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Rebels Rising: Cities and the American Revolution
The cities of eighteenth-century America packed together tens of thousands of colonists, who met each other in back rooms and plotted political tactics, debated the issues of the day in taverns, and mingled together on the wharves or in the streets. In this fascinating work, historian Benjamin L. Carp shows how these various urban meeting places provided the tinder and spark for the American Revolution.
Carp focuses closely on political activity in colonial America's five most populous cities--in particular, he examines Boston's waterfront community, New York tavern-goers, Newport congregations, Charleston's elite patriarchy, and the common people who gathered outside Philadelphia's State House. He shows how--because of their tight concentrations of people and diverse mixture of inhabitants--the largest cities offered fertile ground for political consciousness, political persuasion, and political action. The book traces how everyday interactions in taverns, wharves, and elsewhere slowly developed into more serious political activity. Ultimately, the residents of cities became the first to voice their discontent. Merchants began meeting to discuss the repercussions of new laws, printers fired up provocative pamphlets, and protesters took to the streets. Indeed, the cities became the flashpoints for legislative protests, committee meetings, massive outdoor gatherings, newspaper
harangues, boycotts, customs evasion, violence and riots--all of which laid the groundwork for war.
Ranging from 1740 to 1780, this groundbreaking work contributes significantly to our understanding of the American Revolution. By focusing on some of the most pivotal events of the eighteenth century as they unfolded in the most dynamic places in America, this book illuminates how city dwellers joined in various forms of political activity that helped make the Revolution possible.
Carp focuses closely on political activity in colonial America's five most populous cities--in particular, he examines Boston's waterfront community, New York tavern-goers, Newport congregations, Charleston's elite patriarchy, and the common people who gathered outside Philadelphia's State House. He shows how--because of their tight concentrations of people and diverse mixture of inhabitants--the largest cities offered fertile ground for political consciousness, political persuasion, and political action. The book traces how everyday interactions in taverns, wharves, and elsewhere slowly developed into more serious political activity. Ultimately, the residents of cities became the first to voice their discontent. Merchants began meeting to discuss the repercussions of new laws, printers fired up provocative pamphlets, and protesters took to the streets. Indeed, the cities became the flashpoints for legislative protests, committee meetings, massive outdoor gatherings, newspaper
harangues, boycotts, customs evasion, violence and riots--all of which laid the groundwork for war.
Ranging from 1740 to 1780, this groundbreaking work contributes significantly to our understanding of the American Revolution. By focusing on some of the most pivotal events of the eighteenth century as they unfolded in the most dynamic places in America, this book illuminates how city dwellers joined in various forms of political activity that helped make the Revolution possible.
334 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 11, 2013
In Rebels Rising: Cities and the American Revolution, Benjamin L. Carp, Assistant Professor of History at Tufts University, examines the political activity in Colonial America’s five most populous cities (Boston, New York City, Newport, Charleston, and Philadelphia) on the eve of the American Revolution. As a main thesis, he shows that the contours of urban life made it possible for patriot mobilization to be ultimately more effective than imperial counter-mobilization.
The Boston waterfront was home to a cohesive and interdependent community of seamen, dockworkers, artisans, and merchants whose mobilization in times of imperial crises made the city a leader in the resistance to Great Britain. The radical waterfront coalition was in many ways a microcosm of the city itself. Generally the first feel the ill effects of imperial encroachment, the waterfront was uniquely situated both geographically and socioeconomically to play a pivotal role in revolutionary events. Carp details the circumstances begetting key waterfront actions and their ultimate consequences and significance. As radical ideas spread inland, the waterfront cause became a countryside cause, and ultimately an intercolonial cause. Other cities in the colonies looked to Boston as the vanguard of radical action. In this way as Carp notes, the waterfront revolution was a crucial and catalytic component of the urban revolution, which was in turn a crucial and catalytic component of the American Revolution as a whole.
