Dangerous Guests: Enemy Captives and Revolutionary Communities During the War for Independence by Ken Miller

Author:Ken Miller [Miller, Ken]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, Revolutionary Period (1775-1800), State & Local, Middle Atlantic (DC; DE; MD; NJ; NY; PA), Military, General
ISBN: 9780801454936
Google: w-Y_BAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2014-09-19T05:00:00+00:00

Both ideology and pragmatism governed the revolutionaries’ relations with their German captives. Efforts to convert the Hessians squared with the Whigs’ self-interest and flattered their self-image. By redeeming the hirelings from tyranny and vice, the Americans could deliver a blow to their true enemies, the British, and perhaps even turn the tide of war, while advancing the global cause of freedom. Less than a year after their victory at Trenton, the Whigs found that their efforts to seduce the Germans had yielded encouraging results. In Lancaster County, residents had forged surprisingly civil relations with their prisoners. Whigs had profited from the Hessians’ labor, distanced them from their British allies, and exposed them to the promise of the young republic. Paradoxically, by employing their German captives, locals had effectively harnessed them to the patriot cause, co-opting them as potential allies in their crusade for revolutionary republicanism.

Within the diverse Pennsylvania hinterland, Britain’s initial hiring and Americans’ subsequent reinvention of the German auxiliaries challenged prevailing cultural assumptions, accentuated the rift with England, and solidified the ranks of militant Whigs. While cautiously embracing the Hessians, growing numbers of Lancaster’s insurgents aggressively spurned the British, who continued to plague their community. By finding potential friends in their German prisoners and decided enemies in the British, local revolutionaries claimed common ground in their shared communal and Continental commitments. By late 1777, many of Lancaster’s English- and German-speaking insurgents looked to promote their private interests while undermining their British enemies by folding their Hessian captives into their fledgling revolutionary community.

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