https://dev.jessicaotis.com/2023/04/23/the-enlightenment-of-cadawallader-colden-review/ HIST 615/635 Spring 2023 Mon, 24 Apr 2023 16:45:35 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.2 https://dev.jessicaotis.com/2023/04/23/the-enlightenment-of-cadawallader-colden-review/#comment-77 Mon, 24 Apr 2023 16:45:35 +0000 https://dev.jessicaotis.com/?p=640#comment-77 I found your insights very interesting. I was interested by the idea that someone who was conservative, imperialist, and reactionary could still be part of the broader American Enlightenment. One would think that such ideas are oxymoronic, especially from the standpoint of the twenty-first century, where conservativism, imperialism, and monarchism are seen as negatives. These ideas carry a lot of historical baggage with them, and Cadwallader Colden himself carries the weight of his time period’s hypocritical obsession with liberty. He praised the Iroquois for being freedom-loving people who hated slavery, but at the same time, Colden held enslaved people on his farm. Many other figures of the American Enlightenment fell victim to this tragic irony of desiring freedom while retaining their “right” to own human beings, such as Thomas Jefferson, George Mason, George Washington, and James Madison. Samuel Johnson attempted to grapple with the paradox of why it was that the loudest cries for freedom came from those who deprived others of their freedom.

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