Borderland Smuggling

“A rich chronological catalogue of smuggling at the turn of the nineteenth century and a provocative argument: smugglers, and not nation-states, were the ones who defined the real limits of early American regional borders.”—H-Net



“A significant contribution to the social construction of identity along the Canadian-American borderland.”—American Historical Review



“Smith analyzes the intense and contentious period of smuggling from the end of the American Revolution through the War of 1812. . . . Highly readable.”—Canadian Historical Review



“A key implication of the book is that smuggling was extensive and lucrative.”—Journal of American History



“No study has made a more useful contribution to our understanding of the realities of seaborne commerce across the Maine-New Brunswick frontier than Smith’s splendid book.”—International Journal of Maritime History



“This finely researched book provides a glance into a lost culture, and its careful analysis will provide a glimmer of understanding of some of the variables still extant in today’s illicit trade.”—Nautical Research Journal



“Borderland Smuggling should be read by anyone interested in the regulation of trade, borders, and American national identity.”—Business History Review



“Point[s] our attention to the concrete, transnational connections and conflicts that framed economy, polity, and society in the early republic.”—Journal of the Early Republic



“Important both to regional studies as well as to the history of relations between the United States and Great Britain in these turbulent years.”—Military History



“Smith’s carefully crafted, accessible account of smuggling in the Passamaquoddy region makes an important, scholarly contribution to our historical understanding of transborder trade and communications and reveals the usefulness of, and provides a model for, transborder scholarship.”—New England Quarterly



“An interesting and informative account of how material self-interest and local loyalties trumped broader allegiances in the northeastern borderland of the early nineteenth century.”—Common-place