Academic Writing

Hardy, Morgan S., “Stoughton’s Empire: The Role of the Merchant Class in Shaping American Protestantism,” Crescat Scientia: Journal of History, Utah Valley University 2015: (67-84).

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Abstract:

The historiography of Atlantic cod fishing in eighteenth-century Newfoundland has assumed that the Atlantic Cod has been a reactive resource to human agents, with the presumption that such a resource can and will be caught by human hands. Rather, the field has seldom appreciated the agentic nature of the Atlantic Cod and its ability to enact change on a myriad of levels: from other animals, environments both on land and in the sea, and the human across local, yet global connections. By reframing agency and the ocean, this paper attempts to center the Atlantic Cod itself, to pay attention to its ocean environment, and to consider its power to shape important dimensions of the human experience.

Abstract:

Over the course of the 18th century, the British Empire attempted to stabilize their colonial efforts in Newfoundland through three specific methods: commercial and residential infrastructure, changes to judicial practices, and strengthening the island's defenses to ensure the safety of the Newfoundland cod fishery. Despite these three comprehensive yet particular instances pertaining to the island of Newfoundland, the overarching lesson this study offers details the fine line between the stabilization and destabilization of colonial spaces through commodity exchange. It shows that efforts to reap the economical benefits of colonialism through commodity exploitation pressed colonial leaders to stabilize a colonial space through various political, judicial, and military actions. Simultaneously, this study also depicts the perpetual contestation with foreign competitors, including that of the commodity itself, resulting in the destabilization efforts of empire.

This project traces how the medium of art allows Martinicans to create autonomy from a history of colonialism. I use various mediums of arts, be it music, paint, graffiti, sculpture, or literary works, to show how Martincians create this vision of autonomy. Through these mediums, Martincians express themes of resistance to a post-colonial past that is engendered in the present. This project offers a research inquiry that seeks to answer how Martinicians utilize the arts to create autonomy and a Creole identity. I hope not only to find potential answers to this inquiry but also to understand identity in a region that has been disarrayed with a contentious and complex history.

Abstract:

During the French Revolution, public utility, coupled with the idea that all men are born free as stated in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, was theorized by French revolutionaries as a state being socially profitable to the nation. Public utility, under the framework of the Declaration, acted as justification for the freedom of slaves within the borders of France and in her colonies. When French colonial governor Victor Hugues arrived in Guadeloupe, June 1794, he emancipated the slaves and called them to arms against the British invaders. By December, the island was again French, and to disrupt British trade in the region, Hugues instituted a privateering campaign manned by multi-racial crews. These raids led to a reemergence of French power in the Caribbean.

Hugues’ administration focused on a gradual increase of rights to ex-slaves by instituting a “fight of farm” policy amongst the ex-slave citizenry. Though a firm revolutionary, Hugues rejected the recognized citizenship of his ex-slave privateers that public utility granted. Paradoxically, ex-slaves used public utility through the medium of military service to establish their profitability to France and their individual right to freedom by engaging in privateering activities. By so doing, ex-slaves began to establish a national identity with Republican France and proclaimed their right to freedom and universal equality.