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This dissertation examines the life and complicated career of Sir James Wright (1716-1785), in an effort to better understand the complex struggle for power in colonial Georgia. Specifically, this project will highlight the contest for autonomy between four groups: Britains and Georgians (core-periphery), lowcountry and backcountry residents, whites and Natives, and Rebels and Loyalists. An English-born grandson of Chief Justice Sir Robert Wright, James Wright was raised in Charleston, South Carolina following his father’s appointment as that colony’s chief justice. The younger Wright attended Gray’s Inn in London and served South Carolina in a variety of capacities, most notably as their attorney general and colonial agent prior to his appointment as governor of Georgia in 1761. Additionally, he had a voracious appetite for land and became colonial Georgia’s largest landowner, accumulating nearly 26,000 acres, worked by no less than 525 slaves. As governor, Wright guided Georgia through a period of intense and steady economic growth and within a decade of his arrival, no one could still claim Georgia to be a “fledgling province” as it had become intricately engaged in a transatlantic mercantilist economy resembling South Carolina and any number of Britain’s Caribbean colonies. Moreover, Governor Wright maintained royal authority in Georgia longer and more effectively than any of his counterparts. Although several factors contributed to his success in delaying the seemingly inexorable revolutionary tide, his patience and keen political mind proved the deciding factor. He was the only of Britain’s thirteen colonies to enforce the Stamp Act of 1765. He also managed to stay a step or two ahead of Georgia’s Sons of Liberty until the spring of 1776. In short, Sir James Wright lived a transatlantic life, taking advantage of every imperial opportunity which presented itself. He earned numerous important government positions and amassed an incredible fortune, totaling over £100,000 sterling. His long imperial career, which delicately balanced dual loyalties to Crown and colony, offers important insights into a number of important historiographic fields.

This dissertation examines the life and conflicted career of Sir James Wright (1716-1785), in an effort to better understand the complex struggle for power in both colonial Georgia and eighteenth-century British Empire. Specifically, this project will highlight the contest for autonomy between four groups: Britains and Georgians (core-periphery), lowcountry and backcountry residents, whites and Natives, and Rebels and Loyalists. An English-born grandson of Chief Justice Sir Robert Wright, James Wright was raised in Charleston, South Carolina following his father’s appointment as that colony’s chief justice. Young James served South Carolina in a number of capacities, public and ecclesiastical, prior to his admittance to London’s Gray’s Inn in London. Most notably, he was selected as their attorney general and colonial agent prior to his appointment as governor of Georgia in 1761. Wright collected more than public offices in his endless quest for respect and social advancement. He also possessed a voracious appetite for land and became colonial Georgia’s largest landowner, accumulating nearly 26,000 acres, worked by no less than 525 slaves. As governor, he guided Georgia through a period of intense and steady economic and territorial growth. By the time of the American Revolution, Georgia had become fully integrated into the greater transatlantic mercantilist economy, resembling South Carolina and any number of Britain’s Caribbean colonies. Moreover, Governor Wright maintained royal authority in Georgia longer and more effectively than any of his North American counterparts. Although several factors contributed to his success in delaying the seemingly inexorable revolutionary tide, his patience and keen political mind proved the deciding factor. He was the only of Britain’s thirteen colonies to enforce the Stamp Act of 1765 and managed to stay a step or two ahead of Georgia’s Sons of Liberty until the winter of 1775-1776. In short, Sir James Wright lived a transatlantic life, taking advantage of every imperial opportunity afforded him. He earned numerous important government positions and amassed an incredible fortune, totaling over £100,000 sterling. His long imperial career delicately balanced dual loyalties to Crown and colony and offers important and unique insights into a number of important historiographic fields.

abstract: This project explores the histories of the Dutch Republic and the United States during the Age of Revolutions, using as a lens the life of Francis Adrian van der Kemp. Connections between the Netherlands and the United States have been understudied in histories of the Revolutionary Atlantic. Yet the nations' political and religious histories are entwined both thematically and practically. Van der Kemp's life makes it possible to examine republicanism and liberal religion anew, as they developed and changed during the era of Atlantic revolutions. The project draws on numerous archival collections that house van der Kemp's voluminous correspondence, political and religious writings, his autobiography, and the unpublished records of the Reformed Christian Church, now the Unitarian Church of Barneveld. With his activity in both countries, van der Kemp offers a unique perspective into the continued role of the Dutch in the development of the United States. The dissertation argues that the political divisions and incomplete religious freedom that frustrated van der Kemp in the Dutch Republic similarly manifested in America. Politically, the partisanship that became the hallmark of the early American republic echoed the experiences van der Kemp had during the Patriot Revolt. While parties would eventually stabilize radical politics, the collapse of the Dutch Republic in the Atlantic world and the divisiveness of American politics in those early decades, led van der Kemp to blunt his once radically democratic opinions. Heavily influenced by John Adams, he adopted a more conservative politics of balance that guaranteed religious and civil liberty regardless of governmental structure. In the realm of religion, van der Kemp discovered that American religious freedom reflected the same begrudging acceptance that constituted Dutch religious tolerance. Van der Kemp found that even in one of the most pluralistic states, New York, his belief in the unlimited liberty of conscience remained a dissenting opinion. The democracy and individualism celebrated in early American politics were controversial in religion, given the growing authority of denominations and hierarchical church institutions. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. History 2014

