Customer Reviews

Defying Empire: Trading with the Enemy in Colonial New York

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This book dispels any preconceived notions that history is dull, unless Disneyfied or, even worse, distorted and hyperbolized beyond recognition in order to peddle it to the unsuspecting masses. (please...let's do away with "based on a true story") Truxes has sifted through archives, documents, letters, and newspaper stories of colonial New York City to bring an untold story to life and this is one incredibly rich, exciting tale. The characters are not the upstanding colonial saints we've come to expect in any American history book. The plot is not one of patriotic fervor or self-sacrificing martyrs but greed, revenge, and illegal trade which reveals the sordid underbelly of New York City's populace, both rich and poor.

For history nuts, this is what we live for. For those who like tales of intrigue, this is a gripping story made all the better because it's not fiction. For those who like fiction, this will convert you to the pleasures of reading well-written, true stories. This will knock your socks off and leave you wanting more.

And I do hope Truxes will write more!

Exactly who benefited in the mid-18th Century from the commercial and trading life of the British Empire?
Professor Truxes does not take sides on this question. He does show in vivid and exciting detail that many people--from wealthy merchants and administrators to humble clerks, sailors, and ship captains--were prepared to take extraordinary risks to secure profits for themselves by illegally trading with the French.
DEFYING EMPIRE puts a fresh perspective on the Seven Years War. The bonds of empire were tested by the fragile trading relationships between Britain and her colonies, as much as by the convulsive and unpredictable stresses caused by the military campaigns against the French. Truxes shows that British and colonial laws concerning trade became open to interpretation and evasion within the administrative and commercial community in New York.
This fascinating book unfolds an amazing pattern of commercial dealings with the French. While French forces threatened the borders of New York and French naval squadrons entered and left the West Indies at will, New York merchants carried on a complex and profitable trade with the French controlled islands!
Any and every means was used to transport to the French Islands New York goods and take away valuable sugar, coffee, and indigo. Truxes explains how authorizations for prisoner of war exchanges (Flag-of-Trucers) were cover for shipping cargoes in and out of French West Indian ports. False clearances to British-controlled ports were another means of evading capture, as was shipping through the Spanish port of Monte Christi-- which only seems to have existed to facilitate trade in and out of the French colony of St. Dominque (Haiti)!
Truxes' narrative details the twisted, stop-and-go, cat-and-mouse game that ranged personalities such as Jeffery Amherst, British military commander in North America, and John Tabor Kempe, Attorney General for New York, against some of the most powerful and successful New York City merchants such as, Waddell Cunningham, William Kennedy, Godardus Van Solingen, Jacob Van Zandt, William Walton, Sr, and Thomas White.
Anyone wishing to learn about, and be entertained by, an uncommon and lively view of history will thoroughly enjoy this book!

Defying Empire shows that the story of the dirty American politician is even older than America itself.

This is a compelling, previously untold (but true) account of New York elites who engaged in illicit trading with the French enemy just before the American Revolution (during the Seven Years War).

The story features characters that jump off the page as they willingly trade their patriotism for war profits using intricate smuggling schemes. Many of the main culprits went on to achieve ambitious political careers in the U.S.--and some of them become our Founding Fathers.

This book touches on several themes that we can relate to in contemporary life, such as "get rich quick schemes" involving participation at all levels of government and business, the seduction of war profits, and power-hungry political couples.

This book is perfect for anyone with an interest in the dark side of American history and/or the city of New York.

Defying Empire is a revolutionary work, exploring how colonial New York merchants traded with the enemy during the Seven Years' War. Thomas Truxes's masterful research has produced a book that opens the door to a whole new world of Colonial American life, through trade and commerce. Using vital resources such as naval logbooks, letters, newspaper articles, court documents, and other manuscripts Truxes has pieced together the story of how colonial New York merchants defied Great Britain in her struggle for imperial mastery by trading with the French enemy in time of war and Britain's responses to this treachery. This story offers a riveting prelude of the diverging interests between Great Britain and her North American colonies, which ulimately led to revolution. What is amazing about this book is that it is not only straightforward but also very descriptive, satisfying the pleasures of both the informed and novice readers. Moreover, the imagery of, for example, "Gale-force winds" or the "damaged frigate limped into Port Royal Harbor" really brings the story alive and keeps the reader engaged. The additions of a chronology, glossary of terms and persons, and a list of statutes is very helpful and displays Truxes's desire to inform his audience of the period in question. In conclusion, Defying Empire is a magnificent read and the model for future research on this topic.

Defying Empire provides gripping evidence that the city of New York has not changed much in the last 250 years. The intensely ambitious and ruthless behavior of businessmen in the mid-eighteenth century is parallel to what we read about in the newspapers today.

