A painting depicting the recapture of HMS Hermione.
"British Sailors Boarding a Man of War," depicting the recapture of HMS Hermione, by John Augustus Atkinson, 1815. (Public Domain)

Lecture at VCU to explore ‘Mutiny, Martyrdom, and the Origins of American Political Asylum’

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A. Roger Ekirch, Ph.D., an award-winning author and professor of history at Virginia Tech, will give a public lecture at Virginia Commonwealth University on “Mutiny, Martyrdom, and the Origins of American Political Asylum.”

Ekirch’s talk will draw from his 2017 book, “American Sanctuary: Mutiny, Martyrdom, and National Identity in the Age of Revolution,” (Pantheon) which tells the story of the repercussions of a bloody mutiny aboard the British frigate Hermione in the Caribbean in 1797. The mutiny had long-lasting effects on American ideas of human rights, political asylum and national sovereignty — and was so explosive that it likely helped sway the outcome in the tumultuous presidential election of 1800 between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.

The lecture will be held at 5:30 p.m. Oct. 14 in the James Branch Cabell Library Lecture Hall (Room 303). The event will be free and open to the public. Attendees are asked to register at: https://forms.gle/tW1rZpRPAd1iMpnPA.

The event is sponsored by the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of Virginia and the VCU Department of History in the College of Humanities and Sciences.

In addition to “American Sanctuary,” Ekirch, a University Distinguished Professor, is the author of “Bound for America: The Transportation of British Convicts to the Colonies, 1718-1775,” published in 1987 by Clarendon/Oxford University Press; “Birthright: The True Story that Inspired Kidnapped,” (W.W. Norton, 2010); and “At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past” (W.W. Norton, 2005).