Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2016, History

This dissertation explores the idea that the heightened level of economic activity required to supply the army acted as a powerful force engendering economic change within early America. The central question driving my research places the supply of the early American army in conversation with the nation's financial development. How did efforts to supply the army evolve over time and what role did this activity play in influencing the nation's changing economic policy in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries? How indeed did military procurement impact American economic development during the early years of the republic? It is my argument that supply by contract emerged as the principal means by which to feed the army during the early republic due to expediency. Quite simply, early government officials reduced significant overhead procurement and distribution costs by turning over these responsibilities to credible bidders in a manner that fit well with the prevailing tenets of republican ideology yet acknowledged the advent of liberal motivations. Leaner government, for example, especially in those offices intimately connected with the military, appealed to those revolutionaries concerned about large standing armies. Reliance upon contractors, moreover, minimized in theory the likelihood that the military would need to forcibly impress supplies from the civilian population from which it so dearly needed support. These negotiated agreements shifted considerable burden away from the government while shielding it somewhat from any criticism accompanying failure. The relative merits of the system never endured sustained scrutiny—more often than not, the end of a campaign or conflict obscured those inadequacies of the system that continued war would likely have exposed. The interaction of government official, supply contractor, and army officer suggested a society struggling to reconcile values in a changing economic world. The triangular nature of the (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Mark Grimsley (Advisor); Peter Mansoor (Committee Member); John Brooke (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; Economic History; Finance; History; Military History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2017, History

This dissertation explores the nascent state-formation process that was under way in America from 1774 through the middle of 1776. Central to that process was the establishment of the Continental Army as a conventional military institution. The political processes and military events surrounding and set in motion by the founding of the army combined to actuate a military-state dynamic that shaped further choices, led to the decision to declare independence, and profoundly influenced the political economy of the subsequently developing American state. The primary approach of this work, which is informed by sociological and political science theories of state formation, is historical argument through a narrative structure which is substantiated by both primary source research involving published and archival materials along with a synthesis of historiographic literature primarily from the fields of political and military history.

Committee: John Brooke (Advisor); Joan Cashin (Committee Member); Peter Mansoor (Committee Member); Edward Countryman (Committee Member) Subjects: American History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2015, History

This dissertation examines the dynamics of political violence in the Revolutionary South from 1774 to 1776 as manifested in the rebels' strategy to overthrow the royal provincial governments in that region. It connects the failure of the British to recapture the southern provinces beginning in 1779 to this strategy implemented early in the war. It also offers a logic to the violence of the war in the South, which is often depicted as random and lacking any broader purpose but annihilation of the American Loyalists. British strategy for the southern colonies throughout the war was heavily reliant on the support of Loyalists, a reality that the rebels understood even before the war began. Most historians who have written on the British southern strategy have argued that the British failure was due to exaggerated reports of Loyalist strength in the South, usually the result of misleading reports from self-interested Loyalist officials or officials in London who had no better solution and grasped desperately for any proposal that looked promising. These historians have often drawn their evidence from the letters of General Charles, Lord Cornwallis, who had similar complaints about the Loyalists, who he believed were to blame for his lack of success. Recently historians have started to question this historiographical argument, suggesting that those of Loyalist sentiment were more numerous and willing to act than previously assumed. As with their earlier counterparts, however, these historians suggest the rebels undertook an indiscriminate and brutal campaign of violence aimed at simply eradicating Loyalists in a process reminiscent of The Terror to come in the French Revolution. The rebels' strategy instead emphasized control more than indiscriminate destruction. They were not attempting to eradicate an irreconcilable population or “purify” their society, the actions typically associated with revolutionary violence. The real threat for the rebels was the British (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Peter Mansoor (Advisor); John Brooke (Committee Member); Mark Grimsley (Committee Member); Andrew O'Shaughnessy (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; History; Military History

Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2015, English

Whether viewed as an attempt from a pious man to rationalize the acts of God or an exploration of free will, Milton's Paradise Lost has cycled through diverging, occasionally contradictory, readings since its publication nearly 400 years ago. A sizeable portion of the poem's complexity lies in the manner in which it chooses to depict God, who is split into the characters of The Father and The Son, and and the Devil. The most notorious figure in Milton's ouvre, Milton's Satan stands apart from former depictions of the Devil in its unapologetic identification with the fallen angel's goals and desires. This, paired with a God that is noticeably less merciful than is traditionally depicted, gives rise to unsettling questions regarding the nature of Christianity and the mind of a poet who would write such a work in a time when, even amongst growing heterodoxy, certain components of Christian faith were considered unshakable truths. The route that I have taken to solve this incongruity is to divorce the text from its source material and view it as something other than just an expression of religious devotion or theological study. Drawing extensively from Milton's life, historical predicament and political tracts, this reading views the text as an expression of political disillusionment, an examination of the act of revolt from a man who had passionately supported a doomed revolution.

