Author Glenn Tucker’s interest in research on the War of 1812 was piqued whilst he was employed as a newspaperman in Washington, D.C. “I wanted to find out what truly occurred when the British occupied the American capital in 1814. Nothing like Ross’s seizure of the capital of a great power with a small attacking force has happened elsewhere in modern times. No other event gives so clear a view of the trials of our young government. Searching out the details of Ross’s conquest, I found them gripping, but meagerly reported and often with a farcical touch. Often the incidents, which many have regarded as humiliating and have wished forgotten, abound in human interest and pointed lesson. “The interest and significance of the story of the Ross expedition led me to the story of the entire war. Study of the war as a whole revealed strong contrast of cowardice and courage. I have been amazed by the poltroonery and incompetence of some of the generals and cabinet members; I have been stirred by the patriotic devotion of James Monroe, by the flashing genius of Henry Clay, by the patience and true greatness of James Madison. And I discovered that not only men of high position played exciting roles in the war. Soldiers, seamen, newsmen, couriers and many others, whose names are now obscure, played brilliant, if brief, scenes—some comic, some adventurous, some tragic. “The course of the War of 1812, like that of all wars, was determined as much by emotion as by economic and political pressures. Men acted and reacted violently, passionately. Today the wisdom and courage of some of their deeds evoke tremendous respect; the foolhardiness of others evokes laughter. Throughout these volumes I have made an effort to discern the thoughts and feelings of the people whose actions wove the variegated pattern of the war.”

"This is the almost once forgotten story of a few dozen men from Point Coupee who fought in Bernando Galvez' Spanish army during the American Revolution. These French Creole soldiers who made up the Point Coupee Militia participated in capturing Baton Rouge from the British through the battles of Manchac and Baton Rouge. The Louisiana Colony was far removed from the 13 original colonies, yet still played an important role in the American Revolution by keeping the Mississippi River out of British control. Inside is their story, focusing on the men whose names appear on a 1777 roll call of the Pointe Coupee Militia"--back cover.

If I Could Turn My Tongue Like That, by Thomas Klingler, is an in-depth study of the Creole language spoken in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana, a community situated on the west bank of the Mississippi River above Baton Rouge that dates back to the early eighteenth century. The first comprehensive grammatical description of this particular variety of Louisiana Creole, Klingler's work is timely indeed, since most Creole speakers in the Pointe Coupee area are over sixty-five and the language is not being passed on to younger generations. It preserves and explains an important yet little understood part of America's cultural heritage that is rapidly disappearing. The heart of the book is a detailed morphosyntactic description based on some 150 hours of interviews with Pointe Coupee Creole speakers. Each grammatical feature is amply illustrated with contextual examples, and Klingler's descriptive framework will facilitate comparative research. The author also provides historical and sociolinguistic background information on the region, examining economic, demographic, and social conditions that contributed to the formation and spread of Creole in Louisiana. Pointe Coupee Creole is unusual, and in some cases unique, because of such factors as the parish's early exposure to English, its rapid development of a plantation economy, and its relative insulation from Cajun French. The volume concludes with transcriptions and English translations of Creole folk tales and of Klingler's conversations with Pointe Coupee's residents, a treasure trove of cultural and linguistic raw data. This kind of rarely printed material will be essential in preserving Creole in the future. Encylopedic in its approach and featuring a comprehensive bibliography, If I Could Turn My Tongue Like That is a rich resource for those interested in the development of Louisiana Creole and in Francophony.

M. K. Beauchamp’s Instruments of Empire examines the challenges that resulted from U.S. territorial expansion through the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. With the acquisition of this vast region, the United States gained a colonial European population whose birthplace, language, and religion often differed from those of their U.S. counterparts. This population exhibited multiple ethnic tensions and possessed little experience with republican government. Consequently, administration of the territory proved a trial-and-error endeavor involving incremental cooperation between federal officials and local elites. As Beauchamp demonstrates, this process of gradual accommodation served as an essential nationalizing experience for the people of Louisiana. After the acquisition, federal officials who doubted the loyalty of the local French population and their capacity for self-governance denied the territory of Orleans—easily the region’s most populated and economically robust area—a quick path to statehood. Instead, U.S. officials looked to groups including free people of color, Native Americans, and recent immigrants, all of whom found themselves ideally placed to negotiate for greater privileges from the new territorial government. Beauchamp argues that U.S. administrators, despite claims of impartiality and equality before the law, regularly acted as fickle agents of imperial power and frequently co-opted local elites with prominent positions within the parishes. Overall, the methods utilized by the United States in governing Louisiana shared much in common with European colonial practices implemented elsewhere in North America during the early nineteenth century. While historians have previously focused on Washington policy makers in investigating the relationship between the United States and the newly acquired territory, Beauchamp emphasizes the integral role played by territorial elites who wielded enormous power and enabled government to function. His work offers profound insights into the interplay of class, ethnicity, and race, as well as an understanding of colonialism, the nature of republics, democracy, and empire. By placing the territorial period of early national Louisiana in an imperial context, this study reshapes perceptions of American expansion and manifest destiny in the nineteenth century and beyond. Instruments of Empire serves as a rich resource for specialists studying Louisiana and the U.S. South, as well as scholars of slavery and free people of color, nineteenth-century American history, Atlantic World and border studies, U.S. foreign relations, and the history of colonialism and empire.

In 1775, when the American Revolution broke out, the Natchez District was a small isolated outpost in British West Florida. During the early stages of the rebellion, the population of the district more than doubled as hundreds of loyalists settled along the western banks of the Mississippi River between Walnut Hills (modern Vicksburg) and Manchac. Although most inhabitants were loyal to England or preferred to remain neutral during the conflict, James Willing, a young adventurer and a former resident of the district, brought the war to their doorstep in early 1778 when he led a raiding party which forced the inhabitants of Natchez to take an oath of allegiance and which plundered the property of several well-known Tories south of the town. When Willing and his men reached New Orleans, they were allowed to dispose of their plunder at public auction. Although Willing's Raid exposed British weakness in the Southwest, the governor of West Florida dispatched enough military assistance to regain control over the Natchez district and to prevent Willing from ascending the Mississippi River with provisions for the American army. Spain's entry into the war in June of 1779 upset the precarious balance in the Southwest. In a series of brilliant campaigns, Governor Bernardo de Galvez captured the British settlements along the Mississippi, then seized Mobile, and eventually forced the British to surrender Pensacola. While Pensacola was falling to a superior Spanish force, the inhabitants of Natchez momentarily regained control of the district and threw out the Spaniards. As soon as they learned of the fall of Pensacola, however, they resubmitted to Spanish rule, which proved milder than many had anticipated. The end of the American Revolution found Spain in possession of the lower Mississippi Valley. This account is the first complete, scholarly study of what took place in the Natchez district during the American Revolution. Professor Haynes not only brings new material to light, but he also captures the drama of life in Mississippi during the period of the American Revolution.