During the imperial crisis, the taverns and public houses of New York City allowed for the mixing (and of course shaking and stirring) of inhabitants and visitors from different social groups and served as ideal staging grounds from which revolutionaries launched their opposition. To control the taverns was to control the populace. Organized drinking societies and tavern companies not only exchanged ideas among themselves, they initiated correspondence among tavern companies throughout the Atlantic seaboard. Thus, societies that began in the New York taverns served as a model for, and corresponded with, tavern societies that met in cities and towns throughout the American colonies.
More than any other major city in the colonies, pluralistic Newport was home to a multiplicity of religious groups – Anglicans, Congregationalists, Baptists, Quakers, Moravians, Jews, and secular nothingarians. Along with detailed descriptions of their meetinghouses, Carp provides the prevailing (and divergent) stances held within these groups and their ministers as they related to the resistance movement. In the end, Newporters proved to be reluctant revolutionaries, for the urban religious landscape allowed for communication and conflict, but not necessarily political mobilization.
Nine of the ten richest men in British North America were South Carolinians, and Charleston District was the richest in North America, with an average wealth per estate tripling that of its nearest rival. Such wealth afforded Carolina’s elite patriarchs a lifestyle of decadence and consumerism for imported British fineries, making them natural targets for supporters of non-importation and non-consumption policies. Their households became “miserably situated between two fires” – kingly tyranny for one, and popular tyranny the other. Henry Laurens felt the wrath of this popular tyranny firsthand. He and his fellow gentry would have to set about building a new republican household if they wished to continue dominating colonial politics, economy, and society. So in this way, the Charleston household became the predominant venue of political mobilization. However, initial progress and inroads toward revolutionary liberty made by the disenfranchised – blacks, women, and the middling and poor – would remain limited.
As a native of the Delaware Valley, this reader appreciates that Carp saved the best story – Philadelphia – for last (but of course I’m biased). In Pennsylvania, independence caught on slowly. Assembly members, those practicing politics “within doors,” were careful not to offend Parliament, the Crown, or the Ministry, as they were bent on replacing the proprietary charter with a royal government. Radicals in favor of independence would have to resort to politics “out of doors,” most often in the form of large gatherings in State House Yard, in order to muster the populace and influence public opinion. By 1774, these gatherings cleared the way for the meetings of the Continental Congresses and became the mechanism by which independence was popularized and affirmed.
The book is extensively referenced for scholars seeking more granularity on the subject, and the vivid narrative style is appealing to the general reader interested in learning more about urban politics and folkways during the American Revolution.
The Boston waterfront was home to a cohesive and interdependent community of seamen, dockworkers, artisans, and merchants whose mobilization in times of imperial crises made the city a leader in the resistance to Great Britain. The radical waterfront coalition was in many ways a microcosm of the city itself. Generally the first feel the ill effects of imperial encroachment, the waterfront was uniquely situated both geographically and socioeconomically to play a pivotal role in revolutionary events. Carp details the circumstances begetting key waterfront actions and their ultimate consequences and significance. As radical ideas spread inland, the waterfront cause became a countryside cause, and ultimately an intercolonial cause. Other cities in the colonies looked to Boston as the vanguard of radical action. In this way as Carp notes, the waterfront revolution was a crucial and catalytic component of the urban revolution, which was in turn a crucial and catalytic component of the American Revolution as a whole.
During the imperial crisis, the taverns and public houses of New York City allowed for the mixing (and of course shaking and stirring) of inhabitants and visitors from different social groups and served as ideal staging grounds from which revolutionaries launched their opposition. To control the taverns was to control the populace. Organized drinking societies and tavern companies not only exchanged ideas among themselves, they initiated correspondence among tavern companies throughout the Atlantic seaboard. Thus, societies that began in the New York taverns served as a model for, and corresponded with, tavern societies that met in cities and towns throughout the American colonies.
