2025/01/01 by Blake McGready · 1 voice
Environmental Science · Social Sciences · #American Environmental and Regional History #Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies #Geographies of human-animal interactions
paper · doi:10.1353/eam.2025.a951318
openalex publication_date 2025/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Abstract: From 1776 to 1783, American revolutionaries and their opponents vied for control of the strategically indispensable Hudson River Valley to provision their armies and secure the loyalty of its politically divided inhabitants. Hudson Valley farming families complained frequently about the "ravages" of war and expressed anxieties that environmental violence harmed relationships with the land and altered gender dynamics. Women used ravaging accusations to claim their domestic spheres had been violated and demand protection from Patriot officials. Men deployed the language of ravaging to bemoan the ruin of their farmlands as attacks on their patriarchal identities. Patriot officials and publicists capitalized on these fears by crafting a multifaceted argument that linked practical worries about agricultural disruptions with an ideological defense of the "ravaged country." When accusing their enemies of ravaging, Patriot leaders and their constituents drew from popular environmental relationships to cast their enemies as despoilers of women and land.