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Review Author(s): John C. Willis Review by: John C. Willis Source: The American Historical Review, Vol. 100, No. 1 (Feb., 1995), pp. 230-231Published by: on behalf of the Oxford University Press American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2168122Accessed: 26-09-2015 04:07 UTC

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230 Reviews of Books

not limited to an educated few but rather became a movement, Walters tries to give life to the movement through a series of analyses of the convictions and activities of those individual deists. From Franklin's illusive religious attitudes to Paine's savage assault on orthodoxy, and from Jefferson's private correspon- dence to Palmer's zealous efforts to organize deistic societies, the author illustrates the gradual rise of deism in America and its growing militancy, which he believes to be "a revolution in religious and ethical thought" (p. ix).

Yet the claim of American deism as "a revolution" or "a nationwide and militant movement" (pp. xiii, 5, 11) has not been effectively argued for several rea- sons. First, the religious beliefs of Franklin, Jefferson, and Paine have been studied extensively, and Walters does not disagree with most scholars that their deistic tendencies were either philosophical or polemical. Second, he emphasizes that, more than any other deist, the crusader Elihu Palmer "single-handedly ... transformed natural religion from a rather bookish philosophical perspective into a popular movement" (p. 192), but his documentation of Palmer's activity is far less comprehensive than Koch's was. Even though Walters says that "most of the primary sources used here are long out of print," few previously unex- plored primary sources can be found in this volume. His chapter on Palmer is based almost entirely on his analysis of the latter's Principles of Nature, which Walters edited in 1990. Third, although the author is aware of the differences among those deists, it is misleading to suggest that as "a group of thinkers," "they denounced slavery, the abuse of Native Ameri- cans, the subjugation of women," and more (p. xi). In fact, the last sweeping assertion was pronounced by Palmer alone (pp. 193-94).

A specialist in philosophy, Walters seems to have undertaken a bold experiment because his book attempts to integrate philosophical analyses with bio- graphical sketches and, occasionally, literary criti- cism. A more engaging portion of the book is the author's view of Freneau's expressions as a transi- tional stage from eighteenth to nineteenth-century free thought; a more provocative part consists of those reasons that Walters attributes to "the eventual demise of American deism" in his last chapter (esp. pp. 273-90). In a different intellectual atmosphere of romanticism and in the advent of a new wave of religious revival among the populace, deists' exalta- tion of reason and their denial of divine revelation ceased to attract either the educated or the masses. This segment is the author's strength, and future students will h'ave to reckon with his explanations. Unfortunately, this sort of insight and analysis comes too late and is too short.

NIAN-SHENG HUANG

Bentley College

DOUGLAS R. EGERTON. Gabriel's Rebellion: The Virginia Slave Conspiracies of 1800 and 1802. Chapel Hill:

University of North Carolina Press. 1993. Pp. xiii, 262. Cloth $39.95, paper $13.95.

Historians are too seldom accused of writing provoc- ative books. The unspoken assumptions of the profes- sion imply that a book may be either interesting or scholarly-but never both-and so we turn out pre- dictably limited monographs for small but dedicated audiences. It is, after all, easier to claim the mantle of objectivity if a book is deadly dull; who would slant toward plodding prose?

Thus, Douglas R. Egerton deserves respect for eschewing the safe and predictable in his study. He employs a vigorous style and thorough research to present the incendiary efforts of two slave leaders, blacksmith Gabriel and waterman Sancho, and their dozens of followers. The author's description of the recruitment and planning stages of Gabriel's rebel- lion is especially vivid, full of compelling insights into the tangled relationship between master and slave in Thomas Jefferson's Virginia. The work re-creates a world where the causes of slave rebellion were legion and captives chafed purposefully against a life of servitude.

Egerton contends that these incipient revolts were actually stillborn revolutions. Gabriel, Sancho, and their supporters, we are told, wanted more than revenge against the whites who denied their human- ity: they "wanted the fully acknowledged position of equality with the master class-political, social, and economic-that was the antithesis of human bond- age" (p. 51). Inflamed by Republican rhetoric about the equality of man and invigorated by Toussaint L'Overture's success in Saint Domingue, Gabriel and Sancho convinced their compatriots that the battle would be swiftly won. Gabriel, the author insists, was confident in 1800 that radical artisans in Richmond would flock to the slaves' cause, that black and white "producers" would stand together against the mer- chants "who squeezed profits from the sweat of those who worked with their hands" (p. 30). The "black and white insurgents" Gabriel planned to lead "would spark a class struggle that had a recognized purpose and might force specific concessions from the state authorities" (p. 49). Although Sancho was less sanguine in 1802, he too expected victory without a full-blown race war.