Committee: Beth Quitslund (Advisor) Subjects: British and Irish Literature; Literature

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2014, History (Arts and Sciences)

This dissertation is an intellectual and political history of The Revolutionary Organization of the People in Arms (ORPA), a political-military movement that operated in Guatemala from 1971 to 1996 during the country's civil war. The movement's creative ideological approach, which included an interpretation of Marxism that emphasized social and cultural issues and the role of human actors, resulted in a peculiar brand of radical nationalism that differed from contemporary revolutionary movements in Guatemala and Latin America more broadly. This is not a broad history of ORPA and its military operations, but focuses on the organization's ideology and analysis of Guatemala's problems, including its perspectives on the long-debated "indigenous question" and the role of the country's indigenous majority in the revolutionary struggle. In an attempt to establish a firm ideological foundation for its members, during the 1970s, the movement's leadership produced various theoretical documents for internal use that delineated the movement's ideas, including two, lengthy documents detailing the role of racism and discrimination in the country's oppressive and exclusionary social, political and economic structures. The leadership argued that since the indigenous majority suffered both racial discrimination and economic exploitation, the revolutionary struggle had to simultaneously address race and ethnic issues, as well as class issues. Heterodox Marxist writers and decolonization theorists such as Frantz Fanon, Albert Memmi and Amilcar Cabral heavily influenced ORPA's ideas on race, colonialism and even the role of the Guatemalan bourgeoisie and intellectuals in the revolution. The study represents an important case study in Latin American radical thought of an organization's ability to escape the limited scope of contemporary Marxist-Leninist currents in order to establish a radical, inclusive and creative revolutionary nationalist ideology. Furthermore, the story of contempo (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Patrick Barr-Melej (Advisor) Subjects: History

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2007, International Studies - Latin America

The signing of a final peace accord in 1996 signaled the end of a devastating civil war that had plagued the country of Guatemala for 36 years. The opposition consisted of four political military groups including the Revolutionary Organization of the People in Arms (Organizacion Revolucionaria del Pueblo en Armas - ORPA). For seventeen years ORPA carried out military and political actions against the government, and in the atmosphere of the Cold War were quickly dismissed as a Communist organization. This paper explores the role Marxism and liberation theology played in the organization's ideology. It argues that even though the organization may have incorporated elements of both into their own ideology, they were a revolutionary nationalist movement attempting to address the ethnic and socioeconomic problems inherent to Guatemala. This paper analyzes ORPA's discourse as presented during the war in order to gain insight into the ideological underpinnings of the organization.

Committee: Hector Perla Jr. (Advisor) Subjects:

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2011, History

This dissertation examines the lives of William and Ben Franck, freeborn men of color, who used military service as a means to assert their manhood, gain standing in their community, and help to create free African American and African Canadian communities during the Revolutionary Era. It focuses on the lives and experiences of the Franck family from the 1750s, when Rufus Franck served in the French and Indian War, until the 1820s, when his younger son, Ben Franck, settled in Nova Scotia. At each step of the story, this study analyzes the communities of free people of color with whom the Franck brothers interacted. In doing so, this project challenges traditional narratives and stereotypes of African Americans during the Colonial and Revolutionary Eras. The Franck brothers' individual histories, closely analyzed, have the power to expand the prism through which we view early American people of color, so that we see their reality more sharply in three ways. 1. The establishment of free families of color and communities throughout North America, from the pre-Revolutionary period until postwar America, was limited by social prejudices and legal prohibitions. Legally, they were constrained by the black codes. Economically, they were relegated to menial, lower paying jobs. And socially, they faced discrimination in terms of housing, schooling, and religious practice. Despite these difficulties, many free blacks were able to build homes, communities and social institutions. 2. The service of freeborn men of color as Continental regulars during the Revolutionary War meant a hope for a better life and standing in their community, opportunity for economic competency, and excitement for young men whose experiences were stunted by black codes which regulated their behavior. 3. The experiences of black loyalists after the American Revolution included a pattern of migration and settlement in search of land and economic competency. The refusal to migrate to Sierra Leone, by s (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Ruth Wallis Herndon PhD (Advisor); Lillian Ashcraft-Eason PhD (Committee Member); Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina PhD (Committee Member); Rebecca Mancuso PhD (Committee Member); Radhika Gajjala PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: African Americans