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Reviews
Gary B. Nash & Graham Russell Gao Hodges. Friends of Liberty: Thomas Jefferson, Tadeusz Kosciuszko, and Agrippa Hull. A Tale of Three Patriots, Two Revolutions, and a Tragic Betrayal of Freedom in the New Nation. New York: Basic Books, 2008. 328 pp. ISBN-13: 978-0-465-04814-4.
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The relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Tadeusz Kosciuszko is, though little studied, one of the more interesting admixtures of personal and political friendship to come out of the American Revolution and the early National Period. To this association, Gary Nash and Graham Hodges have added the lesser known character of Agrippa Hull, a free black man from Massachusetts who was Kosciuszko's servant beginning during the Pole's time at West Point and lasting until the end of the war. In Friends of Liberty, the authors use the concept of "liberty" as the adhesive to fuse the diverse careers and political standing of the three protagonists into a story of how American history might have been different had Jefferson heeded Kosciuszko's example by standing up for the emancipation of slaves in the United States.
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While Jefferson has long been revered as the author of the Declaration of Independence, a defender of the rights of citizens, and the third president of the United States, few have explored the interesting facets of his relationship with Kosciuszko, especially as they relate to the issue of slavery. In this respect, Friends of Liberty is a welcome addition to the literature on this formative period of American history, as well as the two leading protagonists. Its conclusions place Jefferson's refusal to take an unequivocal stand against slavery or to honor the spirit of Kosciuszko's will, in which he left funds to purchase the freedom of slaves, in sharp contrast with the usual view of the Virginian as a stalwart advocate of human rights. Similarly, Kosciuszko fares well in their analysis, remaining true to his belief in the dignity of all people. The distribution of the work by a major commercial publisher will no doubt bring well-deserved recognition of the Pole to a generation of Americans that has largely remained oblivious to his contributions.
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Yet, the book must be read with some caution. One of the weak points in the work is that it tends to draw rather expansive conclusions based on little if any primary evidence, especially in the case of Agrippa Hull for whom the authors admit they were able to locate "only a single letter and a few public documents" (p. 4). Although Hull's feelings and motivations are frequently noted, they are based on supposition rather than real evidence. For example, the authors conclude that Hull "influenced Kosciuszko in ways that led to several of the Pole's most important decisions, including one that brought his relationship with Jefferson to a pitch" (p. 5). No evidence for this sweeping conclusion is presented, while the authors ignore well-documented influences on Kosciuszko such as the political condition of his homeland during his formative years, the influence of his patriotic education at the Knights School in Warsaw, his exposure to French philosophical thought while in Paris, or the very personal lesson in class consciousness that he learned from his unrequited love for Ludwika Sosnowska, the daughter of a Polish magnate who thought Kosciuszko unworthy of his daughter's hand. All of these occurred long before Kosciuszko arrived in America, at which time he had already developed a strong philosophical opposition to the rigid European class structures.
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Similarly, the authors conclude that Kosciuszko was "neither a notable writer nor a deeply read political theorist" (p. 4), but "held to uncomplicated ideas about government, economy, and society" (p. 6). This assertion ignores Kosciuszko's education in the Knight's School, an institution heavily influenced by Enlightenment thought, where he studied, among other subjects, history, philosophy and ethics. It also ignores the Pole's lengthy period of study in Paris where he read Montesquieu, Rousseau and Voltaire, being influenced not only by them but also by the newly developed concept of physiocracy promoted by economist François Quesnay. Portraying Kosciuszko as relatively unsophisticated in his ideas of social and political philosophy may suit the authors' purpose in presenting his relationship with Hull as an epiphany that shaped the Pole's attitude toward both slavery in America and serfdom in Poland, yet it does a disservice to the historical evidence.
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Other minor errors also intrude on the work. For example, the spelling of Kraków is repeatedly rendered as "Krakow," Jan Henryk Dabrowski's name is given as "J. H. Dombroski," and the surname Bieda is rendered as "Beida." On page 67 there is a reproduction of William Ranney's painting "The Battle of Cowpens." The caption reads in part: "Kosciuszko and Hull saw vivid examples of the courage of black troops in the bloody battle…." Neither Kosciuszko nor Hull were present at this engagement. In the "Acknowledgements," the authors thank several organizations and researchers involved with studies of Jefferson and Hull, as well as scholars from Moscow, Nuremberg, Stockholm, Berne, and several Chinese institutions. They would have been well advised to consult Polish scholars to avoid the many errors that have crept into an otherwise interesting treatment of the question of liberty during the American Revolution and its aftermath.
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James S. Pula
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Purdue University
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