The Stamp Act riots in Rhode Island and the Regulator Rebellion in North Carolina, although movements in smaller colonies, tell a broader story about the evolution of American political thought in the decades surrounding the American Revolution. Without pre-existing local tensions, the fury of the Stamp Act crisis might not have spilled over during the summer of 1765, and, without the added strains of the imperial crisis, the Regulator Rebellion might not have lasted for five years. Drawing from her recent book, Abby Chandler, associate professor of history at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, explores the local and transatlantic tensions that infused the Stamp Act riots and Regulator Rebellion and how the identities of both colonies evolved in the coming decades.
About the Speaker
Abby Chandler is an associate professor of American history at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Having earned her Ph.D. from the University of Maine at Orono in 2008, her research focuses on political movements in eighteenth-century British North America and protest in the long eighteenth century. She is the author of Law and Sexual Misconduct in New England, 1650-1750: Steering Towards England (Routledge, 2015) and has written several articles for publications such as Maine History, the North Carolina Historical Review and Early Modern Women, as well as the North Carolina Historical Review. She also currently serves on the 250th American Revolution Anniversary Commission in Massachusetts.