The February Meeting of the North Jersey American Revolution Round Table takes place at 7 pm on Thursday, February 9 VIA ZOOM ONLY.

Non-members who wish to attend via zoom should email [email protected] to request the meeting invitation.

Dr. T. Cole Jones will be speaking about his recent book, “Captives of Liberty: Prisoners of War and the Politics of Vengeance in the American Revolution”

Captives of Liberty examines how America’s founding generation grappled with the problems posed by prisoners of war, and how this influenced the wider social and political legacies of the Revolution

When the struggle began, according to T. Cole Jones, revolutionary leadership strove to conduct the war according to the prevailing European customs of military conduct, which emphasized restricting violence to the battlefield and treating prisoners humanely.

However, as the British denied customary protections to their American captives, the revolutionary leadership wasted no time in capitalizing on the prisoners’ ordeals for propagandistic purposes. Enraged, ordinary Americans began to demand vengeance, and they viewed British soldiers and their German and Native American auxiliaries as appropriate targets. This cycle of violence spiraled out of control, transforming the struggle for colonial independence into a revolutionary war.

Dr. T. Cole Jones is an associate professor of history at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.