard, determined to go their own way and break off from the party. The decision virtually guaranteed a victory in the presidential election by a sectional candidate. But the possibility seemed to only bolster the commitment to the dream of an independent South, as advocates of secession viewed such a result to be the final proof of designs to subjugate and ruin the region. Hence the election of Abraham Lincoln was less a shock than the expected end to an extended crisis.

Starobin guides readers through the story of how the idea of secession grew in popularity after the convention in an escalating drama which reaches a crescendo with the secession convention of December 1860. Numerous forgotten individuals, many largely unknown, are brought to light by the author, and the reverence many of them had for the eminent statesman from a previous generation, John C. Calhoun, is revealed. Along the way, readers get a better understanding of life in the town during the era for both its white and black residents. The book helps provide greater context and depth to South Carolina’s decision to leave the union than any account I have previously read, providing the complete backstory to a landmark event. It does not, thankfully, ever become bogged down in too much detail on any individual person or event. If there is any one thing I took away from Starobin’s account of the events leading to South Carolina’s secession, it is probably that it is a historical study in group dynamics, revealing how an action widely considered rash and ill-advised came to be viewed as the only rational response to political setbacks in a remarkably short period of time. Considering the tumult and dysfunction in our government today, that history lesson seems especially timely. If you have an interest in learning why and how secession occurred as it did, you will enjoy this book.

JMB

Review of Christopher C. Meyers, ed., The Empire State of the South: Georgia History in Documents and Essays (ed. by Christopher C. Meyers) The Old South: A Brief History with Documents (David Williams) and Georgia: A Brief History (Christopher C. Meyers and David Williams)

The following review appeared in the Fall, 2023 issue of Muscogiana

Mercer University Press is a fabulous academic publisher well known for punching above its weight, especially on topics related to Georgia history. We have been fortunate to review several of the Press’s titles touching on Columbus-area heritage over the past few years. Recently I received three of Mercer Press’s books for review in this space which have a broader focus—two statewide and one of the larger region of which it is a part. While all were originally released several years ago, I thought they nonetheless merited mention in this journal both as landmarks in state historiography and for their particular usefulness to the large number of researchers among our readership.

The Empire State of the South: Georgia History in Documents and Essays, was originally published in 2008 but is now in its fifth printing and has come to be recognized as an essential volume on state history. Compiled and edited by Christopher Meyers, professor of history at Valdosta State University, the book is a collection of nearly 130 edited original documents fundamental to Georgia history, ranging from speeches and constitutions to campaign songs. The documents are arranged in chronological order within each of sixteen chapters which cover the state’s past by era. Each chapter is introduced by a short introductory essay on the period of focus. Following the presentation of the featured documents—many of which are heavily redacted so as to showcase only the most essential portions—two in-depth essays by noted scholars of the given period are offered. These elaborate on key aspects of the period under study as revealed in individual circumstances selected for their representativeness. The scope is necessarily incredibly wide-ranging, including compacts made by Europeans with Native Americans, public opinion during the American Revolution, pivotal documents associated with secession and the Civil War, unrest during Reconstruction, major issues during the world wars, and the turmoil associated with the Civil Rights Movement. All of this is followed up with a variety of other reference materials, such as population tables illustrating the growth of the state over the years, a list of governors of the state, counties with date of organization, and official state symbols. A short assortment of images and maps iconic to Georgia history precedes the entire collection. By any measure, the book is a comprehensive collection of information that will be invaluable to researchers.

A similar Mercer University Press book, The Old South: A Brief History with Documents, focuses on a more specific period of time but encompasses a much larger geographic area. Longtime professor David Williams, author of more than ten books on state and regional history and possessing some expertise in Chattahoochee Valley history, edited the volume. It first appeared in 2014 and remains in print. Similar to Empire State, the heart of the book is a collection of a variety of original documents which illustrate major themes in several historical eras. As the book’s subject is the “Old South,” periods receiving attention range from the era of European exploration and first colonial settlements up to the Civil War. The South as a whole is included, but Georgia receives its fair share of attention in the volume. Each chapter is introduced by thorough essay on the era under discussion and its importance in regional history, and is followed by ten to fifteen documents which together tell a story of the human experience in that particular time period. A comprehensive bibliography with suggestions for further reading concludes each chapter.

