This study argues that the movement of enslaved people toward Union Army positions during the U.S. Civil War hastened the political process of emancipation by creating facts on the ground for the Lincoln White House and the Republican Congress to act upon. The study further argues that the shambling and improvised task of 19th century emancipation was a compressed reflection of the disordered process of the adoption of legalized slavery in the Virginia Colony during the 17th century. As it happens, both initiated at the same piece of land: Old Point Comfort at the eastern end of the Virginia Peninsula. The study examines the sociology of the “contraband camps” that first formed near Fort Monroe, Virginia and later spread to hundreds of other places across the South, followed by an analysis of their effect on the speed of political emancipation. The subject of Lincoln’s evolving thinking on the subject and a discussion of his decision-making process is also key to understanding how the movement of up to 800,000 enslaved people to the contraband camps became a major driver of the turn toward emancipation as a higher moral cause for the Union side in the Civil War, as well as the formation of the U.S. Colored Troops and the eventual Constitutional amendment abolishing slavery.

An anomaly among Britain’s North American colonies, Pennsylvania initially lacked an organized militia in its engagement with Native Americans or with other imperial powers, focusing its energies instead on diplomacy and trade with such groups in the early decades of its colonial existence. During the period known as The Long Peace, extending from the 1680s through the 1740s, Pennsylvania established friendly relations with local Indian tribes that enabled the colony to expand territorially and to prosper economically. The Quakers who founded the colony and dominated its politics deemed a militia not only immoral but also impractical to Pennsylvania’s fortunes. Virtually defenseless, frontier communities in Pennsylvania suffered an onslaught when the colony’s former long-time Indian allies and trade partners joined the French in their war against Britain, in what became the French and Indian War (1754-63). Desperate to protect the frontier, the Pennsylvania assembly passed a militia act in 1755. Though the act proved futile as a tool for military defense (it forbade militia service lasting longer than three days), the militia allowed frontier communities to organize for the first time, frontiersmen took an increasingly active role in maintaining and advancing their own social and political interests. The desire to defend themselves during the French and Indian War and subsequent Pontiac's Rebellion (1763-65) fashioned Pennsylvania's diverse frontier population into a coherent frontier culture. Frontiersmen deployed the organizational power of the colonial militia to defend their own interests against, first, the Pennsylvania assembly, and shortly after against the British on the eve of the American Revolution.

Privateers and pirates were instrumental in the development of English and British colonies and territories through military support and economic enrichment. British policy was to use privateers to help break into the New World when it was dominated by Spain, and Britain’s navy was no match for Spain’s navy. The privateers were used to protect the colonies, like Jamaica, from Spanish invasion and to militarily weaken Spain, Portugal, and others by taking or destroying their ships. Plundering brought in substantial wealth to the colonies and the crown while working for British governors. Eventually, Britain’s policy changed when it became more established in the Caribbean and the New World, and because some of its pro-Catholic monarchs made peace with Spain. Sugar production increased and there was less need for privateers. Most privateers moved to new bases in the North American colonies and Madagascar where they continued to be paid to work on behalf of others, in this case mostly for merchants and local politicians. Besides enriching the North American colonies economies through plunder, the privateers also helped protect them from the Native Americans. As pirates from Madagascar, they raided Mughal merchant fleets, bringing loot and exotic goods to the North American colonies in the seventeenth century, which also helped boost trade with Asia because colonists desired Asian goods. The pirates brought massive numbers of slaves from Madagascar to the colonies to sell. Pirates also operated in the Caribbean. There, they were beneficial to the colonies by bringing in money, yet problematic because they would sometimes raid British ships. When Britain became a global power, privateers and pirates became more of a nuisance than a help to the empire and it stopped using them. Still, in the 1800s, a privateer resurgence occurred in the United States and these individuals and their ships served the same function as they had with Britain, helping a new power break into areas across the sea when it lacked a strong navy. Though somewhat problematic to Britain these privateers did benefit the empire by helping Spain’s colonies gain their independence.

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.