Notes from the Field: Sint Eustatius, the "Golden Rock," Part 3

My last two posts, covered the history of Sint Eustatius and what it was like to visit the "Golden Rock." After finishing these posts, it occurred to me that I have no idea where to put my pictures of the "goats of vast early America." That's just as well. They probably deserve their own post anyway.

Statia has a sizable population of wild goats. They climb the cliffs of the island and eat not just weeds, but the Statians' gardens.

Our funniest "goat" moment took place the morning of our Upper Town tour. It rained that morning and when we went inside Fort Oranje to meet our guide, we found many goats huddled inside the fort under the awning of the Tourists' Office.

At first glance it really seemed like the goats were just waiting for the office to open.

Notes from the Field: Sint Eustatius, the "Golden Rock," Part 2

Known as the "Golden Rock," Sint Eustatius supplied the slave and free trade needs of the 18th-century Atlantic World. Part one of this three-part series offered an overview of the history of Sint Eustatius. This post discusses my visit to the island.

Visiting Sint Eustatius

Tim and I traveled to Statia to explore its history, scuba dive in its reefs, and to relax. Like most tourists, we stayed in Lower Town in one of the two hotels on the beach (there are only two hotels on Statia) and climbed the steep Bay Path when we wanted to visit Upper Town.

Not much remains of Lower Town. At the height of Statia's "golden years," approximately 600 warehouses lined the shoreline to greet and trade with ships. Today, the Statian shoreline is mostly beach. A few modern buildings and a few restored warehouses now used as hotels and shops stand interspersed among the partial stone remains of many warehouses.

Upper Town also has many ruins of buildings that once stood in the 18th and 19th centuries. Fort Oranje anchors the town and from it spreads a core of historic houses and government buildings and a newer modern town. The historic buildings all share common features. Ground floors are constructed with either brick or native volcanic stones and upper floors with wood. Many who occupy historic buildings still use kitchens and ovens constructed by the Dutch during the 18th century.

Comparing Dutch Atlantic Towns

Throughout our stay, I couldn't help but compare the historic Upper Town of Oranjestad with Beverwyck/Albany. Both settlements served the Dutch as port and trading towns, albeit Sint Eustatius had a large Atlantic port that prospered in the slave trade and Albany had a much smaller inland river port that prospered in the fur trade. The architecture of the settlements differed a lot because of environment; Albany had a much more urban layout common to Dutch cities in the Netherlands while Statia had many buildings that were placed together less closely.

Statia and Albany also differed in their use of language. Although Sint Eustatius is a Dutch municipality, English is the official language of the island and has been since the early 18th century. According to island historian Martin Hellebrand, who led Tim and I on a tour of Upper Town, Statians have been speaking English since at least the 1720s. He noted the earliest evidence they have of this fact is an official court record. The record recounts a fight between two women, one of whom slapped the other for calling her a whore. Hellebrand stated that altough all the official court records are in Dutch, as required by law, the court clerk had to work to keep them in Dutch as all the testimony offered in the case was in English.

I found this interesting because by the 1720s, the official language of Albany was English. And yet, even in the 1720s, many notaries and clerks had to work to keep their records in English because many Albanians still preferred to speak and write in Dutch.

Not All History

Although this post and the one that preceded it speak mostly to the historical part of our trip, exploring Statia's history comprised only about a day of our week-long adventure. Tim and I spent the majority of our trip diving in Statia's reefs, napping, reading, and watching the sunset with Mai Tais.

Notes from the Field: Sint Eustatius, the "Golden Rock," Part 1

Reading about the history of vast early America is great. But every so often I find it necessary to go out into the field and see the places I read about. This is, in part, how I came to spend last week in Sint Eustatius, the "Golden Rock" of the 18th-century Atlantic World. This post begins a three-post series about Sint Eustatius, its history, and my visit to the island.

Historic Overview of Sint Eustatius

A small, volcanic island in the Lesser Antilles, Sint Eustatius (also known as Statia) stands in between the islands of Saba and Saint Kitts. Archaeological evidence suggests native peoples lived on Statia prior to the 17th century. However, when the French attempted to settle the island in 1629, they no longer lived on Statia.[1]

French settlement of Statia lasted only a few years. The French feared Spanish attacks and they discovered that Statia lacks a natural source of water.

