Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-01

Thesis advisor: André Brouillette / Thesis advisor: Maura Jane Farrelly / The purpose of this thesis is to better understand American colonial Catholicism through a comparative study of it with Catholicism in colonial Canada, both before and after the British defeat of the French in 1759, in the period of the American Revolution. Despite a shared faith, ecclesiastical leaders in Canada were wary of the revolutionary spirit and movement in the American colonies, participated in by American Catholics, and urged loyalty to the British crown. The central question of the study is as follows: why did the two groups, American Catholics (the Maryland Tradition) and Canadian Catholics (the Quebec Tradition), react so differently to British colonial rule in the mid eighteenth-century? Developing an understanding of the religious identities of American and Canadian Catholics and their interaction during the period will help shed light on their different approaches to political ideals of the Enlightenment and their Catholic faith / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

<p>This dissertation examines the changing concepts and experiences of slavery and freedom in South Carolina from its founding in 1670 through 1747, a period during which the legal status of "slave" became solidified in law. During the course of South Carolina's first eight decades of settlement, the legal statuses of "slave" and "free" evolved as the colony's slaveholders responded to both local and imperial contexts. Slaves and slaveholders engaged in a slow process of defining and refining the contours of both slavery and freedom in law. The dissertation explores how this evolution occurred by focusing on three topics: constant conflict that afflicted the colony, free white colonists' reliance on the loyalty of slaves, and South Carolina's law and legal system. </p><p>Through its use of social and legal history, as well as close reading, the dissertation shows that South Carolina's legal and military contexts gave unplanned meaning to slaves' activities, and that this had the effect of permitting slaves to shape slavery and freedom's development in practice and in law. In various ways, the actions of slaves forced slaveholders to delineate what they considered appropriate life and work conditions, as well as forms of justice, for both slaves and free people. As such, slavery as an institution helped give form to freedom. Drawing on legal records, newspapers, pamphlets, and records of the colonial elite, the dissertation argues that slaves' actions--nonviolent as well as violent-- served as a driving force behind the legal trajectory of slavery and freedom in South Carolina. These processes and contexts change our understanding of colonial America. They reveal that slaves influenced the legal regulation of slavery and that slavery and the enslaved population played a critical role in defining freedom, a central tenet of American democracy. Contrary to modern assumptions about freedom and even the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence, this dissertation shows how slavery actually constrained freedom.</p> / Dissertation

Thesis advisor: Cynthia L. Lyerly / This dissertation uses an early-modern, transnational lens to examine slavery in eighteenth-century Boston. It serves as a test case for reexamining and reconceptualizing slavery in British North America and the Atlantic World. Rather than the traditional dichotomous conception of slavery and freedom, colonial-era slavery must be understood as part of a continuum of unfreedom. In Boston, African slavery existed alongside many other forms of dependence, including indentured servitude, apprenticeship, pauper apprenticeship, and Indian slavery. Drawing heavily on legal records such as wills and trial transcripts, we can see how African slavery functioned within this complex world of dependency. In this hierarchical, inherently unfree world, enslaved Bostonians were more concerned with their everyday treatment than emancipation. Eschewing modern notions of freedom and liberty and understanding slavery as part of a larger Atlantic World characterized by a culture of unfreedom, this study demonstrates not only how African slaves were able to decode their new homeland and shape the terms of enslavement, but also how marginalized people engrained themselves in the very fabric of colonial American society. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History.

O objetivo central desta pesquisa é analisar um amplo conjunto de histórias nahuas pictoglíficas e alfabéticas do início do período colonial para entender os usos identitários e as funções políticas que as representações de Chicomoztoc, o Lugar das Sete Cavernas, desempenhavam entre as elites nahuas nessa época. A hipótese inicial é que as representações desse importante elemento identitário das entidades políticas nahuas de tempos pré-hispânicos (os altepeme) passou por transformações em seus usos e funções, mas continuou a ocupar um papel central para as concepções nahuas de história e poder político que vigoraram entre as elites nahuas da Nova Espanha, que reescreveram as histórias de seus antepassados, à luz do novo contexto, utilizando-as, inclusive, na busca de legitimidade da posse de terras e privilégios diante de instituições do governo novo-hispano. Com isso, consideramos que o entendimento dos distintos usos historiográficos de Chicomoztoc nas histórias nahuas coloniais nos auxiliará a entender como as elites nahuas atuaram no período colonial inicial, um momento marcado pela perda de seus privilégios diante do crescente poderio dos espanhóis. / The main goal of the present research is to analyse a vast group of Nahua histories both alphabetic and pictographic from the beginning of the colonial period in order to understand its identifying uses and the political roles which the representations of Chicomoztoc, the Place of the Seven Caves, assumed amongst the Nahua elite of said time. The start hypothesis is that the representations of such important element of identity of Nahua political entities of the Pre-Hispanic period (the altepeme) have undergone transformations in use and purpose but kept a central role in the conceptions of History and political power for the Nahua elite of New Spain, who re-wrote the History of their ancestors according the new order, even using them to legitimate landowning and privileges before new-Hispanic institutions. Based on that we believe that the understanding of the different historiographical uses of Chicomoztoc in colonial Nahua History will help us comprehend how the Nahua elites acted during the first colonial period, a moment discernible by the loss of privileges in front of the increasing Spanish power.