More than any other major city in the colonies, pluralistic Newport was home to a multiplicity of religious groups – Anglicans, Congregationalists, Baptists, Quakers, Moravians, Jews, and secular nothingarians. Along with detailed descriptions of their meetinghouses, Carp provides the prevailing (and divergent) stances held within these groups and their ministers as they related to the resistance movement. In the end, Newporters proved to be reluctant revolutionaries, for the urban religious landscape allowed for communication and conflict, but not necessarily political mobilization.
Nine of the ten richest men in British North America were South Carolinians, and Charleston District was the richest in North America, with an average wealth per estate tripling that of its nearest rival. Such wealth afforded Carolina’s elite patriarchs a lifestyle of decadence and consumerism for imported British fineries, making them natural targets for supporters of non-importation and non-consumption policies. Their households became “miserably situated between two fires” – kingly tyranny for one, and popular tyranny the other. Henry Laurens felt the wrath of this popular tyranny firsthand. He and his fellow gentry would have to set about building a new republican household if they wished to continue dominating colonial politics, economy, and society. So in this way, the Charleston household became the predominant venue of political mobilization. However, initial progress and inroads toward revolutionary liberty made by the disenfranchised – blacks, women, and the middling and poor – would remain limited.
As a native of the Delaware Valley, this reader appreciates that Carp saved the best story – Philadelphia – for last (but of course I’m biased). In Pennsylvania, independence caught on slowly. Assembly members, those practicing politics “within doors,” were careful not to offend Parliament, the Crown, or the Ministry, as they were bent on replacing the proprietary charter with a royal government. Radicals in favor of independence would have to resort to politics “out of doors,” most often in the form of large gatherings in State House Yard, in order to muster the populace and influence public opinion. By 1774, these gatherings cleared the way for the meetings of the Continental Congresses and became the mechanism by which independence was popularized and affirmed.
The book is extensively referenced for scholars seeking more granularity on the subject, and the vivid narrative style is appealing to the general reader interested in learning more about urban politics and folkways during the American Revolution.
September 28, 2017
Benjamin L. Carp explores in Rebels Rising: Cities and the American Revolution that urban life presented Americans with unique experiences and modes of political mobilization not readily found in the countryside. In colonial cities, residents of varying social classes and religious backgrounds lived in close proximity, rubbing elbows in bustling shipyards or trading barbs in raucous taverns, to take just a few examples. This pluralism necessitated modes of polite discourse, openness to citizens of other stripes, and avenues of political mustering, at first for reasons of commerce and financial security, but becoming increasingly important when these aspects were engaged to oppose imperial pressures. In addition, the physical composition of cities fostered political awareness and democratization, whether at the wharves of Boston, which stood at the frontline of importation conflicts and naval impressment, or the utilization of public spaces in Philadelphia, where radicals took to gathering in large numbers outside of government buildings in order to have their voices heard by the seemingly deaf officials within. Though cities, due to repeated military occupations and violent confrontations, were more or less taken out of the revolutionary process once war began, they were nevertheless essential to the conception and advancement of the cause of independence in the decades prior.
