Peter C. Messer demonstrates that a strong sense of a shared past transformed British subjects into American citizens. He traces the emergence of distinctively American attitudes about society, politics, and government through the written history of the American experience. Stories of Independence argues that the way early Americans wrote about their own history—from colonial times, to the heady days of the Revolution, to the uneasy decades following independence—helped shape the future of this young nation.

Differences between American colonists and the British government became increasingly contentious over the course of the eighteenth century as distinctive American identities emerged among the colonists. Grounded in common values and the shared experiences of creating communities in a new world, these identities would eventually liberate Americans to declare their independence and experiment with new forms of government.

During the colonial period, provincial historians celebrated the autonomous origins and local institutions of their communities as a way of arguing for greater independence from Great Britain. Imperial historians, on the other hand, stressed allegiance to the mother country and the English institutions that continued to sustain them. When relations with Britain reached a crisis, these visions of provincial pride and imperial loyalty came into open and irreconcilable conflict. The resulting debate produced not only a declaration of independence but a new political order grounded on the provincial vision of the origins and progress of America.

When the political turmoil of the 1780s and 1790s threatened to fragment the new republic, historians turned to the provincial vision of history to fashion a past for their nation from which they could create a unifying national identity. Their stories of the drive for independence and the founding of the United States helped both cement and limit the innovations in political thought produced by their provincial and revolutionary predecessors.

"A very interesting, clear, well-written, and superbly organized study of how early American historians interpreted first their colonial situation and later their status as an independent nation."—Joyce Appleby, University of California

"An important, well-written study. [Messer] offers an original way of understanding how dominant voices of the long revolutionary period made sense of what the colonies had been, what the Revolution meant, and what that history suggested about what the U.S. should become."—David Waldstreicher, Temple University

Peter C. Messer is Assistant Professor of History at Mississippi State University. He holds a Ph.D. in History from Rutgers.

Hannah Heaton

Edited by Barbara E. Lacey

"Heaton's powerful portrait is one of a kind. It opens a window into a woman's consciousness and conscience, illuminating her complex, tormented inner life. This marvelous text is full of riches."—Michael McGiffert, College of William and Mary
"Hannah Heaton's rare and wonderful diary is a great boon to scholars of early America, gender and family relations, and popular religion."—Cornelia Hughes Dayton, University of Connecticut

An ordinary eighteenth-century New England woman, Hannah Heaton left an extraordinary document as her legacy. Over a period of 40 years, from the Great Awakening through the Revolutionary War, this farm wife and mother kept a diary recounting her experiences. Now published for the first time, Heaton's diary offers an unparalleled revelation of one American woman's experience of the birth of the nation.
Much of her diary records Heaton's spiritual struggles, beginning with her conversion during the Great Awakening and her separation from the established Congregational church. Pious by nature, she recalls her childhood fears of the devil, who at night tempted her away from prayer and told her in a whisper to hang herself. Deeply concerned over her own salvation and that of those she loved, Heaton found comfort in the act of writing, feeling that such self-examination brought her closer to God.

Hannah Heaton was devoutly religious and intensely self-aware. Spiritually isolated from her husband and children, and often at odds with her neighbors and church community, she found solace in her journal, which was at times her only friend. She loved her husband deeply, but nonetheless regretted marrying a nonbeliever and yearned for him to become a true spiritual partner. He tolerated her religious convictions but occasionally grew frustrated and even hid her spectacles so that she could not read the Bible.

A staunch patriot, Heaton carefully recorded her impressions of the Revolutionary War. Believing the fight for independence was part of God's plan, Heaton, who before the war had scarcely taken note of the political world around her, began to write at length about imperial policy and military engagements. As she wrote of the national struggles, however, she remained equally interested in the intricate details of her own private life: her relationships with kinfolk and neighbors, her domestic struggles, and her personal experiences with disease and death. Heaton's unabridged diary, edited and annotated by Barbara E. Lacey, is an extraordinarily valuable source for scholars and students of colonial history, women's studies, and religion in America.

Barbara E. Lacey is Professor of History and Co-Director of the American Studies Program at Saint Joseph College. She lives with her husband Jim in northeastern Connecticut.