Includes bibliographical references (pages 265-284) and index.
Contents
pt. 1. False dawn -- Newcomers -- Settlers and squatters -- Expansion -- Fraud -- A hunger for land -- pt. 2. Theatre of bloodshed and rapine -- Braddock's defeat -- Pennsylvania goes to war -- Negotiations -- Westward journeys -- Conquest -- pt. 3. Zealots -- Indian uprising -- Rangers -- Conestoga Indiantown -- Lancaster workhouse -- Panic in Philadelphia -- pt. 4. A war of words -- The Declaration and Remonstrance -- A proper spirit of jealousy and revenge -- Christian white savages -- Under the tyrant's foot -- pt. 5. Unraveling -- Killers -- Mercenaries -- Revolutionaries -- Appendix : Identifying the Conestoga Indians.
Summary
"William Penn established Pennsylvania in 1682 as a "holy experiment" in which Europeans and Indians could live together in harmony. In this book, historian Kevin Kenny explains how this Peaceable Kingdom--benevolent, Quaker, pacifist--gradually disintegrated in the eighteenth century, with disastrous consequences for Native Americans ... Based on extensive research in eighteenth-century primary sources, this ... history offers an eye-opening look at how colonists--at first, the backwoods Paxton Boys but later the U.S. government--expropriated Native American lands, ending forever the dream of colonists and Indians living together in peace."--Jacket.
The crucible of conflict -- 1. Background to the struggle : the federalist challenge and the origins of Pennsylvania's Jeffersonian conflict -- 2. The radicals emerge : "The European condition of society" and the promise of democracy -- 3. The quid challenge : political economy, politics, and the fault lines of conflict -- 4. The crucible of conflict : 1805 -- 5. "Perpetual motion--perpetual change--a boundless ocean without a shore" : the final meaning of democracy in Pennsylvania -- History and historiography.
Summary
"Pennsylvania Jeffersonians were the first American citizens to attempt to translate idealized speculations about democracy into a workable system of politics and governance. In doing so, they revealed key assumptions that united other national citizens regarding democracy and the conditions necessary for its survival. In particular, they assumed that democracy required economic autonomy and a strong measure of economic as well as political equality among citizens. This strong egalitarian theme was, however, challenged by Pennsylvania's precociously capitalistic economy and the nation's dynamic economic development in general, forcing the Jeffersonians to confront the reality that economic and social equality would have to take a back seat to free market forces.".
"Shankman's exploration of the Pennsylvania experience reveals how democracy arose in America, how it came to accommodate capitalism, at the same time marginalizing egalitarian assumptions and dreams. A work of intellectual and political history, his study also mirrors the aspirations, fears, hatreds, dreams, generous impulses, noble strivings, selfish cant, and enormous capacity to imagine of those who first tried to translate the blueprint for democracy into a tested foundation for the nation's future."--BOOK JACKET.
Introduction: The Fugitive Slave Issue on the Edge of Freedom -- South Central Pennsylvania, Fugitive Slaves, and the Underground Railroad -- Thaddeus Stevens' Dilemma, Colonization, and the Turbulent Years of Early Antislavery in Adams County, 1835-39 -- Antislavery Petitioning in South Central Pennsylvania -- The Fugitive Slave Issue on Trial : The 1840s in South Central Pennsylvania -- Controversy and Christiana : The Fugitive Slave Issue in South Central Pennsylvania, 1850-51 -- Interlude: Kidnapping, Kansas, and the Rise of Race-Based Partisanship : The decline of the Fugitive Slave Issue in South Central Pennsylvania, 1852-57 -- Revival of the Fugitive Slave Issue, 1858-61 -- Contrabands, "White Victories," and the Ultimate Slave Hunt : Recasting the Fugitive Slave Issue in Civil War South Central Pennsylvania -- After the Shooting : South Central Pennsylvania after the Civil War -- Conclusion: The Postwar Ramifications of the Fugitive Slave Issue "On the Edge of Freedom" -- Appendix A: Selected Fugitive Slave Advertisements, 1818-28 -- Appendix B: 1828 South Central Pennsylvania Petition Opposing Slavery in the District of Columbia -- Appendix C: 1847 Gettysburg African American Petition -- Appendix D: 1846 Adams County Petition -- Appendix E: 1861 Franklin County Pro-Colonization Petition -- Appendix F: 1861 Adams County Pro-Colonization Petition -- Appendix G: [Second] 1861 Adams County Pro-Colonization Petition -- Appendix H: 1861 Doylestown, Bucks County Pro-Colonization Petition -- Appendix I: 1861 Newtown, Bucks County Pro-Personal Liberty Law Petition.
Something in that Declaration -- The Republican revolution: Pennsylvania picks Lincoln -- Mobilizing for war -- We will die in defense of our right to liberty: the Civil War on Pennsylvania's border -- Combating the threat without and within -- Pennsylvania and the second American Revolution -- A day long to be remembered.
Summary
This book takes you to and beyond the battlefield at Gettysburg, to cities and towns throughout the state where Pennsylvanians fought over the meaning of the Union even as they fought for it. By the time the Civil War began in 1861, white and black Pennsylvanians along the state's southern border-in towns like Sadsbury, Coatesville, and Christiana-had been fighting with slave owners and catchers for a decade. And, more than a year after Lee's Army of Northern Virginia left southcentral Pennsylvania, the town of Chambersburg survived another, even more devastating Confederate invasion. For much longer than four years, Pennsylvanians waged war at home and abroad, to save the Union and to rethink its founding principles. Keystone State in Crisis tells that story. [from the publisher]
"Enter into the centuries-long debate about justice for the African and African American inhabitants of Pennsylvania with this history, which spans from William Penn's colony to the twentieth-century political achievements of black political leaders. Learn about the growth of African American communities through the experiences of James Forten, Richard Allen, Octavius Catto, Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, and many others. This is the ongoing story of 'making a home' in Pennsylvania." [from the publisher]
