Unbecoming British: How Revolutionary America Became a Postcolonial Nation

367 Pages·2011·7.029 MB·English

by  Kariann Akemi Yokota

Unbecoming British
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Unbecoming
British
HOW REVOLUTIONARY AMERICA
BECAME A POSTCOLONIAL NATION
KARIANN AKEMI YOKOTA
1
1
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Copyright © 2011 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Yokota, Kariann Akemi.
Unbecoming British : how revolutionary America became a
postcolonial nation / Kariann Akemi Yokota.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-539342-2
1. National characteristics, American—History. 2. United States—
Civilization—1783–1865. 3. United States—Civilization—To 1783. I. Title.
E164.Y65 2010
973.3ʹ39—dc22 2009045749
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Dedicated to the memory of my father, Takao Yokota, my mother,
Keiko Yokota, and my sister, Audrey Yokota, who stood by me in
years past; and to my children, Livia and Dereck, who are
my hope for the future.
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
INTRODUCTION
Unbecoming British:
How Revolutionary America Became a Postcolonial Nation 3
CHAPTER ONE
A New Nation on the Margins of the Global Map 19
CHAPTER TWO
A Culture of Insecurity:
Americans in a Transatlantic World of Goods 62
CHAPTER THREE
A Revolution Revived:
American and British Encounters in Canton, China 115
CHAPTER FOUR
Sowing the Seeds of Postcolonial Discontent:
Th e Transatlantic Exchange of American Nature
and British Patronage 153
CHAPTER FIVE
“A Great Curiosity”:
Th e American Quest for Racial Refi nement and Knowledge 192
CONCLUSION
Th e Long Goodbye:
Breaking with the British in Nineteenth-century America 226
Notes 243
Index 343
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Acknowledgments
Readers of U nbecoming British will encounter a wide variety of people—
merchants, missionaries, and medical doctors—who are not commonly
found together within the pages of the same monograph. It was my desire
as a historian to assemble a cast of characters that were captivated by dispa-
rate passions in order to discern whether they were similarly aff ected by
America’s transition from colony to nation. In a similar way, the years I
spent researching and writing this book allowed me the great privilege of
being part of a diverse community of friends and scholars. Each of them
possesses a generosity of spirit that has enriched this work—and my life—
immeasurably and has played an important role in this book’s “becoming.”
I derive great pleasure from bringing together areas of inquiry that are
not usually studied together. Having been trained in very diff erent academic
fi elds, my intellectual path has been unconventional, a fact that has been the
most rewarding aspect of my career. I began researching nationalism, trans-
national relations, identity formation, and postcolonial perspectives while a
graduate student of interethnic relations at UCLA’s Asian American Studies
Center. Hoping to broaden my knowledge of American history, I continued
to pursue these topics while earning a Ph.D. in early American history. My
work in ethnic studies has amplifi ed my sensitivity to the complexity of
identity formation for people involved in transnational networks. My
thanks to Joyce Appleby, Ruth Bloch, Shirley Hune, Yuji Ichioka, Valerie
Matsumoto, Glenn Omatsu, Herman Ooms, Michael Salman, and Henry
Yu for their contributions to my scholarship. A special note of gratitude
goes to the Center’s longtime director, Don Nakanishi, for serving on both
of my graduate committees.
Although the story of American history is commonly told as a tale of
westward movement, my research took me in the opposite direction. I wish
to express my gratitude to several institutions for providing the fi nancial
assistance that allowed this Los Angeles native to spend several years