Carp organizes his argument, geographically and thematically, into five chapters. Each chapter looks at a particular colonial city, one of America’s five largest, and also at a particular urban aspect which furthers the author’s contention that these spaces provided means of cooperation, persuasion, and political activism. The first chapter focuses upon Boston and its wharves, how this space became the prime catalyst for conflict regarding British importation laws and naval impressment, pushing Bostonians to organize and confront oppression, often physically. The second chapter looks at New York City, arguably the drunkest of American urban centers, and its taverns, and at how these settings fostered the creation of political alliances and networks. Lubricated tongues openly debated political grievances, and tavern-goers often heard news from abroad first and sent information to like-minded Americans in other cities. The third chapter inspects Newport’s religious community and how financial interests in the trade of rum and slaves often allowed people to overlook or ignore religious differences, evoking a tandem faith in both freedom of conscience and strength in pluralism. This chapter, while valuable, lacks the clarity of significance that characterizes the other chapters, and therefore does less to advance his overall argument. Even Carp admits that Newport’s “cooperative climate” still “failed to harness their town’s pluralism in the service of rebellion.” He concludes simply: “Religion was bad for politics.” The fourth chapter examines the patriarchal households, both in actuality and as metaphor, of Charleston and how planter and merchant elites had to navigate carefully their dealings with dissatisfied lower classes while also giving more voice to women whose support was necessary to effectively execute the boycott of British goods. The fifth chapter examines Philadelphia’s closed government spaces in relation and, more importantly, in contrast to the open public spaces to which the masses increasingly turned to organize and be heard, eventually supplanting those who held sway within. Carp’s structure also has a chronological logic, beginning with Boston, whose grievances with the crown go back decades before the war, and ending with Philadelphia, which was slow to radicalism but nevertheless was stage to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Additionally, Carp presents Philadelphia as a city which “would have recognized all” the “incidents of political mobilization” of the previous chapters and tries to incorporate those lessons in that city’s experience, thereby situating that city as a culmination of his preceding arguments.
Carp builds on existing scholarship by focusing, not on “rebellious action within colonial institutions and new, ‘extralegal’ structures,” but rather on the ways in which cities provided opportunities for citizens to persuade and cooperate with one another in “a variety of everyday settings.” Therefore, Carp focuses on the more common, mundane aspects of city life and how that too influenced people and pushed them toward political mobilization and democratization, creating a fertile social soil for arguments in favor of independence. For Carp, the city is not simply a setting for the revolution, it’s an essential player.
In creating his argument and sketching cityscapes for the reader, Carp employs a multitude of primary sources, mostly American. He uses personal journals, statistics, letters, newspaper articles and editorials, political screeds, manuscripts, and various eighteenth century published works. To access these, Carp utilized the archives of various American libraries, historical societies, and universities, while also obtaining sources from British archives. More importantly, he uses the cities themselves, through original maps and still-standing buildings, as agents to advance and provide visual evidence toward his argument. Additionally, Carp uses a plethora of secondary sources, most of which focus on the urban histories of his chosen locations, but also works which look at social constructs and political mobilizations of the era, to form his understandings and interpretations of colonial city life. Such choices give Carp a confident viewpoint with which to navigate the primary sources and summon convincing portrayals of their significance.
Rebels Rising makes for an often compelling read, especially when Carp delves into details such as the drinking life of New Yorkers or the assembled radicals of Philadelphia. His clear writing leads readers through the decades leading up to revolution for each city, painting a vivid picture of metropolitan bustle and complicated social and political interactions. He convincingly incorporates the experiences of various participants from extremely divergent backgrounds, managing to show how their perspectives and relationships encouraged activism, pluralism, and a foundation upon which to build a republican government based upon liberty, freedom of conscience, and the consideration of political concerns from other social classes (if not women and nonwhites). While so much focus has often been paid to the countryside, with its close communities and largely homogeneous residents, Carp shows how essential cities were to cultivating the seeds of revolution and independence.