The Dutch found Statia uninhabited in 1636 and settled the island. They recognized the island sat at the crossroads of the trade winds and that it had a large, natural harbor with an easy anchorage that could accommodate up to two hundred ships. To overcome the island's lack of natural water, the Dutch built cisterns.

Under the Dutch, Statia grew in two parts: Lower Town along the shoreline and Upper Town atop the steep cliff where people built their houses, churches, and government offices.

The Dutch built Fort Oranje at the edge of Upper Town's steep cliff and designed it to protect both Upper and Lower Town. By 1701, it had four bastions. Despite its size and strategic location, Fort Oranje never proved capable of staging an adequate defense of the island because the Dutch West India Company never garrisoned enough soldiers on Statia to man it. As a result, the island changed hands between the French, English, and Dutch approximately twenty-two times, often with the exchange of only a couple of shots, between the 17th and 18th centuries.

When the Dutch settled Sint Eustatius, they planned to grow tobacco, cotton, and indigo. By the 18th-century they established sugar plantations. However, these cash-crop plantations proved to be secondary to the main source of Statia's wealth, the slave trade.

Statia's position at the crossroads of the African and American trades brought ships from all over the Atlantic into her large harbor. Duty-free trade supplemented the slave trade especially during times of European warfare. The Dutch often declared neutrality, especially during periods of warfare between the English and French. Dutch neutrality allowed all traders to freely trade in Statia.

Traders could find just about every type of good in Statia. This fact combined with Dutch neutrality caused Americans to sail to Statia in search of gunpowder, ammunition, and other war materiel during the War for American Independence. Historians estimate that as much as 50 percent of the patriots' war supplies came through Statia.

The American Revolution coincided with the peak of Statia's economic power; the days when those around the Atlantic World referred to her as the "Golden Rock." Two notable events occurred on Statia during the Revolution.

First, on November 16, 1776, the American naval vessel Andrew Doria sailed into Statia flying the new flag of the United States. As per custom, she entered the port by firing a peaceful, welcome salute. The Dutch soldiers in Fort Oranje were to supposed to fire a return salute, but they hesitated. They did not recognize the Andrew Doria's flag. The officer on duty inquired with Governor Johannes de Graaff about what action the men in the fort should take. As the welcome salute signified peaceful entry, de Graaff ordered his men to return the salute. The American press spun this customary salute by the Dutch as the first international recognition of the United States, the "first salute."

Second, in 1781, British Admiral George Rodney sailed to Sint Eustatius with orders to subdue the island so the Americans couldn't supply their war effort through it. Rodney sacked the island in February. His orders after subduing the island were to head to the Chesapeake to prevent the French navy from meeting up with George Washington's American army. Rodney defied his orders. He remained in Statia to plunder the island in an effort to satisfy personal debts and enrich himself. As a result, the French met up with the American army at Yorktown in October 1781.

Although the American War for Independence had contributed to Statia's wealth, the independence of the United States also contributed to Statia's decline. After gaining independence, the United States sought to trade in different ports and Statia never recovered from Rodney's plundering. Today, the island, with its population of approximately 3,000 people, is an official municipality of the Netherlands.

[1] No hard evidence exists for why the native inhabitants of Statia left the island. An exhibit in the Sint Eustatius History Museum offered two possibilities: first, native inhabitants left the island in fear the Spanish would raid their island and enslave them. Second, the Spanish raided the island and enslaved its native peoples sometime during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Must...Avoid...Research Rabbit Hole...Or, Were the Articles of Confederation a Failure?

Were the Articles of Confederation a success or failure? I finished reading Merrill Jensen's The Articles of Confederation (1940). It's the first book I've read for my new book project about the Articles of Confederation and it's the last book historians have written specifically about the Articles and how the Continental Congress drafted them.

Jensen spends most of his conclusion discussing whether or not we can view the first constitution of the United States as a success or failure. He states that "the fact that the Articles of Confederation were supplanted by another Constitution is no proof either of their success or their failure. Any valid opinion as to the merits of the Articles must be based on a detailed and unbiased study of the confederation period."[1] I agree.

