DOC Revolutionary Westminster:: From Massacre to Statehood by Jessie Haas in History

Description

A Sea of Misadventures examines more than one hundred documented shipwreck narratives from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century as a means to understanding gender; status; and religion in the history of early America. Though it includes all the drama and intrigue afforded by maritime disasters; the book's significance lies in its investigation of how the trauma of shipwreck affected American values and behavior. Through stories of death and devastation; Amy Mitchell-Cook examines issues of hierarchy; race; and gender when the sphere of social action is shrunken to the dimensions of a lifeboat or deserted shore.Rather than debate the veracity of shipwreck tales; Mitchell-Cook provides a cultural and social analysis that places maritime disasters within the broader context of North American society. She answers questions that include who survived and why; how did gender or status affect survival rates; and how did survivors relate their stories to interested but unaffected audiences?Mitchell-Cook observes that; in creating a sense of order out of chaotic events; the narratives reassured audiences that anarchy did not rule the waves; even when desperate survivors resorted to cannibalism. Some of the accounts she studies are legal documents required by insurance companies; while others have been a form of prescriptive literature--guides that taught survivors how to act and be remembered with honor. In essence; shipwreck revealed some of the traits that defined what it meant to be Anglo-American. In an elaboration of some of the themes; Mitchell-Cook compares American narratives with Portuguese narratives to reveal the power of divergent cultural norms to shape so basic an event as a shipwreck.