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Our Suffering Brethren
Foreign Captivity and Nationalism in the Early United States
Published by: University of Massachusetts Press
250 Pages, 6.00 x 9.00 x 0.80 in, 3 b&w illus.
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In October 1785, American statesman John Jay acknowledged that the more his countrymen "are treated ill abroad, the more we shall unite and consolidate at home." Behind this simple statement lies a complicated history. From the British impressment of patriots during the Revolution to the capture of American sailors by Algerian corsairs and Barbary pirates at the dawn of the nineteenth century, stories of Americans imprisoned abroad helped jumpstart democratic debate as citizens acted on their newly unified identity to demand that their government strengthen efforts to free their fellow Americans. Deliberations about the country's vulnerabilities in the Atlantic world reveal America's commitment to protecting the legacy of the Revolution as well as growing political divisions.
Drawing on newspaper accounts, prisoner narratives, and government records, David J. Dzurec III explores how stories of American captivity in North America, Europe, and Africa played a critical role in the development of American political culture, adding a new layer to our understanding of foreign relations and domestic politics in the early American republic.
Drawing on newspaper accounts, prisoner narratives, and government records, David J. Dzurec III explores how stories of American captivity in North America, Europe, and Africa played a critical role in the development of American political culture, adding a new layer to our understanding of foreign relations and domestic politics in the early American republic.
DAVID J. DZUREC III is associate professor of history at the University of Scranton.
"The scholarship in this book is very sound and up-to-date, and the author is clearly aware of, and conversant with, several different bodies of scholarship that bear on this topic."—Todd Estes, author of The Jay Treaty Debate, Public Opinion, and the Evolution of Early American Political Culture
"Our Suffering Brethren deserves to be read by early Americanists and their students. Dzurec makes a compelling case for the development of American identity through foreign captivity and how Americans crafted their relationship with and understanding of their government."—Ricardo A. Herrera, author of For Liberty and the Republic: The American Citizen as Soldier, 1775–1861
"Well researched, this book is appropriate for those looking to better understand how the origins of US foreign policy developed."—CHOICE
"Our Suffering Brethren sheds much-needed additional light on one of the many mechanisms by which American political culture became more broadly inclusive across the early nineteenth century. This book also further establishes the close connection between events overseas and national development at home in the United States."—New England Quarterly
"Contribute[s] to our understanding of foreign policy in the early republic and the emergence of American national identity as a result of the interactions of the United States across the globe . . . Dzurec demonstrates the way public debates over the treatment of prisoners held abroad helped Americans define themselves in opposition to others. "—William and Mary Quarterly
"We might understand Our Suffering Brethren as contributing not only to the transnational studies and histories of US nationalism that Dzurec explicitly engages, but also to current work in affect theory and the politics of emotion."—Early American Literature
"[A] coherent and comprehensive work that bridges the rich bodies of scholarship on the public sphere during the early American republic and on various types of captivity experienced by Americans from 1776 to 1816. Through newspapers, personal accounts and memoirs, pamphlets, and poetry, Dzurec explores the experiences of American captives and the many anxieties—real and performative—that American citizens harbored . . ."—American Historical Review
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