Ideology, Allegory, and Identity: A Study of American Political Cartoons, 1770-1815

A Study of American Political Cartoons, 1770-1815
Master’s thesis 45 credits Author’s name: Fanny Vårenius Name of supervisor: Henrik Ågren Semester: Spring 2022
Frontispiece. Peace of Ghent 1814. And Triumph of America by Julia Plantou & Chataigner [1815] Library of Congress.
Abstract
In 1776, war broke out in the colonies of New England between British subjects, colonists, and
those employed by the crown to uphold law and order across the Atlantic. The union that would
emerge from the war would have to develop what the colonial powers they migrated from had
been adding on for centuries: an understanding of national character. The colonists occupied a
territory to which they had no historical inheritance before European colonization, and their
customs, language, and societal structure were of British origin. However, the declaration of
independence testifies that the United States was an exceptional republic among monarchies.
Providing ideas, and a popular elaboration of society has been the task of many artists at any
time and place. Our different perceptions of nationhood might discard or accept such visual
interpretations, but they are nonetheless subjective reflections of selected realities. As such, political
cartoons, the source material for this thesis, can provide a detailed view of the particular process
of picturing national identity, for a new nation that recently had existed within the borders of their
own empire.
States, war of independence, visual narratives, pictorial cultures, caricatures, national stereotypes.
Contents
1.3. Historical context ............................................................................................................................. 4
1.4.3 Creating and Changing Identities .......................................................................................... 14
1.5. Material and methodology .................................................................................................................... 18
1.5.1 Sources ...................................................................................................................................... 18
1.6 Disposition ..................................................................................................................................... 21
2. New England 1770-1776: Female Personifications and Divine Virtues ................................... 22
2.1 Rapists and Murderers in Wigs ............................................................................................................ 22
2.2 Goddesses, Warriors, and Princesses in Print ........................................................................................ 28
2.3 The Union before Independence ............................................................................................................. 32
3. War of Independence 1776-1783: Celebrating Legacies and Illustrating Traitors ................... 35
3.1 A Glorious Future Inherited ................................................................................................................ 35
3.2 Signs of Remembrance, and “Appeal to Heaven” ................................................................. 41
3.3 War and History to Bound the Union .................................................................................................. 43
4. Writing the Constitution 1783 – 1803: Realizing the American Destiny .................................. 46
4.1 Everyone Uncomfortable with Congress in Session ................................................................................. 47
4.2 The Bald Eagle and Columbia as Protectors Against Corruption.......................................................... 54
4.3 Negotiating Identities from the Outset of Foreign Associations ............................................................... 61
5. The War of 1812: Imperial Ambitions and National Confidence ............................................. 66
5.1 Britain’s Continued Influence in American Cartoons ............................................................................ 67
5.2 Designing Character and Defining Morale ............................................................................................ 76
5.3 United States Independent, Yet Again ................................................................................................. 80
6. Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................... 85
1. Introduction
Determining the cause of action in such an unraveling time as the mid-eighteenth-century New
England is an ever-disputed issue, for it deals with the question of whether the War of
independence was intended, or if it came to be the solution to economic misfortune. When Britain
established colonies in North America, the new settlers had a difficult time navigating the rules in
a new world established by a parliament far away. Since the 1760s’, Britain issued higher tax
revenues on its colonies to repair the financial losses in the French-Indian War, resulting in small-
scale organized riots occurring throughout the colonies. Despite economic pressure, those who
had already acquired wealth and those who dreamt of a better life sought their way to the colonies
with rich land resources and fewer regulations to farm and conduct business than in their European
home countries.1 Although the average colonist never considered independence from Britain a
possibility (perhaps the sporadic riots were just temporary acts of dissent), some took the
opportunity to argue for the inevitability of war. This thesis aims to investigate how the arguments
supporting independence and separation from Britain, and the formation of a post-war national
identity was framed in images from 1770 to 1815. During this period, discussions of war developed
into full realization, a constitution was ratified, and another war was fought and concluded. The
US transformed from being colonies to a union, and finally an influential western power. The
consequences of war are many. In this case, international recognition is one of them. Therefore,
looking at how the visual perception of nation evolved to comply with temporal aspirations, will
be the purpose of this thesis.