Carp organizes his argument, geographically and thematically, into five chapters. Each chapter looks at a particular colonial city, one of America’s five largest, and also at a particular urban aspect which furthers the author’s contention that these spaces provided means of cooperation, persuasion, and political activism. The first chapter focuses upon Boston and its wharves, how this space became the prime catalyst for conflict regarding British importation laws and naval impressment, pushing Bostonians to organize and confront oppression, often physically. The second chapter looks at New York City, arguably the drunkest of American urban centers, and its taverns, and at how these settings fostered the creation of political alliances and networks. Lubricated tongues openly debated political grievances, and tavern-goers often heard news from abroad first and sent information to like-minded Americans in other cities. The third chapter inspects Newport’s religious community and how financial interests in the trade of rum and slaves often allowed people to overlook or ignore religious differences, evoking a tandem faith in both freedom of conscience and strength in pluralism. This chapter, while valuable, lacks the clarity of significance that characterizes the other chapters, and therefore does less to advance his overall argument. Even Carp admits that Newport’s “cooperative climate” still “failed to harness their town’s pluralism in the service of rebellion.” He concludes simply: “Religion was bad for politics.” The fourth chapter examines the patriarchal households, both in actuality and as metaphor, of Charleston and how planter and merchant elites had to navigate carefully their dealings with dissatisfied lower classes while also giving more voice to women whose support was necessary to effectively execute the boycott of British goods. The fifth chapter examines Philadelphia’s closed government spaces in relation and, more importantly, in contrast to the open public spaces to which the masses increasingly turned to organize and be heard, eventually supplanting those who held sway within. Carp’s structure also has a chronological logic, beginning with Boston, whose grievances with the crown go back decades before the war, and ending with Philadelphia, which was slow to radicalism but nevertheless was stage to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Additionally, Carp presents Philadelphia as a city which “would have recognized all” the “incidents of political mobilization” of the previous chapters and tries to incorporate those lessons in that city’s experience, thereby situating that city as a culmination of his preceding arguments.
Carp builds on existing scholarship by focusing, not on “rebellious action within colonial institutions and new, ‘extralegal’ structures,” but rather on the ways in which cities provided opportunities for citizens to persuade and cooperate with one another in “a variety of everyday settings.” Therefore, Carp focuses on the more common, mundane aspects of city life and how that too influenced people and pushed them toward political mobilization and democratization, creating a fertile social soil for arguments in favor of independence. For Carp, the city is not simply a setting for the revolution, it’s an essential player.
In creating his argument and sketching cityscapes for the reader, Carp employs a multitude of primary sources, mostly American. He uses personal journals, statistics, letters, newspaper articles and editorials, political screeds, manuscripts, and various eighteenth century published works. To access these, Carp utilized the archives of various American libraries, historical societies, and universities, while also obtaining sources from British archives. More importantly, he uses the cities themselves, through original maps and still-standing buildings, as agents to advance and provide visual evidence toward his argument. Additionally, Carp uses a plethora of secondary sources, most of which focus on the urban histories of his chosen locations, but also works which look at social constructs and political mobilizations of the era, to form his understandings and interpretations of colonial city life. Such choices give Carp a confident viewpoint with which to navigate the primary sources and summon convincing portrayals of their significance.
Rebels Rising makes for an often compelling read, especially when Carp delves into details such as the drinking life of New Yorkers or the assembled radicals of Philadelphia. His clear writing leads readers through the decades leading up to revolution for each city, painting a vivid picture of metropolitan bustle and complicated social and political interactions. He convincingly incorporates the experiences of various participants from extremely divergent backgrounds, managing to show how their perspectives and relationships encouraged activism, pluralism, and a foundation upon which to build a republican government based upon liberty, freedom of conscience, and the consideration of political concerns from other social classes (if not women and nonwhites). While so much focus has often been paid to the countryside, with its close communities and largely homogeneous residents, Carp shows how essential cities were to cultivating the seeds of revolution and independence.
August 12, 2023
read for honors thesis
March 10, 2013
I found this book interesting, informative and really repetitive. I would not have finished this if it weren't required reading for school. Not as exciting as I would have hoped and I found myself falling asleep...Carp is very smart, but at the same time could have condensed the information into a much smaller format that would have been better.
May 5, 2015
Absolutely fascinating book, written very well, argued exceptionally well, and otherwise will exist as one of my favorite books on the revolution. I could summarize it, but those are easy to find online (or on the back cover). Fantastic book, fantastic research. I'd give it more than 5 stars, if I could.
April 16, 2010
Loved this!
July 31, 2013
Good, round historical review of pre-revolution urban life in the colonies. Well written and nicely presented.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews