Page 18 - Abacoa Community News - October '24

Page 18, Abacoa
Book Review

The details that
American Sanctuary: enrich this narrative,
Mutiny, Martyrdom, garnered from the
author’s extraordinary
And National Identity research, add

In The Age Of Revolution enormously to the
overall experience,
as do the many
By Nils A. Shapiro contemporary portraits
I cannot recall ever and illustrations from
enjoying a scholarly work that period.
of early American history Revolutionary
so interestingly and vividly and early American
told, so extraordinarily history being one of
researched and impressively my preferred reading which demanded that President John Adams turn over the
detailed, exciting as any tastes I was surprised “mutineer and murderer” to Britain for punishment. It was
novel, and as timely in never to have heard of the very significant event that is awkward timing, for Adams was then in the process of
subject as next month’s the pivotal subject of this book: the mutiny aboard HMS ratifying an economic trade treaty with Britain that had
presidential election! Hermione. Nor, shockingly, was it ever mentioned in any just been negotiated.
The date was September class, even through college. Adams had to weigh the success of the treaty against
21, 1797. The event was a vicious mutiny by the crew of At the time the mutiny took place—after the United the American public’s anger about the British policy and
a British naval vessel, HMS Hermione, in the Caribbean States had already won the Revolutionary War several years actions of impressment on the high seas and the idea of
off the coast of Puerto Rico. Little remembered today, its earlier and declared itself an independent nation—one of turning over to Britain a claimed American citizen who
aftershock was to lead directly to the election of Thomas the most objectionable policies of the British crown and its “had the right to regain his freedom after having been the
Jefferson over the incumbent John Adams as president navy was the practice of “impressment”: the stopping and victim of such impressment” and return home.
of the United States … and the resulting lasting image boarding of other nations’ vessels, capturing members of Adams’s decision to turn Robbins over to Britain—
of America as a sanctuary of freedom for those fleeing their crews and forcing them to sail and work as seamen on where he was executed by hanging without a trial—
from persecution in other lands—an issue that dominates British ships, most likely never to see their families again. Adams’s Federalist Party’s defense of his decision, and the
today’s political campaigns just as it did the one in 1800. Such was the case of many on the Hermione’s crew as consequences of Jefferson’s Republican Party’s national
I must admit that, although it was published in 2017, I it sailed near the island of Puerto Rico on that September electoral campaign focused on driving the public’s anger,
had never heard of American Sanctuary and was fortunate day in 1797. Adding to what was already a tinder box of form the major part of this compelling story.
to come across it by accident on a table stacked with books a situation was the fact that this ship’s captain, Admiral Eventually—and critical in light of today’s political
while shopping in a market. Its author, A. Roger Ekirch, Hugh Pigot, was a disciplinarian so stern that whipping climate and immigration crisis—the American people
is a professor of history at Virginia Tech, has written four and other punishments for minor crew offenses became eventually decided that, whether or not Jonathan Robbins
earlier books, received a Guggenheim Fellowship and is unbearable and sparked the bloody insurrection that ended (or Thomas Nash, if that was his real name) was in fact an
widely recognized as one of our finest historians. in the death of the captain and other officers. American citizen, anyone fleeing from oppression should
One of the main leaders of the mutiny was a man whose be able to find sanctuary in the United States and not have
name throughout this book varies between Thomas Nash to fear being turned away. It is to this day at the heart of our
(if he was actually Irish) and Jonathan Robbins, depending nation’s self-image, symbolized by the Statue of Liberty in
upon whether his claim to have been an American from New York Harbor and the inscription on her base addressed
Connecticut was true or not. to “the huddled masses yearning to be free.”
Eventually, after the mutiny Robbins made his way to This is the story of how and when that all started. I
the U.S. and was tracked down by the British government, loved every word of it.

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