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As North American plants took root in Parisian botanical gardens and regularly appeared in scientific texts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they retained their connections to networks of ecological and cultural exchange in colonial North America. In this dissertation I study the history of French botany and natural history as it became an Atlantic enterprise during this time, analyzing the production of knowledge about North American flora and the place of this knowledge in larger processes of colonialism and imperial expansion in the French Atlantic World. I focus particular attention on recovering the role of aboriginal peoples in the production of knowledge about colonial environments on both sides of the Atlantic. Rather than integrating aboriginal collectors, chefs and healers into traditional histories of western science, I integrate familiar histories of science into larger histories of cultural contact in an Atlantic World with multiple centres of knowledge production and exchange. This dissertation develops two closely related arguments. First, I argue that French encounters with American environments and Native cultures were inseparable. Jesuit missionaries, for example, called both a plant and a native culture “wild rice,” conflating descriptions of local ecological and morphological features of the Great Lakes plant with accounts of indigenous cultural and moral attributes. Second, “Plants and Peoples” also analyzes the process by which the Paris-based Académie Royale des Sciences expanded its reach into North America and argues that French colonial naturalists drew on a vibrant conversation between diverse colonial and indigenous communities. Yet indigenous participation and the knowledges they provided were progressively effaced over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This research therefore presents both a new understanding of the history of early modern and enlightenment botany and a lens through which to revisit and enrich familiar histories of cultural exchange in colonial North America.

As North American plants took root in Parisian botanical gardens and regularly appeared in scientific texts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they retained their connections to networks of ecological and cultural exchange in colonial North America. In this dissertation I study the history of French botany and natural history as it became an Atlantic enterprise during this time, analyzing the production of knowledge about North American flora and the place of this knowledge in larger processes of colonialism and imperial expansion in the French Atlantic World. I focus particular attention on recovering the role of aboriginal peoples in the production of knowledge about colonial environments on both sides of the Atlantic. Rather than integrating aboriginal collectors, chefs and healers into traditional histories of western science, I integrate familiar histories of science into larger histories of cultural contact in an Atlantic World with multiple centres of knowledge production and exchange. This dissertation develops two closely related arguments. First, I argue that French encounters with American environments and Native cultures were inseparable. Jesuit missionaries, for example, called both a plant and a native culture “wild rice,” conflating descriptions of local ecological and morphological features of the Great Lakes plant with accounts of indigenous cultural and moral attributes. Second, “Plants and Peoples” also analyzes the process by which the Paris-based Académie Royale des Sciences expanded its reach into North America and argues that French colonial naturalists drew on a vibrant conversation between diverse colonial and indigenous communities. Yet indigenous participation and the knowledges they provided were progressively effaced over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This research therefore presents both a new understanding of the history of early modern and enlightenment botany and a lens through which to revisit and enrich familiar histories of cultural exchange in colonial North America.

Cette thèse s’intéresse à l’évolution du rapport à l’histoire et de la conscience historique dans la société canadienne de la première moitié du XIXe siècle et propose une analyse métahistorique de deux principaux corpus de sources : le matériel pédagogique employé dans les collèges classiques, ainsi que les ouvrages historiographiques et politiques marquants pour l’élite canadienne, des réflexions du politicien Denis-Benjamin Viger au Rapport Durham et aux écrits de William Smith, Michel Bibaud et de François-Xavier Garneau. En analysant ces sources à la lumière d’un outillage théorique issu de l’historiographie de la représentation du temps, je propose une relecture de la constitution d’une conscience historique nationale au Canada français. Je démontre que la « nationalisation » de l’histoire est un phénomène graduel qui s’est échelonné sur l’ensemble des trois premiers quarts du XIXe siècle. Si l’histoire nationale a mis du temps à s’imposer, c’est parce que la conscience historique du monde intellectuel canadien au tournant du XIXe siècle était modelée sur les principes philosophiques universalistes de l’humanisme et du christianisme. Loin d’être spécifique aux Canadiens, cette mutation de la représentation de l’histoire s’insère dans un large mouvement occidental qui a été abondamment observé et commenté par l’historiographie. Enchevêtrées dans une histoire commune avec la « disciplinarisation » de l’histoire, la catégorisation des peuples et leur projection dans le temps n’est ni une évidence ni une nécessité, mais plutôt le produit d’une évolution culturelle partagée à travers le monde atlantique. / In this thesis, I discuss the evolution of time experience and historical consciousness in Canadian society of the first half of the nineteenth century and propose a metahistorical analysis of two main corpora of documents : the educational material used in classical colleges, and a number of significant historiographical and political publications for the Canadian intellectual elite, from Denis-Benjamin Viger’s reflections to the Durham Report and to the writings of William Smith, Michel Bibaud and François-Xavier Garneau.By analyzing these historical documents with the use of conceptual tools inspired by the time representation historiography, I suggest a reinterpretation of the advent of a national historical consciousness in French Canada. I demonstrate that the “nationalization” of the past is a gradual phenomenon that spawned over the first three quarters of the nineteenth century. If national history was not prominent around 1800, it is because Canadian intellectuals interpreted the past with the theological principles of Christianity and the universalist philosophy of intellectual humanism. Unspecific to Canadians, this historical representation evolution was observed and commented upon by a rich occidental historiography. Entangled with the disciplinarization of history as a historical phenomenon, the categorization of the Nation and its projection in the past is neither a certainty, nor a necessity, but rather the product of a cultural evolution shared in the Atlantic World.