David Bennett. A Few Lawless Vagabonds: Ethan Allen, the Republic of Vermont, and the American Revolution. Havertown: Casemate, 2014. 520 pp. $32.95, cloth, ISBN 978-1-61200-240-8.
Reviewed by Michael Verney
Published on H-War (November, 2015)
Commissioned by Margaret Sankey (Air University)
David Bennett’s book examines the complex Yorker dominion over the New Hampshire Grants drama of Revolutionary-era Vermont through the by hamstringing their royal supporters (p. 67). career of its primary defender, Ethan Allen, and The author argues that Allen was not an ideologi‐ to a lesser extent, through Allen’s brothers Heman cal revolutionary or even a devout antiroyalist, and Ira. Bennett’s tale focuses on the Allens’ and but was instead animated by a ferce jealousy of Vermont’s troubled relationship with New York, Vermont’s independence, which Vermonters de‐ New Hampshire, Massachusetts, the British in clared against New York in 1777 while Allen was Canada, the King-in-Council, and the Continental in British captivity. Congress. The primary issue in these disputes was Bennett portrays Allen and his brothers as the legal status of the New Hampshire Grants. protean Vermont nationalists who strove to pre‐ These were deeds of land sold by New Hampshire serve the legitimacy of the New Hampshire Governor Benning Wentworth in the 1740s and Grants and increase the region’s prosperity. When 1750s that New York, which was granted authori‐ the Continental Congress refused their repeated ty over much of present-day Vermont by the requests for recognition and membership, the Al‐ Crown in 1764, refused to honor. Enraged by the lens began seeing closer ties with British Canada high-handedness of Yorker ofcials, Allen joined as a viable alternative path to their cherished with like-minded Vermonters and formed the goals of independence and economic success. Ac‐ Green Mountain Boys in 1770 to protect the cordingly, they signed a truce with the British in grantees from ejection by force of arms. Bennett October 1780 and then began secret negotiations claims that Allen’s famous seizure of Fort Ticon‐ for the reunion of Vermont with the British Em‐ deroga in the name of “‘the great Jehovah and the pire. The diplomatic cover for these sensitive talks Continental Congress,’” rather than being a patri‐ —called the Haldimand Negotiations after the pri‐ otic move, was in fact a means of undercutting mary British agent, the Swiss-born Sir Frederick H-Net Reviews
Haldimand—was the exchange of prisoners. Pre‐ a democratic concern for the common man. As vious scholars, such as Michael Bellesiles (Revolu‐ the author observes, George Washington and the tionary Outlaws: Ethan Allen and the Struggle for Continental Congress were suspicious of Vermont Independence on the Early American Frontier republicans and time and again refused their en‐ [1993]) and Willard Sterne Randall (Ethan Allen, treaties for membership in the Union. At one His Life and Times [2011]), have doubted the sin‐ point, Washington and the Congress even contem‐ cerity of the Allens’ interest in reunion with the plated invading the wayward republic. Against all British Empire, portraying the Vermonters’ talks odds, the Allen brothers and their allies managed with Haldimand as a charade that would buy time to evade the many threats to Vermont’s subjuga‐ and scare the Continental Congress into accepting tion, and Bennett presents Allen as the founding its application for membership. In contrast, Ben‐ father and chief defender (though perhaps not an nett contends that the Allens were earnest in their egalitarian or democratic one) of an independent attempts at reannexation. To dissuade Vermont Vermont. from joining the Continental Congress, A Few Lawless Vagabonds is stimulating and Haldimand ofered the Allens promises that he provocative. Yet it also raises important questions had no authority to honor. Despite both parties’ about the motivations that drove Allen’s leg‐ sincerity, the Haldimand Negotiations went endary energy. Bennett drops hints throughout nowhere. The ratifcation of the Constitution of the book that Allen’s commitment to Vermont 1787 eliminated Vermont’s hopes for an economic may have had personal economic motives. Allen free-trade treaty with Canada. Vermont would re‐ frst purchased lands along the Onion River in main aloof from the United States until New York northern Vermont in 1773 and then dramatically and New Hampshire abandoned their claims over expanded those holdings in 1778. Since these Vermont’s territory, prompting the montane re‐ properties had freshwater access to the Saint public’s admission to the Union in 1791. Lawrence River through Lake Champlain and the Bennett’s book takes aim at the romanticized Richelieu River, they were well situated to carry vision of Allen as a backwoods democrat and one on a prosperous trade with British Canada. This is of the great patriotic founders of the United especially so since New York blocked a southern States. This vision has captured the imagination of export route via the Hudson River. Yet in asking if generations of scholars who have refused to be‐ Allen’s eforts to efect a truce and trade agree‐ lieve that the Haldimand Negotiations were seri‐ ment with Britain sprung from “an all-consuming ous and who have