Citizens of convenience : the imperial origins of American nationhood on the U.S.-Canadian border

Resource Information

The work Citizens of convenience : the imperial origins of American nationhood on the U.S.-Canadian border represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Bates College. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Citizens of convenience : the imperial origins of American nationhood on the U.S.-Canadian border

Title remainder

the imperial origins of American nationhood on the U.S.-Canadian border

Statement of responsibility

Lawrence B.A. Hatter

Creator

• Hatter, Lawrence B. A.,
• Hatter, Lawrence B. A.,

Author

• Hatter, Lawrence B. A.,
• Hatter, Lawrence B. A.,

Subject

• Citizenship
• Citizenship -- Northern boundary of the United States -- History
• Citizenship -- Northern boundary of the United States -- History
• History
• Imperialism
• Imperialism -- History
• Imperialism -- History
• International relations
• Merchants
• Merchants -- Northern boundary of the United States -- History
• Merchants -- Northern boundary of the United States -- History
• Nation-building
• Nation-building -- North America -- History
• Nation-building -- North America -- History
• Nationalism
• Nationalism -- United States -- History
• Nationalism -- United States -- History
• North America
• Northern boundary of the United States -- History -- 18th century
• Northern boundary of the United States -- History -- 18th century
• Northern boundary of the United States -- History -- 19th century
• Northern boundary of the United States -- History -- 19th century
• Territorial expansion
• United States
• United States -- Northern boundary of the United States
• United States -- Relations -- Canada
• United States -- Relations -- Canada
• United States -- Territorial expansion
• United States -- Territorial expansion
• 1700-1899
• Canada
• Canada -- Relations -- United States
• Canada -- Relations -- United States

Genre

• History

Language

eng

Summary

"Like merchant ships flying flags of convenience to navigate foreign waters, traders in the northern borderlands of the early American republic exploited loopholes in the Jay Treaty that allowed them to avoid border regulations by constantly shifting between British and American nationality. In Citizens of Convenience, Lawrence Hatter shows how this practice undermined the United States' claim to nationhood and threatened the transcontinental imperial aspirations of U.S. policymakers. The U.S.-Canadian border was a critical site of United States nation- and empire-building during the first forty years of the republic. Hatter explains how the difficulty of distinguishing U.S. citizens from British subjects on the border posed a significant challenge to the United States' founding claim that it formed a separate and unique nation. To establish authority over both its own nationals and an array of non-nationals within its borders, U.S. customs and territorial officials had to tailor policies to local needs while delineating and validating membership in the national community. This type of diplomacy--balancing the local with the transnational--helped to define the American people as a distinct nation within the Revolutionary Atlantic world and stake out the United States' imperial domain in North America"--Publisher description

Member of

• Early American histories

Awards note

"Winner of the Walker Cowen Memorial Prize for an outstanding work of scholarship in eighteenth-century studies."

Cataloging source

DLC

Government publication

government publication of a state province territory dependency etc

Illustrations

• illustrations
• maps

Index

index present

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography

Series statement

Early American histories