The exciting prospect that Gabriel was a "black Jacobin" is, unfortunately, difficult to prove. The author supplies no information regarding the num- ber, leadership, goals, or racial views of the oft- mentioned but little-described radical artisans of Richmond. Indeed, most of his citations regarding urban radicalism refer to books about craftsmen in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. Richmond arti- sans might have shared some of the northern work- ers' views of the rights of labor and the prerogatives of small producers, but we cannot assume that they were blind to the implications of race in a slaveholding society. Other sources, like Frederick Douglass's first

AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW FEBRUARY 1995

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United States 231

autobiography, clearly illustrate the divisions between white workers and the slaves and free black artisans who charged less for their services.

This book contains a wealth of information on the planning, recruitment, and implications of slave in- surrection in early national Virginia. Although Eger- ton does not fully develop his provocative hypothesis, he should be commended for creating what will be regarded as the definitive work on the plots of 1800 and 1802.

JOHN C. WILLIS

University of the South

SPENCER C. TUCKER. The Jeffersonian Gunboat Navy. (Studies in Maritime History.) Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. 1993. Pp. xiii, 265. $39.95.

Few aspects of American naval policy have been subjected to criticism as severe as that accorded the decision by the Thomas Jefferson administration to limit naval construction to large numbers of gunboats incapable of any but defensive action. This decision has been attributed to the desire for economy and to the fears that a seagoing navy would lead to embroil- ment in foreign wars and might cause a preemptive strike by Britain's Royal Navy similar to that at Copen- hagen in 1807. Eventually, some 170 gunboats were built, and most authorities follow Alfred Thayer Mahan in dismissing the program as an expensive failure.

Spencer C. Tucker, whose authoritative work on early U.S. naval ordnance led to his familiarity with the gunboats, begins this first book-length study by considering the use of armed vessels propelled mainly by oar in the American Revolution and the Barbary Wars. He then discusses the arguments put forward by supporters and opponents of the Jeffersonian pro- gram, with adequate emphasis on the support of some senior naval officers. He also offers details of the gunboats and their construction, illustrated by several plans. Accounts of gunboats' service in the Mediter- ranean, enforcing the Embargo, and in the War of 1812 follow, the last divided by geographical area: Great Lakes and Lake Champlain, northern, middle, and southern Atlantic, and Gulf Coast theaters.

Gunboats proved most useful in the shallow inshore waters of the southern Atlantic and Gulf coasts, although their record against British warships was unimpressive. Elsewhere, they escorted coastal ship- ping, defended against attacks by British small craft, and transported troops and equipment.

Describing the final disposition of the Jeffersonian gunboats at war's end, Tucker points out that, con- trary to popular belief, a few were retained in the postwar navy. Several participated in operations against Indians and fugitive slaves raiding from Span- ish Florida in 1816.

Appendixes provide the service records of individ- ual gunboats, with unavoidable lacunae, and a guide to sources on details of their design, construction,

and equipment. A short glossary defines nautical terms. The notes and bibliography indicate extensive research in U.S. archives and in published works. Tucker generally uses this material knowledgeably, but one must note that not all of the navy's first three frigates were "extremely fast" (p. 5), and those famil- iar with World War I will be surprised to learn that Turkish mobile batteries kept the Anglo-French fleet from forcing the Dardanelles in 1915 (p. 178).

The book's major weakness is inherent in its topic: following the fortunes of so many unnamed small vessels may become confusing to the reader, who further must distinguish between gunboats, galleys, and barges. Nonetheless, this is a good book, al- though one wonders about Tucker's conclusion: "It was the lack of larger ships, not the failure of the gunboats, that made the new nation powerless on the sea in the War of 1812' (p. 180). Were not the gunboats intended to take the place of larger warships?

ROBERT ERWIN JOHNSON

Tuscaloosa, Alabama

LEE A. CRAIG. To Sow One Acre More: Childbearing and Farm Productivity in the Antebellum North. (The Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science; 111th Series, number 1.) Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 1993. Pp. xii, 161. $28.50.

This book by Lee A. Craig examines a question that has a venerable lineage going back to Thomas Malthus: the relationship between fertility decline and the access to land by farm populations. It exhibits many of the strengths and some of the limitations of the cliometric enterprise, including a theoretical so- phistication, the imaginative reanalysis of quantitative data, deft use of qualitative material (Laura Ingalls Wilder's Farmer Boy! [1933]), the banishment of arcane technical material to appendixes and notes, and a rigorous analytical argument presented in clear prose.

In the northern United States, part of the farm population proved to be the exception to the rule that a demographic transition followed industrializa- tion. Before the Civil War some farmers went through a process of fertility decline before their urban coun- terparts. At the same time, there was regional differ- entiation among the farm population. Fertility was higher in newer settled areas than in older ones.

Scholars have failed to arrive at a consensus as to why rural populations proved exceptional in their reproductive behavior. The spread of contraception, the growth of education, and off-farm opportunities for women all had some effect, but as research progressed a better explanation suggested itself: the intergenerational transmission of property in family development. Richard Easterlin's "targeted bequest" hypothesis suggested that parents limited their fertil- ity because they wanted to encourage their children to farm; they also desired them to have equal shares

AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW FEBRUARY 1995

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