Early advocates for independence were elusive in their definition of the British opposition.
Colonists were after all Europeans, they spoke English, German, and Dutch, and their food,
traditions stories, beliefs, and rule of law were of European origin. They were neither in shackles
far away from home nor driven from their villages with violence. To argue for their uniqueness to
distance themselves from the European nations, and their domestic enemies (the Native Americans
and the loyalists), the vision of the United States and its inhabitants had to be purposely fabricated
and integrated into American society.2
One example of this is the frontispiece of this thesis. It was created and published by Julia
Plantou and Alexis Chataigner titled Peace of Ghent 1814 and triumph of America3. The image shows
Columbia to the right, the personification of the United States, dragged on a chariot through a
triumphal arch into a city square filled with people. She wears a pharaoh’s crown, raising the banner
1 Nash 2007, pp, 4–5. 2 Kramer 2011, p, 126. 3 Chataigner, Alexis, Engraver, and Julia Plantou. Peace of Ghent and triumph of America United States, ca. 1815. [Philadelphia] Held by: Library of Congress.
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of the United States. On the far left sits Britannia with her head bowed down in distress. Dark
clouds surround her as Hercules, Mercury and Athena try to convince her to sign a document titled
“Peace of Ghent”. Behind Britannia sits Minerva, writing the names of famous men who died
during the war on an obelisk, and Fame is seen flying above their names. At the top center flies the
bald eagle, holding a palm branch in its claws. At the very center of the image is a roman armor
placed on a banner with “American independence” embroidered, and at the bottom lies the British
banner on the ground to be stomped on.4
The illustration is an enchanting fantasy, in addition to a convincing argument for war. The
creators appeal to the recipient’s emotions and public memory from the revolution, and it is filled
with symbols to enhance the narrative; Columbia wearing the crown of pharaohs, and the deceased
soldiers being remembered forever by Fame’s trumpet. The goddesses represent actual virtues the
American people had become accustomed to, virtues reaffirming the end of US dependency on
Britain. The display of national allegories demonstrates that the nations were equals and with that,
the US was truly liberated. The armor with the banner reading “American Independence,”
references back to the first rebellions that led to this peace treaty, and so the image creates a timeline
within itself where independence was the beginning, and the thought of the US replacing Britain
as the model of western civilization the end, a development immortalized in memory.
Images are a part of the ceremonial exhibit of authority. There are certain responses expected
when the power of the state presents itself to the public. In the image by Plantou and Chataigner,
there is not one person, king, president, or pope, to receive the liking of its audience but rather
symbolic representations of the civic virtues.5
This thesis will assess the issue of how the vision of the United States landed in representations
like the one of the peace at Ghent, after 40 years of riots, wars, and domestic political instability.
Visual source materials, appealing more to emotions than rational thinking, can be useful when
studying the development of collective consciousness and the emergence of national identity in
times when borders and forms of government were uncertain. The images can act as collective
representations and be used as arguments to convince others to agree with their representation of
reality.6 Although images alone can not tell us the effect they had on society at large, they were used
by agents with their own motive to communicate information to a certain audience with the
underlying intent of awakening emotions to emphasize what issues were important during the time
of publishing.
5 Fröschl 1998, p, 258. 6 Hebel & Wagner 2011, p, 14.
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1.2. Aim and Research questions
Given the function of images as tools to visualize ideas and project them onto a people who were
essentially enclosed from the political establishment, the purpose of this thesis is to study the
formation of national identity in images published between 1770 and 1815, a period in US history
defined by the ambition to achieve unity and international recognition. The period is one of many
military confrontations, distress, and optimism, where the media had the important role of critic
and promotor to a population that perhaps did not feel the necessity to engage with politics or the
concept of identity outside their local community.
Tracing the negotiation of identity-making through images can provide further insight into the
work behind defining a nation, and a people, who were neither culturally nor ethnically different
to those from whom they claimed independency. One can argue that the timespan from 1770 to
1815, is either too short to find patterns and reoccurrences, or too long to achieve a deeper insight
into the development of identity. However, the number of cartoons by a multitude of artists could
facilitate the visual trends that helped describe the union.
