Reviews of Books

Beyond Philadelphia: The American Revolution in the Pennsylvania Hinterland. Edited by John B. Frantz and William Pencak. (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998. Pp. xxvi, 273. $60.00 cloth, $21.95 paper.)

Traditionally, cities have dominated studies of the American Revolution. Boston, Philadelphia, and New York stand at the center of our understanding of the events and processes that ignited both the conflict with Britain and the internal struggles over the meaning of liberty. The two books under review offer a corrective to this urban focus by trying to move the debate about the Revolution in Pennsylvania "beyond Philadelphia." At their best, these volumes show that the story of Independence in rural Pennsylvania has a history that rivals Philadelphia's in richness and drama. In particular, they cast new light on the contentious struggles (primarily ethnic, religious, and racial) that exploded throughout the countryside and suggest how these conflicts shaped the definition of liberty that emerged from the Revolution. Their shortcomings reveal that scholars still have a long way to go before our understanding of Pennsylvania's rural revolution matches our knowledge of what happened in Philadelphia.	1
The strengths of Beyond Philadelphia and Sweet Land of Liberty lie in their explorations of the internal conflicts generated or exacerbated by the War of Independence. They remind us that war can bring out the best and too often the worst in people, especially a civil war where one's home was sometimes the battlefield and one's enemy a neighbor or relative. In Sweet Land of Liberty, Francis S. Fox emphasizes how a war in the name of freedom actually restricted civil rights. Through biographies of ordinary men and women from Northampton County, Pennsylvania, Fox highlights the persecution of those who opposed the Revolution or tried to remain neutral in the conflict. Each chapter introduces us to an individual whom Fox paints either as an oppressor (usually county justices or militia leaders) or a victim (mostly loyalists and conscientious objectors). The book's best parts probe two sinister episodes in Northampton County's wartime history: the systematic persecutions of the small communities of Moravians and Mennonites. Believing that war and oaths of allegiance led to damnation, these groups refused to follow the dictates of either Pennsylvania's Test Act (requiring citizens to swear their adherence to the 1776 Pennsylvania Constitution) or the Militia Law (requiring Pennsylvanians to serve in their county militia or pay a fine that went to pay soldiers and purchase arms). Fox details how local patriots shattered a century of religious tolerance by denying pacifists the right of conscience. For their beliefs, Moravians and Mennonites forfeited the right to vote, suffered harassment and beatings from neighbors and militiamen, faced draconian fines for their religious objections, and finally, watched as the judicial system confiscated their property and sold it at auction. In relating these moments, Fox artfully captures the pain and hypocrisy that existed on the darker side of liberty's war.	2
Unfortunately, Fox undermines the dramatic impact of such episodes with an overly theatrical narrative. He is not a subtle storyteller. In his telling, militiamen in Northampton County were "whiskey patriots" (p. 106), drunken men too cowardly to attack Indians or the British but sufficiently inebriated to pick on nonviolent neighbors. "Intimidation, rather than a hot fight, was the patriots' drift" (p. 88). His patriots are a shallow bunch, evidently possessing no real beliefs beyond crass self-interest, prejudice, and revenge. According to Fox, "suspicion and persecution" in Northampton County amounted to "a blood sport," where "men thumped their chests and proclaimed themselves patriots simply to get even with longtime enemies and to fill their pockets" (p. 50). Fox does not help matters with his many embellishments that weaken the evidence he has uncovered. Too often he fills in the blank spaces of documentary evidence with imagined scenarios crafted to make his oppressors look calculating, unforgiving, and irrepressibly violent. Such artistic imaginings may create a more sensational narrative, but they do little to enhance our understanding of the oppressors, the oppressed, and their relationship to the American Revolution. Fox's patriots seem so petty and cynical, one wonders why they ever joined the Revolution and put their lives, positions, and property at risk.	. . .