audiobook A History of the Church in England by J. R. H. Moorman; John Moorman in History

Description

Integrating social; cultural; economic; and political history; this is a study of the factors that grounded―or swayed―the loyalties of non-Spaniards living under Spanish rule on the southern frontier. In particular; Andrew McMichael looks at the colonial Spanish administration’s attitude toward resident Americans. The Spanish borderlands systems of slavery and land ownership; McMichael shows; used an efficient system of land distribution and government patronage that engendered loyalty and withstood a series of conflicts that tested; but did not shatter; residents’ allegiance. McMichael focuses on the Baton Rouge district of Spanish West Florida from 1785 through 1810; analyzing why resident Anglo-Americans; who had maintained a high degree of loyalty to the Spanish Crown through 1809; rebelled in 1810.The book contextualizes the 1810 rebellion; and by extension the southern frontier; within the broader Atlantic World; showing how both local factors as well as events in Europe affected lives in the Spanish borderlands. Breaking with traditional scholarship; McMichael examines contests over land and slaves as a determinant of loyalty. He draws on Spanish; French; and Anglo records to challenge scholarship that asserts a particularly “American” loyalty on the frontier whereby Anglo-American residents in West Florida; as disaffected subjects of the Spanish Crown; patiently abided until they could overthrow an alien system. Rather; it was political; social; and cultural conflicts―not nationalist ideology―that disrupted networks by which economic prosperity was gained and thus loyalty retained.