O objetivo central desta pesquisa é analisar um amplo conjunto de histórias nahuas pictoglíficas e alfabéticas do início do período colonial para entender os usos identitários e as funções políticas que as representações de Chicomoztoc, o Lugar das Sete Cavernas, desempenhavam entre as elites nahuas nessa época. A hipótese inicial é que as representações desse importante elemento identitário das entidades políticas nahuas de tempos pré-hispânicos (os altepeme) passou por transformações em seus usos e funções, mas continuou a ocupar um papel central para as concepções nahuas de história e poder político que vigoraram entre as elites nahuas da Nova Espanha, que reescreveram as histórias de seus antepassados, à luz do novo contexto, utilizando-as, inclusive, na busca de legitimidade da posse de terras e privilégios diante de instituições do governo novo-hispano. Com isso, consideramos que o entendimento dos distintos usos historiográficos de Chicomoztoc nas histórias nahuas coloniais nos auxiliará a entender como as elites nahuas atuaram no período colonial inicial, um momento marcado pela perda de seus privilégios diante do crescente poderio dos espanhóis. / The main goal of the present research is to analyse a vast group of Nahua histories both alphabetic and pictographic from the beginning of the colonial period in order to understand its identifying uses and the political roles which the representations of Chicomoztoc, the Place of the Seven Caves, assumed amongst the Nahua elite of said time. The start hypothesis is that the representations of such important element of identity of Nahua political entities of the Pre-Hispanic period (the altepeme) have undergone transformations in use and purpose but kept a central role in the conceptions of History and political power for the Nahua elite of New Spain, who re-wrote the History of their ancestors according the new order, even using them to legitimate landowning and privileges before new-Hispanic institutions. Based on that we believe that the understanding of the different historiographical uses of Chicomoztoc in colonial Nahua History will help us comprehend how the Nahua elites acted during the first colonial period, a moment discernible by the loss of privileges in front of the increasing Spanish power.

In 1765, Boston artist John Singleton Copley sent Boy with a Squirrel—a portrait of his half-brother Henry Pelham—across the Atlantic Ocean; the painting ended up in the hands of London-based artists Joshua Reynolds and Benjamin West. Because the work did not depict a patron and it was intended for an artistic audience, Boy with a Squirrel challenges the functionality of traditional portraiture in mid-eighteenth century colonial America. In Boy with a Squirrel, Copley uses form, iconography, and composition as a way to assert to his English counterparts his belonging to the London art community, showcasing his knowledge and even mastery of British and continental traditions. Copley communicates his membership in the London art public through his use through the formal lexicon of his desired audience, effectively Anglicizing his forms. While Anglicization plays a central role in the emergence of the public self in the mid- eighteenth-century American colonies, Copley's adaptation of Anglicizing forms challenges many of the standard conventions. Though the exchange of information between Britain and the American colonies was slow and incomplete, Copley would have had many different opportunities to learn about the British and continental traditions he hoped to demonstrate. The circulation of books and prints, the display of private collections, John Smibert's copies of masterworks, and the growing awareness of the Grand Tour all would have informed Copley's awareness of these British tastes. / text

