BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTE

Various books and articles have shaped my thinking for this book, and scholars will be able to infer a lot about them from my endnotes. My approach to the primary sources requires a little bit more background.

When I started the research for this book in 2010, it would have been impossible to proceed without a car. As a New Yorker who learned to drive about a year before I moved to Austin in 2007, it always felt strange to get into my new (used) car and to drive from Austin to one coast or another. I was the fortunate recipient of fellowships on the East Coast and the West Coast of the United States, and I had funding from my department to go to London. So after a few weeks in Ottawa, I drove from Austin to Williamsburg, Virginia, and from there up and down the East Coast and throughout North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. I drove back to Austin, flew to London for a summer of research, returned, and then drove east to Philadelphia for a year. After that, I drove from Austin out to San Marino, California, and back again. I ended up in New Haven, where my faithful Toyota Corolla had to be sold because it could not come with me to England.

This book’s endnotes indicate where in my travels I located a particular source. Although some of these documents have by now appeared online or in printed collections, there are several stops on my archival route that I think worth visiting if scholars would like to reproduce my research. What follows is a rough description of key archives and collections in the order in which I explored them.

In Ottawa, Library and Archives Canada holds microfilm copies of documents available in Halifax. The Shelburne historical records collection was especially important for court records relating to white and black colonists, and the William A. Smy transcripts gave me a sense of which documents about Native Americans I needed to look at in London. If researchers find themselves in Ottawa, they should endeavor to eat at the ByWard Market, and the scones at the SconeWitch, right by the archives, are worth having.

At the John D. Rockefeller Library in Williamsburg, Virginia, the Cornwallis Orderly book, Dunmore’s correspondence, and the Robert Carter letterbooks helped me to think about formerly enslaved people. Visitors should check the calendar of the Omohundro Institute to see if any colloquia are scheduled; there will be coffee, baked goods, and intellectual nourishment.

After Williamsburg, I drove to Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, home to the David Library of the American Revolution. This is an unmissable stop for U.S. scholars interested in British documents, though as the library’s name indicates, historians of various stripes are welcome there. This microfilm library provided access to the British Headquarter Papers—useful for commentary on British strategy, provisioning, and Indian affairs north and south—and some of the War Department Papers, which I used to wrap my head around southern Indian affairs in the postwar period. Rented housing is available, but I recommend carefully reading instructions about using the kitchen, as one unnamed historian may or may not have broken the garbage disposal when she put too many onion skins in it.

Following a month in Washington Crossing, I spent six weeks driving back and forth between Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. I spent the most time at the Georgia Department of Archives and History in Morrow, but the hours back then were limited, and I had to pass the time on the archive’s closed days with side trips to the North Carolina State Archives, the South Carolina Department of Archives and History, the South Carolina Historical Society, the Southern Historical Collection, the South Caroliniana Library, the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and the Georgia Historical Society—the last of which helped with the section of this book that deals with the Treaty of Colerain. In Morrow, transcripts of Creek and Cherokee letters reproduce documents that are otherwise scattered across the United States, but they need to be used with some care because they are transcripts rather than original documents. I have dealt with this problem by quoting from them as sparingly as I could.

After this southern trip I went back to Austin to stow my car. I would like to tell you about all the food in Austin, but my editor has given me a word limit. Tacodeli is where readers should get their breakfast tacos (with chorizo and eggs, or eggs and steak) and their pork mole tacos; Papalote is where they should eat turkey mole tacos and ceviche tostadas. Everyone should drink horchata and Mexican martinis. I refuse to argue about barbecue and authenticity.

Thereafter, I flew to the East Coast. I started in Philadelphia on a reconnaissance trip that would serve me well the following year, looking initially at the Cadwalader papers to get to know George Croghan. A month later, in Boston, the Massachusetts Historical Society provided access to the Sullivan Transcripts and some of Samuel Kirkland’s letters, which illuminated the 1779 campaign against the Iroquois. Of real importance were the Timothy Pickering papers on microfilm, which have molded much of what I have to say in this book about history. I strongly recommend visiting Chinatown on weekends for dim sum, and Pho Basil by the MHS for very delicious bo kho.

New York came next. I depended on Maruzzella for a lot of penne alla vodka, and at the New York Public Library I consulted a mix of original manuscripts and material copied from other archives. The Philip Schuyler papers were essential for learning about Indian Affairs from the American perspective and for recovering some Six Nations’ voices. Photostats of the British Headquarters Papers, which the David Library also has on microfilm, were useful for getting a head start on the research I needed to do in London.

Across the ocean, the British Library houses the voluminous Haldimand Papers, which were crucial for learning about British Indian policy. The BL also provided access to papers on Sierra Leone, and those documents could be cross-referenced with the more extensive Colonial Office records on Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone in the National Archives at Kew. I would recommend that travelers visit Brick Lane on Sunday for the street market there, and Dumplings Legend for very good soup dumplings, but trips to Borough Market are also advisable.

Once in Philadelphia and New Haven I was primarily concerned with writing up my findings. I did, however, spend a month looking at the Anthony Wayne Papers at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. These contain commentary on the Western Confederacy War, and I was able to cross-reference them with the Wayne Papers at the Clements Library in Ann Arbor. Between academic years in Philadelphia and New Haven, I spent a month at the Huntington Library in San Marino, where I learned a lot from Zachary Macaulay’s papers about those key years in Sierra Leone. In Philadelphia, researchers should head to the Italian Market for a nosh, to Han Dynasty for fiery Szechuanese (I love the eggplant and the cold noodles with chili oil), and to Dim Sum Garden for my favorite soup dumplings in the world. Frita Batidos’ chorizo frita is a reasonable reward for a day in the archives in Ann Arbor. In New Haven, scholars should listen to arguments in favor of various pizza offerings, and then go to Pepe’s and get a pepperoni, anchovy, and garlic pie. The fried chicken, collard greens, and candied yams at Mama Mary’s are also incredible.

Manuscripts were indispensable, but I also used printed source collections to write this book. These included Vincent Carretta’s Unchained Voices (Lexington, 1996), The Papers of Henry Laurens, edited by David R. Chestnutt (Columbia, 1968–2002), Thomas H. Foster’s Collected Works of Benjamin Hawkins (Tuscaloosa, 2003), Christopher Fyfe’s “Our Children Free and Happy” (Edinburgh, 1991), The Journals of Samuel Kirkland, edited by Walter Pilkington (Clinton, 1980), The Papers of Sir William Johnson, edited by James Sullivan (Albany, 1921–1965), and American State Papers, Class II, Indian Affairs, edited by Walter Lowrie and Matthew St. Clair Clarke (Washington, 1832).

American State Papers is now available online, as are numerous other sources. Since I started the research for this book, online databases have made possible extensive primary-source research with considerably less travel. For students based in the United Kingdom or without the departmental funding to undertake expensive research trips, I would recommend exploring databases like The Internet Archive (where one can find all of the Johnson papers digitized and word searchable), Documenting the American South, Founders Online, and the Papers of the War Department.

The best advice I can offer about this research is that commentary about hunger is everywhere in the archives. As long as historians and historians in the making are prepared to recognize unconventional attitudes about it, they will find it there.