The editors of the above volumes, Meyers and Williams, have also collaborated on a popular and widely acclaimed history of Georgia (Georgia: A Brief History, originally published in 2012) which has been published as a second “expanded and updated” edition by Mercer in the spring of 2023. A standard reference source on the state’s past by a variety of educational institutions for over a decade this revised version of the title contains only slight modifications to the original publication. Notably, this includes information on recent events such as the COVID epidemic and its impact on life in the state.

Given the book’s widespread acceptance as a reference text, one might easily assume that it is a dry, heavily subdivided textbook and not the story-driven narrative that it is in actuality. Meyers and Williams exhibit both their deep grasp of Georgia history and innate ability to weave a compelling story in the pages of A Brief History, moving from era to era with ease while demonstrating pace and purpose without being melodramatic. The state’s history unfolds as a cohesive, connected tale of human experience in their capable hands. This does not mean, however, that every subject or time period receives precisely the same amount of attention.         

A Brief History is exactly what the title implies: an introductory summary of Georgia history and not a definitive academic treatise. Though a serious study by respected professors, the book contains no footnotes, instead featuring lists of essential books consulted in the writing of each chapter. Per their prerogative, depending on their depth of knowledge and interests, the authors take deeper dives into some subjects than others—their discussion of the development of the colony of Georgia and its role in the American Revolution is a particularly well developed summary, for example, while the chapter focusing on secession and Civil War features much less discussion of the actual military aspects of the war than one might expect yet provides one of the better synopses of the war experience on the home front to be found in print. A small selection of supplementary materials, such as a series of maps, charts, and graphs illustrating important trends in the state’s past, a listing of all of its governors, and data on population by census, is included.

All three books are excellent reference resources on their subjects. All are well deserving of your consideration if you have an interest in gaining a better understanding of Georgia history or are conducting any research in the state or wider region’s past.

JMB

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Review of Napoleon, Soldier of Destiny, by Michael Broers

Few people throughout history rose from such humble beginnings to unbelievable heights as Napoleon Bonaparte. Countless biographies line the bookshelves of libraries worldwide relating the rise of an unknown Corsican to become emperor of the French Empire. Author Michael Broers is the latest to tackle this subject in his first volume (of three) with Napoleon, Soldier of Destiny which covers the famed general’s life from his birth through 1805.

Broers, who has written several books on the age of Napoleon, has utilized previously unused sources, including the still-emerging Napoléon Bonaparte, Correspondance Générale which is being compiled by the Foundation Napoléon in Paris. Napoleon’s story is an exciting tale of intrigue, empire and iconic moments. Does Broers’s version capture that excitement?

Napoleon’s origin story is well known. Born in Corsica, he was eventually educated in France and would have probably lived an uneventful life in obscurity had not the Revolution opened doors for those not in the established order. He gained early fame with military success at Toulon and eventually gained command of the Army of Italy. His experience and victories during this time taught him how to lead an army and his creation of the Cisalpine Republic, a sister republic of France created from Italian regions, gave him his first opportunity at nation-building. Broers calls this time period (May 1796-November 1797) the most complex point in Napoleon’s history. His use of amalgame (working for the regime alongside former enemies) and ralliement (passive acceptance of regime) to forge his empire are first displayed here and is greatly emphasized by the author.

Of course, his romance with Josephine is also discussed and Broers holds nothing back in his attacks on Napoleon’s paramour. Throughout the entire narrative, Broers criticizes her unfaithfulness and lack of respect towards Napoleon and calls that marriage Napoleon’s greatest mistake. One wonders how Napoleon’s life might have gone had he not gotten involved with her?

The narrative continues with the famed Egyptian expedition, called “the most spectacular moment in the whole incredible adventure of Napoleon’s life.” Although a failure militarily, the expedition was a scientific triumph and carefully used propaganda prevented any damage to Napoleon’s reputation. This was important due to his role in the famed coup of Brumaire which established Napoleon as consul for life in the Consulate. Following his victory at Marengo and the important Peace of Amines, Napoleon was able to utilize this time of peace to consolidate his empire, eventually crowning himself Emperor in May 1804. Several domestic issues took the forefront including his most important achievement, the production of the Civil Code, and one of his failures, the Concordat with the Church. It was also during this time period where he also suffered failures in the Caribbean as hopes of a worldwide empire were dashed with the disaster in Saint Domingue and his sale of Louisiana. From this point, Napoleon shrugged off the desire to be a world power and concentrate on the continent itself.

