Twenty-Second Annual Seminar on the American Revolution

This annual premier conference focused on the military, political, social, and material culture of the American Revolution regularly features scholars from across North America and beyond.

Attendees can participate in-person or join the conference from home via Zoom.

Weekend Schedule

SATURDAY

• 9:15-9:45 am — War Powers: A Reconsideration of the Declaration of Independence — The Declaration of Independence did more than proclaim American independence and men’s political equality. It was also an exercise of the Second Continental Congress’s war powers that set forth the United States’ reasons and right to wage war and pronounced them legitimate combatants. Ricardo A. Herrera is Senior Historian, George Washington Leadership Institute at Mount Vernon, Virginia, and Professor, ret., U. S. Army War College.

• 10:00-10:30 am — "You Are Directed to Maintain Your Post": The Jericho Mutiny in Context — In 1776, the Continental Army garrison at the blockhouse in Jericho, Vermont, along the Winooski (Onion) River, uncertain of its mission and alarmed by reports of British activity, mutinied and retreated to Fort Ticonderoga against orders. Decades later in 1798, Representative Matthew Lyon’s role in the episode resurfaced through an accusation of cowardice, prompting the first physical confrontation in Congress. The incident illuminates the strategic importance of the Winooski frontier and the ways divergent perspectives between commanders and soldiers shaped both the lived experience and the memory of the Revolutionary War. Eli Dandurand is an independent historian from Vermont.

• 10:45-11:15 am — A Garrisoned Green: The Boston Common and the Tensions of Military Occupation — Explore how Boston Common transformed from a civic gathering space into a symbol of imperial control and colonial defiance during the years surrounding the American Revolution. It examines the British military occupation’s profound effects on the Common, including its use as an encampment, a site of punishment and disease, and ultimately the starting point for the first battles of the Revolution. Kelly M. Kilcrease, Ph. D., is a Professor of Business at the University of New Hampshire at Manchester.

• 11:30 am-12:00 pm — Those Whom Liberty Forgot: The Motivations of Black Soldiers to Fight in the American Revolutionary War — During the American Revolution Black soldiers fought on both the Patriot and Loyalist sides. Drawing on firsthand accounts and a wide range of historical records, this presentation argues their motivations were diverse and multifaceted, including political, economic, social aspirations, the desire to assert and defend their manhood, and, in many cases, the need to survive. Carissa O’Pry is a recent Master of History graduate from Texas Tech University.

• 2:00-2:45 pm — KEYNOTE SESSION — War without Mercy: The Revolution as an Existential War — The clarion call to arms of “Liberty or Death” was far more than just rhetoric: they were the choices thousands of individuals faced during the War for Independence. Military restraint crumbled in the face of events that ignited cycles of revenge and retribution across the rebellious colonies. At the local level—where much of the war was fought—combatants believed their very existence was in question, which led to an acceptance of violence against persons and property as preferable to a defeat equated with political, cultural, and even physical extinction. Mark Edward Lender is Professor Emeritus at Kean University.

• 3:00-3:30 pm — The American Revolutionaries and Their Unlikely Ally — Unlike the 19th and 20th centuries, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth mattered to the Founders from the decades leading to the Revolution, until Jefferson declared that the Enlightenment ended with the final partition of Poland. The United States and the Commonwealth shared a sense of republicanism, and the loss of Poland presented the precariousness of the new nation’s position. Christopher Fritsch is an adjunct faculty member at the Trinity River Campus of Tarrant County College in Fort Worth, Texas.

SUNDAY

• 9:00-9:30 am — Captain Hazard: A Loyalist Privateer in a World Turn'd Upside Down — Stanton Hazard was born into one of Rhode Island’s “first families,” but when the war began, he broke from his predominantly Patriot family, launching a successful privateering career from British-occupied Newport and New York. His experiences during the war, and afterwards, exemplify the challenges many Loyalists faced as the security they had once known collapsed. Len Travers is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth.

• 9:45-10:15 am — The Rise and Fall of the Philadelphia Quakers in Revolutionary Pennsylvania — During the American Revolution, the Philadelphia Quakers found themselves at the center of a controversy that ignited paranoia, anger, and vengeance. This is a story of the precipitous rise of the Society of Friends in Pennsylvania, their goal of what seemed a utopian society, and its collision with eighteenth-century realities. Jeff Denman is an independent scholar and historian.

• 10:30-11:00 am — Revolutionary Possibilities: The Fighting Quakers & Their Impact on the Friends — Philadelphia Quakers, while notably pacifist, dismissed around 1,000 members during the American Revolution for "taking up arms" and other offenses linked with military activity. Many of these Friends helped to form the Free, or Fighting, Quakers—a sect that supported Independence—which in turn forced mainstream Friends to address internal dissent and dwindling membership. Jennifer L. Gray is Education & Museum Manager at Arch Street Meeting House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Additional Information

Friday Bus Tour — "Behind Enemy Lines": The Pawlet Expedition During the Saratoga Campaign — America’s History, LLC will again partner with Fort Ticonderoga to offer a one-day Revolutionary War bus tour led by Bruce Venter. The Pawlet Expedition, orchestrated by Benjamin Lincoln, is an underappreciated operation during Burgoyne’s campaign in September 1777. This is a new tour designed for Fort Ticonderoga. A complete tour description will be on the America’s History website.

The cost is $175 per person (including coach bus, lunch, gratuities, materials and refreshments). Last year’s tour sold out so register early. There are 2 ways to register: go online at AmericasHistoryLLC.com and click the register for tours page or call 703-785-4373.