Community without Consent: New Perspectives on the Stamp Act [Paperback]

The first book-length study of the Stamp Act in decades, this timely collection draws together essays from a broad range of disciplines to provide a thoroughly original investigation of the influence of 1760s British tax legislation on colonial culture, and vice versa. While earlier scholarship has largely focused on the political origins and legacy of the Stamp Act, this volume illuminates the social and cultural impact of a legislative crisis that would end in revolution. Importantly, these essays question the traditional nationalist narrative of Stamp Act scholarship, offering a variety of counter identities and perspectives. Community without Consent recovers the stories of individuals often ignored or overlooked in existing scholarship, including women, Native Americans, and enslaved African Americans, by drawing on sources unavailable to or unexamined by earlier researchers. This urgent and original collection will appeal to the broadest of interdisciplinary audiences.

ZACHARY MCLEOD HUTCHINS is an assistant professor of English at Colorado State University. He is the author of Inventing Eden: Primitivism, Millennialism, and the Making of New England.

Acknowledgments Introduction: The Stamp Act, from Beginning to End, Zachary McLeod Hutchins PART I RITUAL RESPONSES TO THE STAMP ACT The Sermon That Didnt Start the Revolution: Jonathan Mayhews Role in the Boston Stamp Act Riots, J. Patrick Mullins Buried Liberties and Hanging Effigies: Imperial Persuasion, Intimidation, and Performance during the Stamp Act Crisis, Molly Perry PART II THE POETICS OF TAXATION Daring to Try the Kings Patience?: (Futile?) Resistance versus Insatiability in Fabula Neoterica, Gilbert L. Gigliotti Letters from a Woman in Pennsylvania, or Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson Dreams of John Dickinson, Caroline Wigginton PART III THE LEVY AND THE SLAVE The Slave Narrative and the Stamp Act, or Letters from Two American Farmers in Pennsylvania, Zachal³j