Eliga H. Gould\u2019s book, Among the Powers of the Earth<\/em>, covers a multitude of topics regarding the \u201cwider struggle to found\u201d (pg. 2) the United States of America: how the law of nations affected the wording of our Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and other legal documents; the situation of white and black slavery and how this was legally and\/or illegally handled in Europe, Africa and the Americas; the events leading up to our war of independence; the problems facing the new nation after independence was won; and finally, how the United States gained maritime trading rights and developed commercially and industrially after 1783. As such, the new nation itself faced two difficult issues: \u201cOne involved the Union\u2019s quest to be accepted as a free and independent nation in Europe; the other, the right of its citizens to pacify and control what, from a European standpoint, was still a colonial periphery.\u201d (pg, 2) One step to becoming accepted as a free and independent nation in the eyes of Europe, and a member of the European circle, was to win its revolution against its sovereign nation, England; be granted \u201cnation status\u201d by the nations of Europe and excepted as one; be granted the customary privileges of war, and allowed trading concessions by the European nations.<\/p>\n

Initially the colonists in America were regarded as rebels by Britain and thus were not accorded the customary privileges of war for their prisoners. Such disregard for customary practices of prisoners can be seen in the words of Benjamin Franklin when speaking to England\u2019s emissary to the French court, Paul Wentworth in 1778, as he lectured Wentworth on the \u201cBarbarities inflicted on his Country.\u2026the burning of Towns, the neglect or ill-treatment of Prisoners\u2026 [and the] system of devastation and Cruelty.\u201d (pg, 79) In addition, British officers saw Continental soldiers and those who supported independence \u201cas lawless combatants, who were neither bound nor protected by the customs of European nations.\u201d (pg, 115) Although considered a \u201clittle paltry colonel of militia at the head of a banditti [of] rebels,\u201d according to Ambrose Serle, General Howe\u2019s private secretary, General George Washington strongly threatened General Gage of the British Army, that \u201cBritish officers [and soldiers] in American custody\u2026 would [also] be [treated as] \u201cfelons,\u201d [housed] in \u201ccommon gaol[s],\u201d and \u201cthe sick and wounded [would be denied] \u00a0medical attention,\u201d unless Continental soldiers were granted the privileges of war. (pg. 115-116) General Howe, General Gage\u2019s replacement, mindful of Washington\u2019s threat, \u201ceventually instructed his forces to treat Continental officers as ordinary prisoners of war.\u201d (pg, 116) However, and in spite of General Howes instructions, Continental prisoners still endured substantial mistreatment at the hands of the British, with many of them dying from malnutrition and lack of medical attention aboard derelict prison ships.<\/p>\n

Prisoner mistreatment was only one of many problems facing the colonies as they fought for independence. Among the Powers of the Earth<\/em> brilliantly covers every aspect of this process and America\u2019s post-war status as a fledgling republic. The European nations may have acknowledged the United States as a nation, but that did not mean it was allowed to properly become one. \u201cneither Britain nor Europe\u2019s other powers accepted them [United States] as treaty-worthy equals.\u201d (pg, 119) At every turn, the nations of Europe blocked or hampered the new republic\u2019s position. Even the war-allies, France and Spain, saw the United States as a nobody and only used the war to take revenge against a common enemy\u2026England. Trading with Europe and the West Indies was denied because the British refused to give the \u201csecurity\u201d that it extended to \u201cthe navigation of others.\u201d (pg. 119) This meant that American foreign trade was at the discretion of the British Crown, even though Americans were no longer British subjects. All of these affronts were considered \u201ca direct assault on the Republic\u2019s sovereignty.\u201d (pg, 121) These travesties and insults to the sovereignty of the United States would come to a head during the Napoleonic Wars when American ships would be stopped, boarded, and its crews forced into service on British vessels, in total defiance of the rules of maritime trade and treaties signed between England and the United States.<\/p>\n

Similar to Taylor Dipoto<\/a> and 20perez16<\/a>\u2019s\u00a0posts, the Native American element was relatively absent from Gould\u2019s book. They were mentioned when discussing the Seven Year\u2019s War\/French and Indian War, post-Revolutionary War, raiding and taking captives, and situations when the United States found British agents supplying the natives with arms and ammunition to attack American settlers, as in Florida and Canada. Outside of these circumstances, the Native American voice is absent especially when it came to politics and treaties. This is surprising considering Native Americans were a mainstay of the region since the earliest surviving British settlement at Jamestown in 1607. Again as Taylor said, those who opposed Andrew Jackson\u2019s methods when it came to Native Americans, i.e., the Cherokee Trail of Tears, were also the first ones to say that the land gained from their removal was prime and would benefit the greater American Republic.<\/p>\n

Any misgivings I may have of how this book treated the Native Americans, Gould made up for it in his highly detailed and researched finished product. Every chapter is jammed packed with information and examples of the tenuous relationship, the early American Republic had with the older, established Imperial nations of Europe. We are taught in school that once we became independent, everything was relatively peaceful between us and Europe, minus continual hostilities with England and the Native Americans. Apparently, that was not the case!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eliga H. Gould\u2019s book, Among the Powers of the Earth, covers a multitude of topics regarding the \u201cwider struggle to found\u201d (pg. 2) the United States of America: how the law of nations affected the wording of our Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and other legal documents; the situation of white and black slavery and how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist571-fall2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist571-fall2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist571-fall2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist571-fall2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist571-fall2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist571-fall2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":112,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist571-fall2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions\/112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist571-fall2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist571-fall2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/hist571-fall2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}