Abstract
Everyday Crimes: Social Violence and Civil Rights in Early America explores the relationship between masters and their dependents such as slaves, indentured servants, apprentices, wives, and children. Ryan focuses on exploring the phenomenon of physical abuse within this patriarchal relationship. While Ryan mentions that verbal abuse was also utilized, it was harder to identify documented accounts, so the book focuses on the physical assaults. To conduct this research, Ryan utilizes legal documents, governmental documents, diaries, letters, and newspapers within the three prominent colonies of New York, New Newfoundland, and Massachusetts. Ryan breaks down the culture and social norms originating during the colonial era and travels to the 1820s. Overall, the book is easy to understand with Ryan developing her argument early on. She reinforces this argument throughout the rest of the book. The book is broken up into an introduction, three parts that encompass three blocks of early American history, and the conclusion.
In the introduction, Ryan introduces the reader to the perception of corporal punishment during the colonial era within America. She explains how she collected her data and briefly describes how each part of the book is broken down. She argues that the disenfranchised population (slaves, wives, and servants) were not the ones that changed society’s perception on corporal punishment and assault, but instead, it was the guardians of these individuals, parents, sympathetic bystanders, and the courts. Ryan utilizes the key components of routine activities theory to approach history and explains how each fundamental part of the triangle affects one another. The introduction starts out slow for Ryan breaks down the main arguments in each section. However, Part I became easier to read.
Part I describes the colonial period of America prior to the Revolutionary War. Ryan utilizes the tale of Benjamin Franklin and his indentured servitude to his brother, James, as a comparison point to describe the often-harsh relationship between master and apprentice. As she moves from each group, wives, slaves, and so on, she describes how the legal system and location of the town/city helped determine the punishment (if any) that a master/husband could obtain due to the abuse. Each chapter within Part I provides a relatable antidote to help personalize the historical context, while also providing a detailed account of the struggle of power between classes. Ryan mentions how each type of dependent has its own sets of struggles due to the nature of the established societal relationship prior to the physical abuse.
Part II is the shortest section of the three. Ryan describes how the skirmishes prior to the Revolutionary War affected the court’s rates of punishing masters for abuse. Ryan describes how the servants and apprentices were less likely to be released from their masters. Due to this decline in court assistance and the rise of impending war, servants, apprentices, wives, and slaves were more likely to run away and find allies to assist them in removal from abusive households. Allies such as the Quakers, lawyers, and court officials were more prominent during this time of upheaval, wanting to make their opinion known in print to potentially sway the future direction of the up-and-coming country. While masters/husbands were less likely to be held responsible for physical abuse against their wives, White women were more likely to obtain divorce paperwork through the court systems. Ryan describes how the rate of adultery was growing, and so at its peak, women had a 79% chance of successfully divorcing their husbands.
Ryan begins Part III discussing how artist Reuben Moulthrop depicts abuse between a slave and her mistress. Ryan mentions how this depiction of violence represents the frequency and commonplace of corporal punishment and violence in early America. After the Revolutionary War and into the 19th century, abolitionists and activists start petitioning states toward abolishing slavery. The first state to emancipate slaves was New York, which was motivated by the Haitian Revolution, and revolts within the newly formed country. While emancipation occurred in New York, protections of Blacks, both slaves and freed, were not immediate; violence against them was heavily prevalent while intervention and prosecution was limited. Ryan talks about the evolution of the civil rights early on; where coalitions began forming, such as the New York Manumission Society (NYMS), to bring to light the treatment that this dependent group was experiencing.
Ryan concludes the book by arguing that civil rights for dependents was a polarized issue during early America. While the criminal justice system was in its infancy, the criminal justice system was representative of the social norms and culture that permeated the early America mentality. Early America was not a time of mass change of civil rights for dependents, however, violence intensified for the dependent class when they argued for equality and due process under the law.
Ryan’s ability to connect the societal norms, English common law, and history is done in a way that engages the reader and provides a perspective on history that is often overlooked. This book is highly recommended for a diverse audience to include history enthusiasts, sociologists that study class relationships, sociologists that focus on civil rights for women, and early America criminologists. This book can be utilized as a supplemental textbook for a graduate class that would focus on society’s relationship with social norms and the early formation of the criminal justice system.