assumed that Allen had a revo‐ economic motive,” Bennett answers that it lutionary, democratic, and republican agenda. In “seem[ed] unlikely” and that Allen had no wish to contrast, Bennett argues that Allen was a Vermont “accumulate wealth to live in regal splendor” (pp. partisan who cherished his adopted republic’s 224-225). rights but also an oligarch who pursued an anti- Why, then, did Allen risk his life in fghting democratic and secret agenda during the for Vermont’s independence or his reputation Haldimand Negotiations. Bennett contends that during the Haldimand Negotiations, which Ben‐ Allen’s “reputation as a Robin Hood is largely un‐ nett observes would have been seen as treachery deserved,” noting that his “ruling passions [did by other Vermonters? In an intriguing chapter on not] include justice for the peasants and yeoman‐ Allen’s political philosophy, Bennett concludes ry of Vermont” (p. 226). In Bennett’s telling, Allen’s that he had no particular revolutionary ideology struggle was a limited revolution against New and that Allen’s greatest political infuence was York, a contest not to be equated with the Found‐ Thomas Hobbes. Allen found parallels with the ing Fathers’ fght for continental independence or
2 H-Net Reviews experience of the New Hampshire Grants in Vagabonds makes a compelling case for the dis‐ Hobbes’s theory that peoples who did not enjoy mantling of romantic renderings of Allen, the ori‐ political protection were thrown into a state of gins and depth of his nationalistic sacrifces for nature. Overall, Bennett describes Allen as bright, Vermont remains intriguingly opaque. restless, and spontaneous. His politicization was In sum, A Few Lawless Vagabonds has much an “accident” of history in which the New Hamp‐ to praise. Bennett’s command of the primary- shire grantees found Allen in need of employment source material from archives in Ontario and Ver‐ and a new direction (p. 30). Given his roving char‐ mont is impressive. His methodology of extracting acter, Bennett expresses surprise at Allen’s life‐ goals from actions rather than assuming Allen’s long opposition to New York’s claims over Ver‐ place as a hallowed Paul Revere-like fgure is also mont. laudable. Military historians will take an interest Allen’s single-minded dedication to Vermont in his chapters on the seizure of Fort Ticonderoga leads us to consider his nationalism in particular and of John Burgoyne’s southerly thrust in 1777, and the meaning of nationalism in general. Ben‐ which Bennett calls “sheer folly” (p. 13). His analy‐ nett describes Allen as a “Vermont nationalist,” sis of the Haldimand Negotiations is the most ex‐ but he does not unpack this insightful concept haustive and compelling to date. While the im‐ (pp. 13, 222). Nationalism suggests a romantic at‐ pulses directing Allen and his brothers might tachment to a land and its people and culture. Did have used more excavation, Bennett does an ex‐ Allen reveal any of these romantic tendencies in cellent job highlighting the ferce competition be‐ his writings or actions? Since we cannot ascribe tween colonies and states for land and resources. Allen’s motives to economic concerns or lofty ide‐ The author reminds us that British North America ological values, is it possible that some emotional and the Confederation-era United States were attachment is the key to unlocking Allen’s Revolu‐ composed of mini-settler empires that were fre‐ tionary-era activities? Bennett observes that Allen quently at odds with each other. His book illumi‐ had hunted in the New Hampshire Grants in the nates the strength of David C. Hendrickson’s argu‐ late 1760s and that many members of Allen’s fam‐ ment in Peace Pact: The Lost World of the Ameri‐ ily migrated to Vermont from Connecticut and can Founding (2003) that the Constitution of 1787 western Massachusetts during the 1760s and early was a “peace pact” between rival states on the 1770s. Perhaps these personal and familial activi‐ verge of civil war. By focusing on Ethan Allen, his ties formed attachments deep enough to be brothers, and their allies, enemies, and potential termed “nationalistic.” Bennett’s claim of the Al‐ friends, Bennett resurrects a Revolutionary-era lens’ parochial nationalism is especially challeng‐ world fraught with myriad hopes, aspirations, po‐ ing if we accept his thesis that the brothers’ ef‐ litical philosophies, and intriguing possibilities. forts to reunite Vermont with Britain were honest ones. Scholars tend to think of nationalists as striving for independence and home rule, but Bennett suggests that nationalists might see an‐ nexation by a larger power as being in the na‐ tion’s best interest. Yet Bennett also claims that had the real substance of the Haldimand Negotia‐ tions been uncovered, the Allens would have turned into Benedict Arnolds, “burned their boats and committed themselves unequivocally to the British cause” (p. 210). Though A Few Lawless
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Citation: Michael Verney. Review of Bennett, David. A Few Lawless Vagabonds: Ethan Allen, the Republic of Vermont, and the American Revolution. H-War, H-Net Reviews. November, 2015.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=44245
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