UC San Diego UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title (Re)creating Social Life Out of Social Death : cross-cultural alliances in the circum- Atlantic, 1760-1815 Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8834r2cb Author Gagnon, Jeffrey Charles Publication Date 2012 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO (Re)creating Social Life Out of Social Death: Cross-Cultural Alliances in the Circum-Atlantic, 1760-1815 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Literature by Jeffrey Charles Gagnon Committee in charge: Professor Sara Johnson, Chair Professor Michael Davidson Professor Rachel Klein Professor Shelley Streeby Professor Nicole Tonkovich 2012 Copyright Jeffrey Charles Gagnon, 2012 All rights reserved This Dissertation of Jeffrey Charles Gagnon is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: Chair University of California, San Diego 2012 iii DEDICATION To my parents, Who nurtured a young boy’s love of reading and spared no expense in making sure he always had books on his bookshelf. To Jim, Who had a vision for this project, and who believed in both the person and the ideas, long before it all began. To Keris, I am because we are. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page........................................................................................................... iii Dedication.................................................................................................................. iv Table of Contents....................................................................................................... v Acknowledgements.................................................................................................... vi Curriculum Vita......................................................................................................... viii Abstract...................................................................................................................... x Introduction: Black-Native Affiliations in Circum-Atlantic Literature..................... 1 Chapter One: Briton Hammon and the Calusa Indians on Cape Florida................... 47 Chapter Two: Olaudah Equiano and the Miskito Indians of Central America.......... 88 Chapter Three: Paul Cuffe’s Friendly Society in Sierra Leone................................. 134 Conclusion: The Alienation of Mary Wainer Masters............................................... 179 Bibliography............................................................................................................... 200 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am most grateful to the many people in my life who have offered me unconditional support, encouragement, and feedback as I developed this project. In the Department of Literature at UCSD, I need to thank Sara Johnson for sharing her excitement in my work and for her critical feedback in all stages of writing. She was more than generous with her time and commitment and I am a better scholar for having worked with her. I thank Nicole Tonkovich is a gifted mentor and instructor and her guidance has been instrumental in my development as a writer and reader of Literature. Many of the ideas of this project were born in her graduate seminars. I thank Michael Davidson and Shelley Streeby for their wise counsel, unwavering support, and critical advising of my graduate work. Rachel Klein has shown me the value of getting history right. The Dimensions of Culture program in Marshall College has been my professional home for the past six years. I am particularly grateful to Jorge Mariscal, who has taught me that what we do matters. I am also immensely appreciative of my fellow graduate students who, along the way, have provided collegial support of my work. I am particularly grateful for Adam Lewis for his reading of my drafts and feedback on my writing and research. Our lunchtime conversations transformed my scholarship and motivated me to continue pursuing my research and writing goals. He is the best kind of colleague a person could ask for. A special thanks goes to Dr. Jim Power for his patient reading of many drafts of the dissertation, his keen eye for grammar, and his ongoing support for my work. This dissertation first emerged nearly two decades ago, when conversations about vi relationships, religion, and popular culture forever changed the way I think about the meaning of the connections that I analyze in this project. There are few words to fully describe the support that Jim has provided over the years. This project is a legacy to our friendship, and to the importance of those ongoing conversations. My parents, Jim and Sheila, have been one hundred percent behind me in this process. They have patiently nurtured my love of reading and teaching and have unconditionally encouraged me to pursue my dreams. My Dad has always believed that the “cream rises to the top,” useful wisdom that has helped guide me through the challenges of graduate studies. My brothers, Dan, Brian, and Tom, have provided inspiration to me by the selfless approach they have each taken to their lives and passions. I admire each of them for what they do, but more importantly, how they do it. Most importantly, I thank my partner, Keris, for the countless hours she put into making sure this project came to completion. Her passion for life, courage in the face of challenge, and her depth of spirit have taught me more than any class or degree could ever hope to teach. vii CURRICULUM VITAE 2013 Lecturer, Dimensions of Culture Program University of California, San Diego 2012 Doctor of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego 2012 Fellow, Paul Cuffe Memorial Fellowship for the Study of Minorities in American Maritime History, Mystic Seaport Maritime Museum, Mystic, CT 2012 Dissertation Fellow, Department of Literature University of California, San Diego 2011-2012 Lecturer, Writing and Composition Palomar Community College 2011-2012 Teaching Assistant, School of Int’l Relations and Pacific Studies University of California, San Diego 2006-2012 Teaching Assistant, Dimensions of Culture Program University of California, San Diego 2006-2008 Lecturer, Women’s Studies Department Cal State San Marcos 2003 Master of Arts, Harvard University 1996 Bachelor of Arts, Fairfield University RESEARCH AND TEACHING AREAS Early American and Transatlantic Literatures Nineteenth Century U.S. Literature Literatures of the African Diaspora Critical Race and Gender Studies PUBLICATIONS “Manning the Clipper Ship: Nineteenth Century Imperial Manhood in the Clipper Ship Sailing Cards.” The Readex Report 6.3 (2011). Web. viii CONFERENCE PAPERS “Where there is 2 or 3 gethered in my name there am I in the midst of them”: Paul Cuffe and the Friendly Society of Sierra Leone.” PAMLA Annual Conference. Seattle, October, 2012. “I sowed the good seed”: Olaudah Equiano and Cross-cultural Intimacies in the Maritime Borderlands of the Musquito Shore.” The Society of Early Americanists’ Conference. Philadelphia, March 2011. Manning the Clipper Ship: Maritime Commerce, Visual Culture and Nineteenth Century Imperial Manhood in the Clipper Ship Sailing Cards. CHAViC Conference, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, October 2009. “The Omission of a Great Many Things”: Maritime Erasures and Transatlantic Empire- Building in A Narrative of Briton Hammon, a Negro Man. Symbiosis Conference. Boston, June 2009. On the Borders of Imperial Manhood: Gender, Nation and Empire in Ned Buntline’s Buffalo Bill and His Adventures in the West. Western Literature Association Conference. Boulder, October 2008. ix ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION (Re)creating Social Life Out of Social Death: Cross-Cultural Alliances in the Circum-Atlantic, 1760-1815 by Jeffrey Charles Gagnon Doctor of Philosophy in Literature University of California, San Diego, 2012 Professor Sara Johnson, Chair In (Re)creating Social Life Out of Social Death I analyze literary representations of historical cross-cultural alliances and political coalitions forged between subaltern groups. I argue that black Atlantic writers promoted intersubjective alliances in an attempt to address experiences of familial, cultural, and political alienation associated with the transatlantic slave trade, the philosophical foundations of Western Enlightenment, and the modern formations of liberalism. As many critics have shown, black Atlantic authors and texts promoted black personhood by simultaneously engaging with and reconfiguring western notions of literacy and self-possessive individualism. However, these studies tend to overemphasize the individual self-fashioning of black identities at the expense of interpersonal, reciprocal relations. While black Atlantic x authors and texts do highlight liberal individualism as a component of subjectivity, they also frame extreme individualism as a socially isolating component of western modernity. In doing so, they represent interpersonal relationships and collective experiences as integral to one’s understanding of personhood. Intersubjective recognition among black and Native subjects posed another form of resistance to the modern formation of the liberal subject as a rational, autonomous, political individual subject free from political and psychological dependence on others. My study draws from and builds upon a growing body of scholarship emphasizing the importance of collectivity in eighteenth-century