As the colonists tried to break with Britain and create something new, the result had to be visible
in society for people to appreciate the changes or at least be convinced by them. The political
objective to argue for the right to reform a nation introduces how we define the principles that
thoughts of nation will be based upon.7 As subjective source material, artists themselves made the
connection between ideology and identity, making conscious decisions to include references
relevant to the presumed impact an image could have. The study will therefore facilitate individual
references and “read” them as mediators between the object and the recipient. Adding to the
iconographical study is not only what symbols are occurring but also their cultural origin as leverage
to emphasize their meaning when artists tried to fabricate the illusion of state.
How politics and people are represented in images can act as a deliberate attempt to model
identity. For instance, republicanism as not only a form of governance but a state of mind: a free
state for a free people. Using images instead of words, and sometimes a combination of the two,
artists projecting their ideas onto their audience to cement their vision of a new nation can, with a
rich material over a longer period, provide a more certain view of the development of early
American national consciousness.
Given that the source material is political cartoons, the first research question will consider what
role ideology was given in defining national character in the images, both within the boundaries of
domestic politics, and taking into consideration the historic and cultural ties to Europe. As the
colonies gained independence, built a government, and sought international recognition, defining
nation is a process of comparing it to others.
7 Kramer 2011, p, 29.
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The second question to ask the material is about the creation and adoption of national allegories,
where they originated and were adjusted to fit the framework of American self-expression. The
thesis will attempt to trace the origins of symbols, and how they have been drawn from a shared
language of symbolic images. Adopting and transforming symbols of power derived from an
international past, America came to form its very own visual identity. It is a matter of symbolic
change and continuity.
The many artists together can express a diverse story of the past, but at the same time, finding
trends and similarities between many works can prove that there was a consensus regarding the
main ideological and cultural qualities framing the public perception of identity in the United States,
how it was visualized rather than individually imagined. By observing an abundance of sources, this
thesis aims to show how the process of constructing identity and self-awareness of being a nation
in the making were visualized and communicated with images. Perhaps the diversity in terms of
esthetics, ideological origin, and the variety of artists working to sway public opinion during this
time, can show the use of images to legitimize independence or condemn it. It can mirror the
development of national self-recognition following wars, how artists promoted and defined
nationhood, and the principles of rule which ultimately inspires the unification or segregation of
people.
1.3. Historical context
In 1686, the British established the “Dominion of New England” to break up local assemblies
challenging the royal presence in the colonies. This was only effective in regions with a larger
royalized population, in other communities, assemblies would emerge to challenge the crown. Thus
began a period before the revolution where the crown and local governments failed to cooperate.
In consequence, political authority was less prominent in the colonies, and personal freedom
became the prerequisite for a good standard of life.8 Similar to that of the revolution in France,
American patriots started to address the benefits of republican polity and values based on their
experiences with economic exhaustion during the colonial period. Financial pressures in America
were the result of the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763). Britain was in desperate need of money from
fighting France and Spain, and revenues were to come from consumers in the colonies.9
Although taxes were a prominent factor in the growing discontent, the connection between
financial empowerment and the articulation of “natural rights” was important in communicating
republican theory from an elite group in the resistance movement to the people. Politically
ambitious individuals elaborated on the social contract between government and subjects.
Particularly how a population as one body, obtains the natural right to govern themselves through
8 Klooster 2018, p, 14. 9 Klooster 2018, p, 18.
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the political figures they selected. In The Social Contract (1762), Rousseau argued for one people, one
nation, and one general to succeed the authority of God and kings. In Common Sense (1776)
American patriot Thomas Paine claimed that war against authoritarian regimes was righteous and
natural for all mankind. To argue for the Deceleration of Independence in 1776, political leaders
spoke of the people being the authority, and the elected being the servants. These ideas were
repeated in newspapers, pamphlets, and broadsides, turning men like Thomas Paine into household
names.10
The assumption that political thinkers outlined a “new” system of government diverting from
the Anglo-Saxon tradition, based on the idea that an American identity was different from the
British has been questioned. Colin Kidd argues that there was no perception of identity that initially
inspired the arguments for independence, the colonists associated themselves with the Angelo-
Saxon tradition but recognized that the people in the mother country exercised more freedoms and
privileges than the colonists.11 Wim Klooster agrees with this, comparing revolutions in North and
South America, and France. He states that emerging political identities were not the cause, but the
consequence of revolutions, rooted in the colonial authorities’ failed reaction against the revolts in
their foreign dominions.12 That is why this thesis needs to consider the political arguments in
images as related to the formation of national identity. Discontent motivated separation, the
consequence was differentiation. The colonists had much in common: culturally, ethnically, and
historically with their mother countries in Europe. And although mistreatment would be reason
enough to declare a war of independence the colonists had to illustrate the reasons why they would
be successful in comparing themselves to the authorities they despised.