This compelling story reveals the previously untold account of New York elites who engaged in illegal trading with the French enemy during the Seven Years War (right before the American Revolution). Defying Empire explores ethical and moral limitations to the pursuit of profit, especially when national security is at stake.

Truxes brings a story alive that would have otherwise gone unnoticed. Through careful research and diligence, he allows readers to relive a New York City scandal and understand the psyche of prominent businessmen, some of whom went on to become our Founding Fathers.

Anyone with an interest in scandals that changed the way we do business in America should pick up Defying Empire and give it a read.

Defying Empire opens a fascinating window onto Colonial New York, and its colorful characters, trading with the enemy during the French and Indian War, are recognizably American in their ambition and motivation. Although grounded in careful, thorough and impressive research on both sides of the Atlantic, Defying Empire wears its scholarship lightly. With great research, it's a great read, and its stories of Merchants and seamen doing business in wartime, reacting to England's wartime strictures, offers new, thoughtful, and provocative insights into the shaping of the American character in the period before the American Revolution, into England's Imperial responses, and into the economic causes of the War of Independence.

For the past three years I have been researching my maternal genealogy (NH, MA, NY, NJ, and NE). For background I have been immersed in a great number of books, manuscripts, journals and other references. So, I just wanted to add that the work of Thomas Truxes is superb as a genealogical background source for New York (and beyond) too! For me (as well as others I would suspect) it fills a void that too often exists in historical-related works; just who were the REAL players, their haunts, and the HOW did it really work back then for these real world players of the stage during this particular period of history? As you flip back and forth from narrative to cited reference, one can't help but be impressed and awed by the level of scholarly research that anchors this book as well as the masterful art of telling their story comes to life too. In particular, the colorful history of numerous individuals engaged in smuggling-related activities - at the local, regional, national and international level. These were the men who boldly left their secure homes in New York (and their wives who remained behind to often run land-based operations while hubby was away) to traverse the Atlantic with regularity (extending for significant periods of time aboard ship, in foreign ports, and tramping about on foreign soil to develop, facilitate and secure the commerce that served the times but became the cornerstone of commerce that sustained the colonies in the revolutionary war days that laid ahead). Integrating the use of detailed and well placed maps as well as genealogies from predominantly post-Dutch New Amsterdam and British-Irish families, Thomas Truxes allows the serious genealogist to easily leap frog back and forth from the middle colonies to New England, Britain and Ireland as well as the "Frenchified Bottoms" (pp. 52-71) of the Caribbean or West Indies. Whether as senior lecturer at Trinity College's history department or New York University's department for Irish Studies, the students of Thomas Truxes must truly be blessed to have such a learned instructor and wonderful writer. His is a book that won't disappoint on any front and, once you pick it up, you will not only struggle mightily to put it down but, once you are finished reading it, you will find yourself eagerly wondering when and on what subject will his next book be released - it's really that good!

Excellent! In a brisk, suspenseful narrative, Truxes (of Trinity College, with whom I took a Modern Irish History course) illuminates a little-known aspect of the seminal conflict in early American history- the Seven Years' War. New York City's merchant elite (assisted by co-conspirators in Connecticut & Rhode Island, primarily) developed elaborate schemes to circumvent British Navigation acts and carry on a lucrative trade with the French enemy. (Including instances where merchants hired privateers to seize their own ships!) Fortunes were made (and sometimes lost) as ship owners and merchants supplied vital military stores to the French with impunity. This, of course, incensed the British military, whose efforts to stop the trade were hampered by collusion and corruption in the criminal and civil justice establishment. The eventual crackdown on this activity- then end of "salutary neglect"- sowed the seeds of the American Revolution. It's an original piece of research that reads like a novel. Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in early American or maritime history, or in the history of New York City.

Defying Empire is fascinating history that reads almost like a novel. The maps and glossaries are a huge help to lay readers, and the story is amazing. (George Spencer rates a book all to himself.) The book does a superb job of presenting popular history in such a smart way that I doubt there's an expert in the field who wouldn't also learn plenty, and be thoroughly entertained in the process. Tell your friends about this one.

I bought Thomas M. Truxes' "Defying Empire" based on Rick Spilman's review on the [...] as research for my fictional trilogy-in-progress.

The subject of commerce, of trading with the enemy during the Seven Years War, is one that is usually dealt with in a piecemeal manner. I was delighted to find an entire book on the subject which lies at the heart of the American Revolution which was shortly to follow.

The author brings to life colonial New York during the 1750's-60's, in a thoroughly researched text. I was immediately swept up in the clear, vividly written, footnoted account.

Numerous maps, a chronology, and glossaries of terms and persons enhance this fascinating text, which both academics and armchair historians will relish. Not many authors with the necessary credentials can bridge that gap, but I believe Truxes has.