The only way to assess the success or failure of the United States' first constitution is to study them in action. And this bring us to the point of Jensen's book: Jensen intended for The Articles of Confederation to establish the context and knowledge he needed readers to have so they could best understand the book he wanted to write, The New Nation: A History of the United States During the Confederation, 1781-1789 (1950).

Jensen's question and point are interesting, but are they the question and point I want to answer and make in my study of the Articles?

Recognizing a Rabbit Hole

I came to be interested in the Articles of Confederation because so many recent studies about the Constitution of 1787 treat the Articles of Confederation as a stepping stone to the Constitution. These studies discuss how it was a flawed constitution and reason that those who drafted the Articles never intended for it to stand as a permanent, lasting government.

These claims don't make sense to me given what I know about the Revolution.

Additionally, an article I wrote about trade during the Confederation era came back from peer reviewers with a recommendation that I flesh out and expand the historiography section on the Articles of Confederation. That's when I found that I couldn't expand the section because there wasn't more literature to add. Jensen had written the last book on the subject and subsequent works only address the Articles on their way to a discussion of the Constitution of 1787.

The realization that there was such a gap in the historiography combined with the question of what did the framers of the Articles intend the constitution to be inspired me to take up this project.

Were the Articles of Confederation a success or failure as a constitution? This isn't a question I want to answer. I want to answer three different questions:

1. In what context did the Continental Congress draft the Articles of Confederation?

2. What intent did the framers of the Articles have for the constitution? Was it to be a permanent constitution or did they intend for it to serve as a temporary measure until a future congress could draft a more full constitution?

3. How did the thirteen states come together to draft and ratify the Articles of Confederation? How did they overcome their regional, economic, and political differences to form a union?

Avoiding the Rabbit Hole

I'm grateful for the work Merrill Jensen did in The Articles of Confederation, yet I want to write a different book.

History is about people and Jensen didn't really discuss people in his book. His work was meant to serve as an extended introduction to the book he wanted to write. I want to write a book about how the Articles of Confederation came to be, the men who drafted them, and how those men came to their ideas.

I also want to provide more context than Merrill Jensen did in his book. Jensen mentioned how the men who drafted the Articles spent a lot of time referencing history in their arguments for and against certain articles. Yet Jensen didn't explore historical precedents for the Articles. Both the Netherlands and Switzerland had confederations at the time Richard Henry Lee resolved that Congress should establish a committee to draft a confederation.[2] What role did these foreign and contemporary confederations play as models for the Articles?

Jensen barely mentioned slavery and yet today we know that slavery and protecting it played a huge role in the governance of the early United States. Surely slavery played a role in the drafting of the United States' first constitution too. I need to investigate that role.

Also, what role did land and the west really play in the Articles and their ratification? For Jensen, limiting the boundaries of states like Virginia, which had charter rights to land from the Atlantic to the "South Sea," proved to be a central controversy. This may be the case. At this point I know little about the political and cultural rivalry that existed between Maryland and Virginia (I need to learn more about it), but I know all about the political and cultural rivalry that existed between New York and New England and land played a big role in it.

Jensen may be right that land played a central role in drafting and ratifying the Articles, however, I noticed something curious in his footnotes: Jensen did not cite a lot of secondary sources; he relied on a lot of documentary editions and some manuscripts. When he did cite a secondary source, several citations were for works by Frederick Jackson Turner.

I know about Turner and his work, but I've never read Turner. I think this may be the next step in my project. I think I need to take a quick step back and explore the historiography that clearly influenced Jensen so I can better understand where Jensen was coming from, where I agree and disagree with him, and how I want to move forward.

Conclusion: Stay Focused

When I wrote my dissertation, I felt like I had all the time in the world. I had a funded position, research fellowships, and my dissertation was my full-time job. I thought nothing of spending a month or more in distant archives. Heck, I moved to Albany, New York so I could "reside" in the two most important archives for my project: The New York State Library and Archives.

