The Martyr and the Traitor: Nathan Hale, Moses Dunbar, and the American Revolution by Virginia DeJohn Anderson

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Martyr and the Traitor: Nathan Hale, Moses Dunbar, and the American Revolution by Virginia DeJohn Anderson Andrew Kettler (bio) The Martyr and the Traitor: Nathan Hale, Moses Dunbar, and the American Revolution By Virginia DeJohn Anderson. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. 270 pages, 6⅛" x 9¼". $27.95 cloth. Virginia DeJohn Anderson's recent passion project The Martyr and the Traitor (2017) is a fascinating analysis concerning the contingencies of loyalism and patriotism during the American Revolution. Focusing on the lives and state executions of Nathan Hale and Moses Dunbar through the lens of revolutionary sentiments in the colony of Connecticut, Anderson provides a beautifully written and engaging narrative of the meanings of treason, loyalty, and luck during important moments of historical change. The Martyr and the Traitor summarizes the lives of the would-be loyalist Dunbar and the famous patriot Hale through a history of family, class, and political developments from the end of the French and Indian War in 1763 until the Treaty of Paris of 1783. During those twenty years, concepts of loyalty to the crown were questioned, culminating in the creation of the United States. However, within that unassuming trajectory, each of the two major figures in Anderson's monograph faced many personal choices that sometimes involved questions of rebellion, but more often than not concerned everyday choices related to the consistency of rural life, economic depression following the Seven Years' War, religious choices subsequent to the Great Awakening, and shifting familial obligations. The first chapter of Martyr and the Traitor defines the common rural life for Connecticut citizens during the middle of the eighteenth century. Anderson portrays the differences of class, religion, and wealth that made life dissimilar for her two main characters, their fathers, and members of their extended families. This primary chapter also specifically outlines the importance of historical contingency through analyzing the diverse patriarchies that led the colony of Connecticut following the French and Indian War. The second chapter focuses on the fledgling life of Dunbar and his youthful and pregnant bride Phoebe. Focusing on family rifts caused by Moses' increased allegiance to Anglicanism, [End Page 142] Anderson outlines the importance of appointment procedures for Anglican ministers in the years leading up to the American Revolution. Following with a contextual history of the Stamp Act, the Sugar Act, and the Townshend Duties, the end of the second chapter concerns the relatively distanced life of most Connecticut citizens to the altering political worlds of rebellion. The third chapter focuses on Hale, younger than Dunbar but facing similar choices for an adolescent man within eighteenth century New England. Coming from a more prosperous family, Hale attended Yale University and participated within an epistolary culture that he learned to navigate while in New Haven. During his time at Yale with his brother Enoch, Nathan also participated in a changing academy that made the university system more meritocratic. Part of this reformed education for Yale students, mostly arriving from the scholastic forces of Timothy Dwight and John Trumbull, involved an increased participation in literary clubs, like the Linonia Society, and fresh courses that concerned contemporary cultures of poiesis. While at Yale, the Hales were relatively distant from the political turmoil that was brewing in the alehouses of Boston. However, much of the calm and distant aspects of Dunbar's and Hale's lives within 1770s New England faded quickly after the Tea Party of 1773 that shook Anglo-Atlantic political debates. As tensions grew, the blood spilled at Lexington and Concord forced colonists to choose sides within a process of rebellion that became a question of independence even more so after the publication of Thomas Paine's Common Sense starting in 1775. After the shots heard round the world, questions of loyalism and treason also became more ambiguous, and often involved the emergence of Tory hunters as an informal extension of the Sons of Liberty in many New England townships. Still, even with the broiling rebellion, Dunbar's life choices during the early and mid-1770s involved attempts to grow his farm, protect his family, and purchase new acreages. For the Hale brothers, once out of Yale, questions turned to the future...