On December 11, 1782 in Wethersfield, Connecticut, a fifty-two year old English immigrant named William Beadle murdered his wife and four children and took his own life. Beadle’s erstwhile friends were aghast. William was no drunk. He was not abusive, foul-tempered, or manifestly unstable. Since arriving in 1772, Beadle had been a respected merchant in Wethersfield good society. Newspapers, pamphlets, and sermons carried the story up and down the coast. Writers quoted from a packet of letters Beadle left at the scene. Those letters disclosed Beadle’s secret allegiance to deism and the fact that the War for Independence had ruined Beadle financially, in his mind because he had acted like a patriot not a profiteer. Authors were especially unnerved with Beadle’s mysterious past. In a widely published pamphlet, Stephen Mix Mitchell, Wethersfield luminary and Beadle’s one-time closest friend, sought answers in Beadle’s youth only to admit that in ten years he had learned almost nothing about the man print dubbed a “monster.” This macabre story of family murder, and the fretful writing that carried the tale up and down the coast, is the heart of my dissertation. A microhistory, the project uses the transatlantic life, death, and print “afterlife” of William Beadle to explore alienation, anonymity, and unease in Britain’s Atlantic empire. The very characteristics that made the Atlantic world a vibrant, dynamic space—migration, commercial expansion, intellectual exchange, and revolutionary politics, to name a few—also made anxiety and failure ubiquitous in that world. Atlantic historians have described a world where white migrants crisscrossed the ocean to improve their lives, merchants created new wealth that eroded the power of landed gentry, and ideas fueled Enlightenment and engendered revolutions. The Atlantic world was indeed such a place. Aside from conquest and slavery, however, Atlantic historians have tended to elide the uglier sides of that early modern Atlantic world. William Beadle crossed the ocean three times and recreated himself in Barbados and New England, but migrations also left him rootless—unknown and perhaps unknowable. Transatlantic commerce brought exotic goods to provincial Connecticut and extended promises of social climbing, but amid imperial turmoil, the same Atlantic economy rapidly left such individuals financially bereft. Innovative ideas like deism crossed oceans in the minds of migrants, but these ideas were not always welcome. Beadle joined the cause of the American Revolution, but amid civil war, it was easy to run afoul of neighboring patriots always on the lookout for Loyalists. Beadle was far from the only person to suffer these anxieties. In the aftermath of the tragedy, commentators strained to make sense of the incident and Beadle’s writings in light of similar Atlantic fears. The story resonated precisely because it raised worries that had long bubbled beneath the surface: the anonymous neighbor from afar, the economic crash out of nowhere, modern ideas that some found exhilarating but others found distressing, and violent conflict between American and English. In his print afterlife, William Beadle became a specter of the Atlantic world. As independence was won, he haunted Americans as well, as commentators worried he was a sign that the American project was doomed to fail. / History

During the so-called ‘golden age’ of piracy that occurred in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans in the later seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, several thousands of men and a handful of women sailed aboard pirate ships. The narrative, operational techniques, and economic repercussions of the waves of piracy that threatened maritime trade during the ‘golden age’ have fascinated researchers, and so too has the social history of the people involved. Traditionally, the historiography of the social history of pirates has portrayed them as democratic and highly egalitarian bandits, divided their spoil fairly amongst their number, offered compensation for comrades injured in battle, and appointed their own officers by popular vote. They have been presented in contrast to the legitimate societies of Europe and America, and as revolutionaries, eschewing the unfair and harsh practices prevalent in legitimate maritime employment. This study, however, argues that the ‘revolutionary’ model of ‘golden age’ pirates is not an accurate reflection of reality. By using the ‘articles’ or shipboard rules created by pirates, this thesis explores the questions of pirates’ hierarchy, economic practices, social control, and systems of justice, and contextualises the pirates’ society within legitimate society to show that pirates were not as egalitarian or democratic as they have been portrayed, and that virtually all of their social practices were based heavily on, or copied directly from, their experiences in legitimate society, on land and at sea. In doing so, this thesis argues that far from being social revolutionaries, pirates sought to improve their own status, within the pre-existing social framework of legitimate society.

Credit was a central feature of the early-modern British economy. Due to shortages of specie, men and women of all social ranks participated in the urban, consumer marketplace by using credit. Historical research has convincingly shown that credit was socially mediated and constructed, and as such it sheds light not only on economic development, but also on contemporary culture. Several recent studies address these issues, but two gaps in the historiography deserve further consideration. The literature pertaining to personal credit and social relations has focused almost solely upon England, neglecting a wider British and comparative Atlantic context. Furthermore, the decades spanning the middle of the eighteenth century have not been subjected to dedicated treatment, though this period has often been considered an era when institutional development caused profound changes in the nature of interpersonal credit. This thesis examines credit and social relations in the British Atlantic between 1710 and 1770, comparing case studies drawn from two provincial, urban contexts: Edinburgh and Philadelphia. Particular attention has been given to artisans and tradesmen who have hitherto been less well served by the Atlantic historiography. Drawing on legal, institutional and personal records, the thesis begins by addressing economic structures of petty credit, before progressing to consider social constructions of credit and reputation and their change over time. The study concludes that while structures of credit changed, credibility continued to be built upon interpersonal trust, personal reputation, social capital and gender identity. Furthermore, this ‘culture of credit’ transcended national boundaries. Similarities of practice within two very different legal and institutional systems call into question the perceived influence of these structures upon the behaviour of the lower-middling sort.