Unfriendly to Liberty - by Christopher F Minty (Hardcover)

About the Book

"This book examines political mobilization and the origins of loyalism in Manhattan in the decade or so prior to the American Revolution. It focuses on the emergence of the DeLancey faction in New York City politics, arguing that prerevolutionary partisanship and associationism influenced New Yorkers' allegiances during the American Revolution"--

Book Synopsis

In Unfriendly to Liberty, Christopher F. Minty explores the origins of loyalism in New York City between 1768 and 1776, and revises our understanding of the coming of the American Revolution.

Through detailed analyses of those who became loyalists, Minty argues that would-be loyalists came together long before Lexington and Concord to form an organized, politically motivated, and inclusive political group that was centered around the DeLancey faction. Following the DeLanceys' election to the New York Assembly in 1768, these men, elite and nonelite, championed an inclusive political economy that advanced the public good, and they strongly protested Parliament's reorientation of the British Empire.

For New York loyalists, it was local politics, factions, institutions, and behaviors that governed their political activities in the build up to the American Revolution. By focusing on political culture, organization, and patterns of allegiance, Unfriendly to Liberty shows how the contending allegiances of loyalists and patriots were all but locked in place by 1775 when British troops marched out of Boston to seize caches of weapons in neighboring villages.

Indeed, local political alignments that were formed in the imperial crises of the 1760s and 1770s provided a critical platform for the divide between loyalists and patriots in New York City. Political and social disputes coming out of the Seven Years' War, more than republican radicalization in the 1770s, forged the united force that would make New York City a center of loyalism throughout the American Revolution.

Review Quotes

Minty has produced an important and original book. Even among the surge of loyalist scholarship in recent years, Unfriendly to Liberty should stand out as a crucial contribution. All historians of loyalism would benefit from reading it and reflecting on Minty's findings.

-- "The Hudson River Valley Review"

Unfriendly to Liberty is an excellent, exhaustively researched book that will generate new conversations in loyalist studies and among scholars of the revolution.

-- "William and Mary Quarterly"

It is difficult to find any faults or weaknesses. The book is well-organized, thoroughly researched, and makes strong arguments.

-- "History: Reviews of New Books"

A substantial contribution to the other side and the under side of the American Revolution in New York City has been made by Christopher F. Minty.

-- "Journal of Early American History"

Revolutionary War historian and digital documentary editor Christopher F. Minty provides provocative and unexpected answers to these questions in his new monograph, Unfriendly to Liberty. Starting with the groundbreaking 1768 New York colonial elections, Minty recounts the next eight years of New York City's increasingly intense and polarized political environment.

-- "Journal of the American Revolution"

About the Author

Christopher F. Minty is an editor at the Center for Digital Editing at the University of Virginia.