John Nelson was an entrepreneur born in the mid 17th century, a man, in Johnson's words, 'operating ahead of the government and settled society from which he came', one who 'responded to conventions and conditions derived from several different and often competing cultures'. In the case of Nelson, this meant operating in England and France in Europe and in French Canada and New England in America. In several major transactions, he acted as middleman between French Canada and New England. He led an uprising that forced out the Royal Governor of Massachusetts in 1689 and later led an expedition against the French at Port Royal, where he was captured and ultimately landed in the Bastille in Paris. When he was finally released in 1698, he returned to Boston and remained in international trade but no longer had a political role. John Nelson's career exemplifies ways in which the expansion of European empires overwhelmed the local and proprietary rules in effect in colonial America. Johnson's book also provides a way of looking at the continued strong conflict between New England and Acadia about fishing rights in the North Atlantic.
In Johnson's words, 'Nelson's career directs attention beyond social life on the one hand and court politics on the other to individuals whose lives precipitated policy even if they themselves never put it into execution. [Figures like Nelson] were at once the unsung creators and among the numerous victims of Europe's American empires'.
Industry Reviews
"A meticulously researched and beautifully crafted book that reveals much about the evolution of new colonial empires in the 18th century....Highly recommended for academic libraries interested in British and American history."--CHOICE
"This work represents the imaginative sleuthing, felicitous writing, and expansive overview we have come to expect from Richard Johnson. The author sets out 'to recover the life of a man'--John Nelson--and he succeeds with such empathy and such lucidity that it is hard to put the book down."--Alison Olson, University of Maryland
"Richard Johnson's John Nelson: Merchant Adventurer is a searching and learned study of an important colonial merchant who moved in the orbit of the British Empire and who affected the conduct of affairs in French, Acadian, and New England circles. The book succeeds as biography and history, weaving together trans-Atlantic policy, business, local politics, and the life of its subject. It is in every respect a little gem."--Robert Middlekauff,
Huntington Library
"Johnson not only offers an engaging and insightful account of the fortune and misfortune of a merchant, revolutionary, spy, and prisoner of war, but also reveals how Nelson's personal links between empires were crushed by the solidifying ambitions of English, French, and colonial governments."--Ian K. Steele, University of Western Ontario
"The biography is a model of research in English, Canadian, and American archives. Johnson sheds bright new light onto a corner of history of empires usually in deep shadows, and he does so with grace and judgment."--American Historical Review
"The author draws on a wealth of private and public papers in Britain, France, and the USA, and provides some fascinating insights into Nelson's role in the overthrow of Massachusetts' charter in 1689 and his advocacy of English expansionism into Canada...[T]he book is an important contribution to the evolution of English policy on the northern colonial frontier and merits close attention from historians of colonial North America."--Business History
"Admirable research industry to put together a skeletal life, and attractive prose style to add a bit of flesh, and vast knowledge of how England's seventeenth-century empire worked to sustain his argument regarding the key role of entrepreneurs."--Yankee Puritans