As a natural resource for opposition and mobilization, pamphlets, magazines, broadsides, and
other printed material were cheap and easily distributed. In seventeenth-century England,
authorities struggled to harness the pandemic of printed material that seemed to rally people across
the financial and social spectrum in opposition to their overlords. There was also the fear that those
without an understanding of state affairs would receive knowledge through infiltrators and activists,
and suddenly have an opinion they were not entitled to.13 In America, papered material was
important to those who opposed British governance. The Stamp Act crisis in 1765, meant great
revenues for the crown as all transactions needed the validation of stamps which cost money and
included all papered materials, jeopardizing the production of newspapers.14 The Sons of Liberty,
an organized group of rebels distributing the Royal American Magazine, frequently appeared in riots
10 Kramer 2011, pp, 31, 35, 37. 11 Kidd 1999, p, 251. 12 Klooster 2018, pp, 160–61. 13 Peacey 2013, pp, 331,333. 14 Shaw 1981, p, 5.
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around the areas of Boston and New York violating tax collectors, their homes, and families in
reaction to the Stamp Act. The act was canceled the following year, although not forgotten.15
Through the use of cheap and attainable sources of communication, observers and opinion
seekers documented the successes of the mobs that popped up in all of northern New England.
Their rituals, speeches, and performances spread to other communities, creating a cult surrounding
the mocking and hatred towards British rule. Through the protesters, and the ones documenting
their advances, they popularized the resemblance between tax-collectors and British
parliamentarians with the devil or “devil’s imp”. Mocking these turned into a symbolic
demonstration of liberty.16
Before colonial resentment was discussed in the media, literary consumption in the colonies was
restricted to a person’s status, and now people from all socioeconomic backgrounds took interest
in similar news. Surely, many were illiterate before, during, and after the revolution, so newspapers
and pamphlets without pictures were of no help in that regard, but the status symbol literature of
British origin acquired before the 1760s’ in the colonies was shadowed by the popularity of papers,
broadsides, and pamphlets produced domestically, and increasing political consciousness was the
result.17
Political consciousness was materialized in other ways than physical confrontations. People
began to target ordinary objects and give them symbolic meaning signifying the rebels. The
Bostonians anchored their frustration in a tree, the “liberty tree”, “great Elm tree”, and simply the
“great tree”, symbolizing the clash between Bostonians and the British authorities. The tree became
a spot for people to socialize, put on theatres, hold public speeches, and hang images and papers
celebrating the resistance movement. As such an integral symbol in ordinary life, seen as a part of
the local identity of Boston, the British decided to cut it down after functioning as a center for
public political expression for years. But the rituals of resistance around the tree were adopted by
similar movements around New England, and artists sketched gatherings around the liberty tree,
sometimes with loyalists hanging from the branches by a noose.18 The events in the 1760s show
that a collective started to take form little by little through public spaces like the media, and around
liberty trees. Demonstrating that group formation was instigated by a few people that managed to
popularize the idea of public political influence. However, this was not nearly enough to achieve
unity as a prospective nation, thus the following chapter will deal with the emergence of American
identity and national consciousness.
15 Klooster 2018, p, 20–21. 16 Shaw 1981, pp, 9–10. 17 Granger 1960, pp, 3–6. 18 Lampert 2013, pp, 17–18.
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1.4. Previous Research and Theoretical Frameworks
This chapter presents the previous research that makes up a theoretical framework for this thesis.
Since the purpose is to study the process behind the fabrication of an American identity through
images and the ideological and cultural references that helped define the ideas of nationhood,
previous research needs to be discussed according to three themes based…