A Factious People: Politics and Society in Colonial New York by Patricia U. Bonomi (review)

REVIEWS 465 It wouldbetooharshtodismiss a bookof thismagnitude ona whollynegative note.Loewenberg's massive accumulation ofdetailandjudgment produces many passing dividends, aswhenwe are givenevidence from hisHarvard students (several of whombecame majorhistorians) to refuteHenryAdams's sedulously promoted personal mythof sterilityasa teacher.The book's obvious valueasa reference workandguideto theliterature(through,958) mitigatesitsequally obviouswarning to later generations that intelligentexclusion is one of the principles ofscholarship, asof art. YorkUniversity A FactiousPeople:Politicsand Societyin ColonialNew York. •,•,•'R•½•, t•. BoNo•. New York, ColumbiaUniversityPress[Montreal, McGill-Queen's University Press], •97•. Pp.xviii,342,map.$• •.oo. Thisbook, a revised •970Columbia •,i•Ddissertation, isthefirstserious attempt for manyyearsto analyse New York politicsfrom the LeislerRebellionto the Revolution.Insteadof the usualnarrative,an excellent exampleof which is Eugene Sirman's Colonial SouthCarolina:A Political Historyx663-• 763(•966), Dr Bonomi hasfocused onselected intervals of particularly bitterpoliticalfeuding : •7•o-27, •73o-7, •746-53,•768-9. Mostattentionisgivento theroleof the Assembly, the role of the numerous governors, and the frequentlieutenantgovernors . The hopewasto supply an interpretative perspective to the colony's politics, hitherto viewed largely as'a confusing tangleoffactional alliances, clashing interests, and jockeyings amongthe elite' (p. 2). Despitethe useof new documentary sources and the insights of otherhistorians, notablyChampagne, Katz,Klein,Leder,McAnear,andVarga,regrettably theattemptfails. At onepointearlyin thebooktheauthoridentifies 'theupstate-downstate conflict 'whichderivedfromtherivalryof New York City and Albany,a phenomenonwhichcontinues to characterize New York Statepolitics. Yet instead of givingthisfocustheattentionit appears to merit,sheconcentrated attentionon thesupposed antagonism of merchants andlandowners. The troublehereisthat such grouprivalryneverreallyexisted. The merchants werethemselves considerablelandowners , whilethelandowners wereveryenterprising. They tradedin grain,furs,woodproducts, and, in the caseof the Livingstons, developed the province's onlyviableironworks beforethe •76os. Thesesamelandowners before the •76osdepended hardlyat all on rentalincome,whichsurelywasthe usual principalsource of wealthfor the landowning classes everywhere. Dr Bonomi admitsthatfromthe •73os her'two'groups weresointertwined that theirseparateinterests became impossible to distinguish (p. •o2). Yet this admission is unhelpfulfor, from the evidence sheherselfadvances, the two had not really existed asdistinct economic andpoliticalrivals. Thiscriticism highlights a significant general weakness. Despite thebook's subtitle 'Politics and Society,' no attempthasbeenmadeat a modernanalysis of colonial society by employing eitherquantification or socio-political conceptual tools. Nor even are there careful definitions of such vital terms as 'aristoc- ß , racy, '6lite,''landowner,' 'merchant,' 'tenant,''leaseholder,' and the like.Thus, 466 THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW while the chapterentitled'New York'sLand System ...' admirablydiscussessomeof the difficulties createdfor the historian by land questions, there islittlein it to inspire confidence in theauthor's abilityto handlesucha fundamentally importantquestion. Whyshehasignored theprincipal conclusions of Dr SungBokKim, whohasprovided a convincing account of the roleof New York landlords, remainsa mystery. Moreover,to placeblame,for instance, for New York'sagrarianunreston New Englanders, asa substitute explanation for theearlierclass-struggle account, isaltogether unsatisfactory. The ideamaybe comfortable (for Yorkers),it mightevenbe sound, but withoutsupporting evidence it remains merely atheory, whichwill notimprove withbeing repeated. However,thisimportantbookcannotberejectedoutof hand.The latestwork onNewYorkpolitics, it oughttobethefirsttoberead.It contains muchhistoriographicalcriticismof greatvalue.Many mythsare exposed with convincing lucidity. Thebibliography isexcellent. Altogether it stands asa thoroughly honest effort,enthusiastically written,toprovide ageneral framework forwhatLawrence Lederin 1956called'NewYork'sforgotten century ...' If thesatisfactory frameworkisstillwanting ,thesubject iscertainly nolongerneglected. JULIAN OWYN University of Ottawa The SavageIdeal: Intoleranceand IntellectualLeadership in theSouth, •89o- •9•4. m•vc•.CLAYTOn. Baltimoreand London,The JohnsHopkinsUniversity Press, i97o.Pp.xiv, o3I. $I 1.50. Thisisan importantandusefulanalysis of thewayin whichfourteensouthern intellectuals relatedtheirbeliefin whitesupremacy totheirbeliefthattheSouth should enditssectional isolation andsharein the nation's progress at thebeginningof the twentiethcentury.The mostimportantof the groupare Woodrow Wilson,Walter HinesPage,ThomasNelsonPage,JohnSpencer Bassett, Edwin Mims, and EdgarGardnerMurphy. They weremostlywriters,professors, and educators who came from middle-class Protestantfamilies.Professor Clayton believes thatthese men,bornin the 185OS and I86OS, werepart of thefirstintellectualcommunity in theSouthwhichwasableto engage in internalcriticism of itsregion.The southern contextin whichthiscriticism developed cameinitially fromthose southern business leaders ofthe 187OS and188os whocalledfora 'New South'incorporating northern formsof industrial capitalism. Raised withinthis business outlookwhichwascriticalof southern backwardness, the youngintellectuals became moreimpatientwith regionalprovincialism astheystudiedin European andnorthern universities. Theycameto believe thattheSouthcould transcend itslegacy ofirrationality andbecome rationalliketheNorthif it would industrialize andurbanize, if it woulddevelopcolleges andschools dedicated to thescientific method, andif it wouldrejectitsloyaltyto theone-party political system and allowthe Republican partyto compete with the Democratic. For theseintellectuals, orderand rationalitywereto be foundin the modelof the economic, academic, andpoliticalmarketplace. All whitemenin theSouthwere capable ofbeingliberated fromtheirrationalities of traditional southern culture ...