The Peace of Amiens also gave Napoleon time to craft the Grand Armée into the greatest military force in the world. Emphasizing the concepts of honor and emulation as compared to terror and the lash, he built a powerful army and hoped to unleash it on England. His handling of the navy, however, called by the author as the “most incompetent and disgraceful act of his public life,” prevented him from ever getting the chance to invade. He eventually switched his attention towards to continent to defeat the Third Coalition (Austrian and Russian forces), which I assume will start the second volume of the series.

Broers competently captures these formative years of Napoleon. Unfortunately, the book lacks the excitement and anticipation that this extraordinary life deserves. For instance, military exploits are not given adequate space in the narrative. The author provides little detail and only briefly describes battles like Lodi, the Pyramids, and Marengo and others.  At times, the narrative drones on with other aspects of his life while many iconic moments like battles, the Brumaire coup and Napoleon’s becoming emperor are not described as vividly and with as much élan as one would have hoped. A great example is the end of the book where there are pages upon pages of description of events leading up to the war against the Third Coalition and his greatest victory at Austerlitz, but the book ends before those events take place. There is no payoff.

Napoleon’s life is many things, but boring and tedious are words that should never be used to describe it and this narrative (over 500 pages long) tends to drag. Napoleon’s life was more than just his military adventures, but how they do not take center stage in any biography of him is perplexing. Broers should be complimented for his detailed research into Napoleon to paint a complete picture, but this reviewer was bored at times and wanted more. Any book on Napoleon should be a page turner; this was not. In the next two volumes I hope for better results.

CPW

Review of Forgotten Tales of Alabama, by Kelly Kazek

Like many readers of this blog, I have an extensive backlog of books I have been intending to read and sometimes books lie on the shelf for several years before I get a chance to open them. So it was with Kelly Kazeks Forgotten Tales of Alabama, a book I had known about for quite a while (it was published in 2010) but only recently got a chance to read cover to cover. I found the book to be an enjoyable, if eclectic and disjointed read.

An award-winning north Alabama journalist, Kazek is the author of three other books drawing on the history of the region she calls home. In Forgotten Tales, she attempts to put together a series of short stories, similar to newspaper articles, examining some of the more unusual people, events, stories, legends, and lore that, in her words, “make Alabama one of a kind.” In the pages of the book are pieces about landmarks, for example, which have become vital parts of the identity of the communities in which they once stood or still stand, ranging from a gigantic Nehi bottle which once served as a gas station to an unusual church mural in Huntsville. There are curious tales of unlikely occurrences, such as a man twice struck by lightning whose tombstone was also struck to the story of the Sylacauga woman struck by a meteorite while sitting on her sofa. There are harrowing tales of murderers and murder sprees which are engrained in local history, stories about ghosts and supernatural creatures which endure as parts of local legend, and little-known details of Alabama connections to events of national and even international notoriety.

The book is no scholarly reference source on Alabama history, nor is it a traditional narrative. Rather, it is a loosely organized series of vignettes with admittedly uneven documentation. Still, it is an entertaining and quick read if you have an interest in some of the more unusual and unexplained stories from Alabama’s rich past.

JMB

Review of Ethan Allen: His Life and Times, by Willard Sterne Randall

No doubt similar to many people, I have read the name of Ethan Allen many times in histories of American’s Revolutionary Era and knew he was a prominent person in New England at the time. I believe I am not alone, though, in knowing very little about what he actually accomplished and why his legacy looms so large in Vermont, the place he would call home as an adult, today. Seeking to learn more about this famous figure, I recently listened to the audiobook version of Willard Sterne Randall’s biography of him, entitled Ethan Allen: His Life and Times.

Sterne, who teaches at Champlain College, is a veteran writer who has produced biographies of several founding fathers, including Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton, This book is the first serious biography of Allen in decades, and likely the most complete portrait of him to ever be published.

