No Useless Mouth: Waging War and Fighting Hunger in the American Revolution
"Rachel B. Herrmann's No Useless Mouth is truly a breath of fresh air in the way it aligns food and hunger as the focal point of a new lens to reexamine the American Revolution. Her careful scrutiny, inclusive approach, and broad synthesis―all based on extensive archival research―produced a monograph simultaneously rich, audacious, insightful, lively, and provocative."―The Journal of American History
In the era of the American Revolution, the rituals of diplomacy between the British, Patriots, and Native Americans featured gifts of food, ceremonial feasts, and a shared experience of hunger. When diplomacy failed, Native Americans could destroy food stores and cut off supply chains in order to assert authority. Black colonists also stole and destroyed food to ward off hunger and carve out tenuous spaces of freedom. Hunger was a means of power and a weapon of war.
In No Useless Mouth, Rachel B. Herrmann argues that Native Americans and formerly enslaved black colonists ultimately lost the battle against hunger and the larger struggle for power because white British and United States officials curtailed the abilities of men and women to fight hunger on their own terms. By describing three interrelated behaviors—food diplomacy, victual imperialism, and victual warfare—the book shows that, during this tumultuous period, hunger prevention efforts offered strategies to claim power, maintain communities, and keep rival societies at bay.
Herrmann shows how Native Americans, free blacks, and enslaved peoples were "useful mouths"—not mere supplicants for food, without rights or power—who used hunger for cooperation and violence, and took steps to circumvent starvation. Her wide-ranging research on black Loyalists, Iroquois, Cherokee, Creek, and Western Confederacy Indians demonstrates that hunger creation and prevention were tools of diplomacy and warfare available to all people involved in the American Revolution. Placing hunger at the center of these struggles foregrounds the contingency and plurality of power in the British Atlantic during the Revolutionary Era.
Thanks to generous funding from Cardiff University, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.
1130004096
No Useless Mouth: Waging War and Fighting Hunger in the American Revolution
"Rachel B. Herrmann's No Useless Mouth is truly a breath of fresh air in the way it aligns food and hunger as the focal point of a new lens to reexamine the American Revolution. Her careful scrutiny, inclusive approach, and broad synthesis―all based on extensive archival research―produced a monograph simultaneously rich, audacious, insightful, lively, and provocative."―The Journal of American History
In the era of the American Revolution, the rituals of diplomacy between the British, Patriots, and Native Americans featured gifts of food, ceremonial feasts, and a shared experience of hunger. When diplomacy failed, Native Americans could destroy food stores and cut off supply chains in order to assert authority. Black colonists also stole and destroyed food to ward off hunger and carve out tenuous spaces of freedom. Hunger was a means of power and a weapon of war.
In No Useless Mouth, Rachel B. Herrmann argues that Native Americans and formerly enslaved black colonists ultimately lost the battle against hunger and the larger struggle for power because white British and United States officials curtailed the abilities of men and women to fight hunger on their own terms. By describing three interrelated behaviors—food diplomacy, victual imperialism, and victual warfare—the book shows that, during this tumultuous period, hunger prevention efforts offered strategies to claim power, maintain communities, and keep rival societies at bay.
Herrmann shows how Native Americans, free blacks, and enslaved peoples were "useful mouths"—not mere supplicants for food, without rights or power—who used hunger for cooperation and violence, and took steps to circumvent starvation. Her wide-ranging research on black Loyalists, Iroquois, Cherokee, Creek, and Western Confederacy Indians demonstrates that hunger creation and prevention were tools of diplomacy and warfare available to all people involved in the American Revolution. Placing hunger at the center of these struggles foregrounds the contingency and plurality of power in the British Atlantic during the Revolutionary Era.
Thanks to generous funding from Cardiff University, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.
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No Useless Mouth: Waging War and Fighting Hunger in the American Revolution
"Rachel B. Herrmann's No Useless Mouth is truly a breath of fresh air in the way it aligns food and hunger as the focal point of a new lens to reexamine the American Revolution. Her careful scrutiny, inclusive approach, and broad synthesis―all based on extensive archival research―produced a monograph simultaneously rich, audacious, insightful, lively, and provocative."―The Journal of American History
In the era of the American Revolution, the rituals of diplomacy between the British, Patriots, and Native Americans featured gifts of food, ceremonial feasts, and a shared experience of hunger. When diplomacy failed, Native Americans could destroy food stores and cut off supply chains in order to assert authority. Black colonists also stole and destroyed food to ward off hunger and carve out tenuous spaces of freedom. Hunger was a means of power and a weapon of war.
In No Useless Mouth, Rachel B. Herrmann argues that Native Americans and formerly enslaved black colonists ultimately lost the battle against hunger and the larger struggle for power because white British and United States officials curtailed the abilities of men and women to fight hunger on their own terms. By describing three interrelated behaviors—food diplomacy, victual imperialism, and victual warfare—the book shows that, during this tumultuous period, hunger prevention efforts offered strategies to claim power, maintain communities, and keep rival societies at bay.
Herrmann shows how Native Americans, free blacks, and enslaved peoples were "useful mouths"—not mere supplicants for food, without rights or power—who used hunger for cooperation and violence, and took steps to circumvent starvation. Her wide-ranging research on black Loyalists, Iroquois, Cherokee, Creek, and Western Confederacy Indians demonstrates that hunger creation and prevention were tools of diplomacy and warfare available to all people involved in the American Revolution. Placing hunger at the center of these struggles foregrounds the contingency and plurality of power in the British Atlantic during the Revolutionary Era.
Thanks to generous funding from Cardiff University, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.
Rachel B. Herrmann is Lecturer in Modern American History at Cardiff University. She is the editor of To Feast on Us as Their Prey.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Why the Fight against Hunger MatteredPart One: Power Rising1. Hunger, Accommodation, and Violence in Colonial America2. Iroquois Food Diplomacy in the Revolutionary North3. Cherokee and Creek Victual Warfare in the Revolutionary SouthPart Two: Power in Flux4. Black Victual Warriors and Hunger Creation5. Fighting Hunger, Fearing Violence after the Revolutionary War6. Learning from Food Laws in Nova ScotiaPart Three: Power Waning7. Victual Imperialism and U.S. Indian Policy8. Black Loyalist Hunger Prevention in Sierra LeoneConclusion: Why Native and Black Revolutionaries Lost the FightAcknowledgmentsBibliographic NoteNotesIndex
What People are Saying About This
Michael LaCombe
No Useless Mouth combines an Atlantic perspective with a close scrutiny of struggles and negotiations over food and hunger. Rachel B. Herrmann's sharp eye for the nuances of symbolic communication and keen ear for the languages used to legitimate inequality yield fresh and valuable insights.
Ann M. Little
Rachel B. Herrmann has written the definitive study of the political uses of hunger and food in the Revolutionary Atlantic. In No Useless Mouth she asks us to reconsider the traditional narrative of decline of Native American and African Americans at the dawn of the US national era.
Peter C. Mancall
Rachel B. Herrmann shows that control of food could be a tool of imperial war and, just as important, how Native and African Americans shaped their own destinies through their efforts to maintain food supplies. No Useless Mouth should be required reading for those concerned with the politics of food, past and present.