Now, I have a full-time job with Ben Franklin's World so I have to work on this project differently. I have to work smarter. I need to stay focused on my research questions and not chase as many interesting questions, ideas, and bits of information down rabbit holes. I suppose that is the point of this post: A reminder to myself of what my research questions and goals are so I can stay focused and eventually write and publish a book.

Avoid the rabbit holes, Liz.

Notes

[1] Merrill Jensen, The Articles of Confederation: An Interpretation of the Social-Constitutional History of the American Revolution, 1st edition, (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1940), pg 239.

[2] On June 7, 1776, Continental Congressman Richard Henry Lee of Virginia made the following resolution in the Second Continental Congress: "Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.

That it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign Alliances.

That a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective Colonies for their consideration and approbation."

Sounds of History: What Did Early America Sound Like?

What did early America sound like?

This recurring thought has recently moved from the back of my brain to its front.

I'm fortunate to live in Boston, a city that attempts to preserve vestiges of its early American past even as it builds around them. Living in a place with many visual reminders of the 18th and 19th centuries provides ample reminders to pause and listen for early America.

In recent weeks it has become typical to find me standing at the corner of State and Congress Streets, for example, staring down State Street at the Long Wharf, tuning out the cars in the foreground, and trying to imagine what it sounded like when ships pulled into and out of port and dockworkers loaded and unloaded cargo holds. Or standing on a lawn on the Common trying to imagine the sounds the British military encampments made in 1768 and during the 1770s.

I've even started pacing the sidewalks in my neighborhood in areas where the sidewalk transitions from granite cobblestones to brick pavers. I'm wearing modern shoes, but the sounds my shoes make as they make contact with these different materials sounds different. What would it sound like if I wore period shoes?

Sound shapes our world, mostly in unconscious ways. It drives our experiences in part by establishing context and setting expectations.

Film provides a great example of the power of sound and how it shapes our expectations and experiences.

For example, let's explore a few of the sounds in Star Wars. The movie opens and immediately the music used to introduce the film sets an expectation that we are in for a grand, epic tale about "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away." Background music and sounds frame scenes so we know if we're watching Tie Fighters chase the Millennium Falcon or a shoot out between rebels and drones. We also know when Darth Vader is coming. His heavy, ominous breathing gives him away even before we see him on screen.

If you want to have some fun, try watching Star Wars (or any other film) without sound. It changes the experience and makes it easy to lose the story because it lacks the context sound provides.

*****

The fourteenth and final episode in the "Doing History: How Historians Work" posted today. Each series episode presents a discussion with one or more of the seventeen historians, archivists, and genealogists I interviewed about how they work with and use the historical process. As I reflect back on all the sage advice they provided, two recurring themes stand out:

1. Process: The production of historical knowledge comes out of a collaborative process based on evidence, analysis, and interpretation. Even historians who claim to work alone rely on work produced by other historians and on sources produced by people who lived in the past.

2. People: History is about people. It's the study of how and why people lived, acted, and responded in different times, places, and circumstances. It tells us who we are as people, communities, and individuals and its knowledge provides us with the intellectual tools we need to navigate and better understand our present-day world.

In the final episode of the "Doing History: How Historians Work" series, Lonnie Bunch, the Founding Director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture stresses that historians need to humanize the past so that everyone can relate to history and realize that the past is alive and a part of who they are.

For most humans, sound is a fundamental part of who we are. It's an essential part of our humanity as it frames every moment of every day and shapes our preferences and moods.

Sound has the power to humanize the past in a way that the text in books, articles, and exhibits cannot. It has the power to evoke mental images, create empathy, and to tell us something about the ways people lived, worked, and responded to events in ways that we cannot fully understand through text alone. I believe that sound can work with the other media historians produce to create a more three-dimensional image of past peoples, places, and events and to make them seem more real, more human.

Therefore, I plan to spend 2017 thinking more consciously about what early America sounded like and experimenting with sound in my scholarship. I expect you will see and hear the results of my thinking in future podcast episodes--especially those in the forthcoming "Doing History: To the Revolution!" series and in how I think and talk about my new book project on the Articles of Confederation--a project that I've already begun to compose in both text and sound.

That's what I'm working on in 2017. What aspect of history will you be working on and exploring?