The book is in truth equal parts biography and a tale of the coming of age of the state with which Allen is associated. Sterne follows Allen from his humble beginnings in Connecticut to his latter years, explaining the influences on him as he grew up in a rough and tumble environment while at the same time becoming a deep thinker on matters of religion and government. A dissenter who challenged traditional beliefs in the Christian church, Allen early on developed fully-formed and deeply-held ideas which would animate his actions for the remainder of an adventurous life which included careers as a farmer, speculator, miner, soldier, and writer.

Much of the book is devoted to telling the story of how Allen pursued—sometimes belligerently—the independence of what became the state of Vermont, originally comprised of granted lands claimed by neighboring New York and New Hampshire. The story is a long and winding one which resulted in Vermont’s statehood from what had been known as the “Hampshire grants,” and Allen would be front and center throughout a complicated series of events that included a little duplicity, some political persuasion, and occasional violence. Allen parlayed his hard-won experience on the New England frontier into a position as a recognized regional leader whose daring and intelligence made him a living legend among some of the backwoodsmen whose cause he represented. He was able to translate that fame into leadership of perhaps the largest paramilitary organization in North America on the eve of the Revolution, known as the “Green Mountain Boys.” Although many, like I had done mistakenly, associate the group’s formation with the American Revolution, it was organized for and saw its greatest experience in the fight with colonial forces from New York who attempted to prevent Vermont’s formation as a state.

Allen’s Revolutionary War experience as a soldier was short but significant. He helped capture Fort Ticonderoga in one of the epic capers of America’s war for independence in an operation with Benedict Arnold. But his days on the field of battle were cut short as he was captured by the British shortly after and would spend nearly three years as a captive, enduring horrific conditions that would have killed most men. The book he wrote about his survival of the ordeal (A Narrative of Colonel Ethan Allen’s Captivity) became a best seller in the years immediately after the war, and probably as much as anything he had done prior, ensured his would become a household name in early America.

Randall’s approach to all of this history is comprehensive but not equally paced. He devotes what seems to be an inordinate amount of time on Allen’s background and the circumstances which shaped him growing up, and gives considerable space to the cultural and religious background which shaped his convictions. His capture of Ticonderoga is told is brief but compelling fashion. This is all the author’s prerogative, of course, and is likely a response to the existing literature on his subject which I admittedly know little about. Still, I came away from the biography wondering what more well-trod ground about Allen’s story might have been given relatively cursory attention. Allen died at the age of 51, nearly two years before Vermont was welcomed into the Union as the 14^th state. As this book explains beyond anything else, it is Allen’s impact on that story for which he is and should be remembered. 

JMB

Review of Andrew Jackson, A Captivating Guide to the Man Who Served as the Seventh President of the United States

Andrew Jackson remains one of the most controversial figures in American History. He defended the nation with amazing military victories over the British and Creek Indians and also represented an expanded democracy while at the same time he promoted and instigated Indian removal and the institution of slavery. His likeness may no longer dominate the $20 bill, but his impact on the nation is unparalleled and he is the only American to have an historical age named after him, the Jacksonian Era. Portraying Jackson as a man of contradictions is Andrew Jackson, A Captivating Guide to the Man who Served as the Seventh President of the United States.

Captivating History is a recent new initiative aimed at providing short, concise history lessons geared for the general public. Matt Clayton created this series and writes the books in an effort to present historical figures and events without boring the reader with mere facts. With an audio version at just over two hours (book has under 100 pages), this work manages to cover Jackson’s life from his modest beginnings to his death and includes details on his difficult childhood, self-made education and establishment, military exploits against the Creeks and British, his two terms of president and his death. While capturing the essence of Jackson, the book repeats the well-known aspects of his life such as losing his parents at an early age, his violent encounter with a British officer during the Revolution, his love affair with Rachel Robards, gaining his “Old Hickory” nickname, his Indian removal policy and war against the national bank while serving as president. 

There is nothing spectacular or new in this brief version of relating Jackson’s story.  But, “Captivating History” does do a good job of concisely capturing Jackson the man and what he represented. Listeners should be aware of a few factual errors as well as some interesting mispronunciations, but anyone needing a quick summary of this man’s life will be well satisfied.

CPW

Review of A Brutal Reckoning: Andrew Jackson, the Creek Indians, and the Epic War for the American South, by Peter Cozzens

This review appeared in the Fall/Winter 2023 issue of the Journal of Mississippi History

Southern historiography of the nineteenth century is dominated by the Civil War. Although few could argue against that conflict as being a seminal point in Southern history, the Creek War of 1813-1814 had dramatic repercussions as well. The war and its results eventually laid the groundwork for Native American removal in the Southeast, spurred mass American immigration into the region which led directly to the establishment of the states of Mississippi and Alabama, helped bring about the entrenchment of cotton agriculture and its reliance on slave labor in the Deep South, and made Andrew Jackson a national hero. Jackson would eventually leverage that notoriety into two terms as president and wield an incredible amount of political influence well before and after his term in office. Thankfully, this much lesser-known struggle has received more attention from historians in recent years. Peter Cozzens, a retired U.S. Foreign Service Officer and author/editor of seventeen books, has entered the fray in a small but growing body of scholarship on the war with A Brutal Reckoning, Andrew Jackson, the Creek Indians, and the Epic War for the American South.

Cozzens, whose previous books discussed Civil War battles in the western theater, designates this work as the third volume of his trilogy of works on Indian Wars (along with Tecumseh and the Prophet: The Shawnee Brothers who Defied a Nation and The Earth is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West.) His stated goal is to provide a gripping and balanced account of the process of dispossession of Indian lands and how the actions of one man, Andrew Jackson, charted the course of the nation in winning “arguably the most consequential Indian war in U.S. history.” In these regards, Cozzens has succeeded admirably.

Cozzens opens with a narrative of Hernando DeSoto’s entrada across the Southeast. He obviously is making a comparison between the Spaniard’s horrific trek and the actions of Andrew Jackson against the Creeks which these reviewers found to be too much of a stretch for worthwhile comparison. Entirely different circumstances, motivations, tactical situations—not to mention the diversity of allied native forces with which he worked—renders such a connection of little more than shock value. Cozzens then transitions to providing an excellent overview of Creek culture and the impacts of the increasing influence of the growing United States and the American settlers on native lands which altered traditional Creek lifeways. By not only settling on their lands, but actively assimilating Creeks into Euro-American agricultural, economic, and political systems, Americans played a role in irrevocably altering Creek society. The resulting slow-growing but deep schism in Creek society between those who believed they should return to traditional ways and those who insisted they could remain fully Creek while adapted to new realities eventually erupted into civil war. In discussion of this complicated and little-understood conflict, Cozzens shines by providing the best account of this affair that these reviewers have ever read. Most books on the Creek War gloss over this internal strife as prologue to the larger war with American and allied native forces, but Cozzens gives it its just due.

Cozzens then proceeds to cover the war itself, with its beginnings at Burnt Corn Creek and then the horrific affair at Fort Mims.  The campaigns of the Mississippi Territorial militia as well as units from the state of Georgia are described in detail, but these take a back seat to the actions of those Tennesseans under the leadership of Andrew Jackson. His determination and perseverance overcame chronic supply shortages and enlistment problems to eventually break the backbone of the Red Stick faction of the Creeks at Horseshoe Bend. During the narrative, Cozzens presents the war’s iconic moments and personalities in vivid fashion. These include riveting tales of the exploits of as Sam Dale and the famous Canoe Fight, William Weatherford’s legendary escape from American forces at the Holy Ground, and the exploits of David Crockett and Sam Houston. Cozzens presents an especially thorough and grisly account of the pivotal Battle of Horseshoe Bend, shedding light on the true strategies and the realities of combat for both the Redsticks and their assailants. As these events make the Creek War such a powerful, epic chapter in Southern history, we were thrilled to see Cozzens deliver some of his most engrossing writing in chronicling these people and events.

Upon ending the war, Jackson eventually took charge of treaty negotiations and set the stage for future compacts with Southeastern tribes with the Treaty of Fort Jackson. He forced the forfeiture of more than twenty-two million acres, most of which came from friendly Creek allies who were astonished at the harsh terms imposed by Jackson. Jackson felt he was securing the nation’s southern border and opening areas to white American settlement in an unproductively used expanse of territory which could play a pivotal role in the growth of the United States. He would forever be known as Sharp Knife for his treatment of the Creeks, as over the next twenty years they endured hardship, poverty, exploitation and eventual removal in a Creek Trail of Tears which they dated to their first altercation with Jackson.  

A Brutal Reckoning serves as superb account of a monumental struggle which led to remarkable change in the Southeast and whose consequences reverberated across the nation. Cozzens is an excellent writer whose narrative captures the reader’s attention. There are a few minor errors such as one mislabeled image (John Coffee is listed as listed as John Cocke), an incorrect spelling on a map (Hinson and Kennedy’s Mill), and a reference to Jett Thomas as Jeff Thomas. He also identifies Fort Jackson as being built in Tuskegee (it is in present-day Wetumpka). But these minor quibbles aside, Cozzens has provided an excellent account of a consequential but understudied war suitable for the general public which promises to help give this conflict the attention it so richly deserves.

CPW/JMB

Review of Mutinous Women: How French Convicts Became Founding Mothers of the Gulf Coast, by Joan DeJean

The story of the French colony of Luisiane (Louisiana) is one of the most compelling in all of the Gulf Coast’s rich history. Indeed, one might say it ranks among the most interesting in all of American history, for the enormous swath of land the French claimed as part of the colony stretched from the shimmering shores of the Gulf of Mexico all the way up to the central continental plains. A nearly seven-decades long episode involving international rivalries, political intrigue, the formation of critical alliances with Native groups, the creation of settlements, and devastating armed conflict, it is an era which witnessed the birth of such historic cities as Mobile and New Orleans and helped imbue the region with a distinctive cultural heritage. Yet the colony, which existed from 1682 until 1763, featured far more struggle, privation, stagnation and frustration than triumph. It grew slowly, suffered several setbacks, and never developed as the French hoped it would. Its inhabitants struggled mightily from lack of food, lack of supplies, and lack of attention for long stretches in its history. Perhaps none of Luisiane’s people endured worse conditions than some of its founding colonists, most of whom we know little about as individuals.

For this reason and many more, Joan DeJean’s Mutinous Women is truly a landmark volume in the historiography of the beleaguered colony. DeJean manages to present some of Luisiane’s most important but least understood settlers as real people, and explains how their contributions and experiences helped the colony not only develop as it did, but in a way played a significant role in the history of the greater Gulf Coast. The focus of her book are the women forcibly deported to the colony from France in the early 1700s, the “mutinous” women condemned to Parisian jails and marked by authorities as so far beyond reclamation that they were banished to what at the time was one of the most remote and least developed European settlements in the New World.

Nearly the first half of the book, in fact, is about these women’s lives in France, the first of whom arrived in the colony in 1719 on a ship named La Mutine after a harrowing voyage from Le Havre. Most of these women, as DeJean explains in incredible detail, were in truth poor, illiterate, and unable to resist or perhaps even comprehend the system of greed and corruption in which they were falsely charged with all manner of crimes in order to meet the needs of Luisiane’s corporate owners at the time. They were, quite literally, rounded up as targets of convenience, accused of crimes without the benefit of honest investigation or opportunities for defense, and sent packing. DeJean’s research into their stories—hundreds of them—is incredible. While her narrative presents their lives in as much detail as she can find and is a remarkable reference source for its completeness, many readers will wish she had summarized the overwhelmingly similar sagas which she explains in such detail in the first half of the book.

The narrative picks up pace as DeJean explores the story of how these women became the founding mothers of Luisiane. Her account of their living conditions, their marriages and the families they raised, and the communities they helped found is nothing less than a history of the colony. It is a lively one at that, extending far beyond the individual women and painting a vivid picture of what life was truly like on the Gulf Coast frontier in places such as Mobile, Biloxi, and New Orleans, and, to a lesser degree, French settlements in what are now Arkansas and Illinois.

DeJean, a Louisiana native who is trustee and professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of a dozen books on French and French colonial history, clearly approaches her topic with a personal interest and enthusiasm. Despite some occasional repetition—she includes numerous almost identical immigrant stories and pauses many times to place repeated emphasis on the irony of how some of the deported women ended  up ranking among the colony’s most successful and respected inhabitants—the book is informative and an enjoyable read. If you have an interest in Gulf Coast history and the French colonial period especially, you will want to know about this book. It is truly a major contribution to the historiography of the region and its subject.

JMB