The Extraordinary Afterlife of Major John André, the "Common Spy"

This article explores the correlation between posthumous André-related "texts" and the performative powers exhibited by André himself during his captivity and the public spectacle of his ignoble hanging. Its argument is two-fold: first, that André used his expertise as a performer of genteel sensibility and aristocratic stoicism to shape how he would be remembered, which in turn inspired a vast catalogue of transatlantic "texts"; and second, that Britain and America needed André during and after the war. André was appropriated as a hegemonic apparatus by both nations for the specific purposes of masking national anxieties and perpetuating hegemonic values.