**John Zubly merged religion with politics and compared parts of Swiss history to the American resistance against Great Britain. Illustration by Marco Heer.**

The American Revolutionary War through the eyes of a Swiss immigrant

Hans Joachim Züblin from eastern Switzerland caused a furore in 18th century America. As minister John Zubly, he saw parallels between the Swiss Confederates and the rebels fighting against the British. He later changed sides, albeit with an unchanged outlook.

Maximilian Spitz

Maximilian Spitz studies history at the Institute of Intellectual History in St Andrews, Scotland.

Hans Joachim Züblin, born in St. Gallen in 1724, emigrated to the American colonies via England during the 1740s. He was following in the footsteps of his parents, who had undertaken the hazardous journey just over ten years earlier. He anglicised his name to John Joachim Zubly and lived in the colonies of South Carolina and Georgia, where he soon began work as a minister, delivering fervent sermons. However, the St. Gallen native had no official licence for his work. In 1758, the popular preacher finally obtained a position as a presbyterian minister for the Savannah parish in Georgia. Until then, Zubly had led a relatively unremarkable life in his adopted country. He began to emerge from obscurity in the 1760s. Growing tensions between the American colonists and the government in the mother country of Great Britain incited Zubly to issue pamphlets expressing his political views. Zubly criticised the treatment of the Americans by the British government in debates and sermons, which were printed and disseminated. In a sermon from 1766, he railed against The Stamp-Act Repealed measure, which the British government had imposed on the Americans the year before. In 1769, Zubly went further still by questioning the entire relationship with the mother country in his work A Humble Enquiry Into The Nature of the Dependency of the American Colonies upon the Parliament of Great-Britain.

Caught up in the war of independence

The conflict in the colonies simmered on. In 1770, British troops committed the Boston Massacre, when five American colonists were killed by the Redcoats, as the British soldiers were known. The Boston Tea Party, an act of rebellion whereby large quantities of tea were thrown off a British cargo ship in dock and destroyed, was met with repressive measures by the colonial power. In April 1775, there was a skirmish between British soldiers and rebel paramilitaries at Lexington and Concord. War had broken out.

**A 1773 portrayal of the Boston Tea Party.** Wikimedia

That same year, Zubly wrote his much acclaimed sermon The Law of Liberty. The Swiss-American minister’s published works earned him an invitation in July to the Second Provincial Congress of Georgia, where he delivered that sermon at the opening of the event. The text interprets some Bible verses to the effect that every individual has a divine right to freedom. When Zubly was invited to the Second Continental Congress, the sermon was printed and published, including a foreword and – most interesting of all – an annex with an account of the Swiss Confederation’s fight to gain freedom.

Zubly’s Law of Liberty was printed in 1775. — **Zubly’s *Law of Liberty* was printed in 1775.** Internet Archive

A Short and Concise ACCOUNT of the STRUGGLES of SWISSERLAND for LIBERTY was the title of the annex, which covered just under 200 years of Swiss history over 16 pages. Following an introduction about the Swiss Confederation being one of the few really free places in the world, it was an account of all the events that led to the founding of Switzerland. Once conquered by Julius Caesar, subsequently governed by various rulers, finishing with the terror brought by the tyranny of Albert I of Habsburg from Austria. Besides the stories of Arnold von Melchtal and Walter Fürst, William Tell’s shooting of the apple also plays a prominent role in Zubly’s accounts. It all culminates in the war of liberation waged by the Swiss Confederates, who ran the ‘foreign bailiffs’ out of the country after the death of Gessler and the ‘Burgenbruch’ (destruction of the castles). Zubly’s account of Swiss history also includes the Habsburgs’ failed attempt to strike back at the Swiss Confederacy, when they were routed at Morgarten. His message was unmistakeable: the Swiss Confederates – pious and simple mountain dwellers – were attacked by a superior power, whom they nevertheless were able to defeat because of their courage and with God on their side.

**Zubly used the valiant William Tell as an example of how to fight courageously against a powerful foe. Print, 19th century.** Swiss National Museum

John Zubly’s portrayal of the Swiss Confederation’s wars of liberation must have made a big impression on the American rebels. There were many parallels between the Swiss Confederates and the Americans: both were poor, subjugated by ‘foreign bailiffs’ and fighting a superior military power. From that perspective, Zubly’s support for American independence seemed a given. John Adams, founding father and second President of the United States, described the Swiss immigrant as a warm and zealous spirit. Then it all changed for Zubly: between 1775 and 1777, he was greatly criticised, arrested twice and ended up banned from Savannah, his place of residence – all through the actions of the American rebels. What caused the campaigner for freedom to be subjected to this treatment by his own side?

**Illustration of John Zubly in the newspaper The Middletown News-Signal of 29 July 1912.** Source: Google Books / Middletown News-Signal

From prophet to sinner

Zubly absented himself from the Second Continental Congress shortly after it was proclaimed, as he did not agree with the goal of a complete separation of the colonies from Great Britain. He had made a point of consistently advising against such a split as he wrote in his journal. Back in Savannah, which had since fallen fully under the control of rebel forces, the minister declined to swear allegiance to the Continental Congress. This led to Zubly’s arrest, although he was released shortly afterwards. From then on, if not even earlier, he was seen as a loyalist and no longer as a rebel. After he was rearrested in 1777, the rebels wanted to make an example of John Zubly to deter people with similar lukewarm patriotic sentiments. Zubly was banned from Savannah, his possessions were confiscated and his entire library thrown in the river. The exact size of this library is unknown, but contemporaries considered it extremely large and valuable.

**The attack on Savannah, portrayed by Arthur Ignatius Keller.** Wikimedia / National Archives at College Park

When the British retook Savannah in 1779, Zubly returned, this time as a hardline loyalist to the crown. Zubly expressed his anger and contempt towards the American rebels in a sequence of essays, which he published in the pro-British newspaper The Royal Georgia Gazette under the pseudonym Helvetius. There were nine essays in total, replete with quotes from the Bible and references to the great philosophers of the day, while also brimming with hate for the revolution. They were printed over two years until his death.

John Zubly’s nom de plume was Helvetius when writing about the rebels in the Royal Georgia Gazette. An article from 1780. — **John Zubly’s nom de plume was *Helvetius* when writing about the rebels in the *Royal Georgia Gazette*. An article from 1780.** Georgia Historic Newspapers

It remains to be clarified why Zubly had changed so significantly. Although a look at his political reasoning does shed some light on the matter. The educated minister drew excessively on certain natural law principles, especially those espoused by Emer de Vattel from French-speaking Switzerland. He also had deep Calvinist convictions, particularly with regard to determinism. Zubly saw people’s fate as being determined by God, so to rebel against it was wrong, in his eyes. His religious convictions caused him to reject violent resistance against a ruler under the law. A people must accept their ruler who is there by divine right. This does explain his loyalty to the British king.

Identical, yet different

Moreover, it would be mistaken to argue that this position conflicts with Zubly’s account of the heroic emergence of the Swiss Confederation. Granted, the annex to the Law of Liberty sermon does come across as thoroughly rebellious and anti- monarchy. Zubly aimed to rectify this in his Helvetius essays, by arguing that, despite all the parallels with the Americans, there were also some major differences between them and the Swiss Confederates. The Swiss never rebelled against their legitimate ruler, the Emperor. They only opposed the Habsburgs who were illegitimate usurpers, he said. The Swiss Confederates had shown mercy to their defeated foes after battle, even consistently making peace whenever possible. They were the chosen people and, as such, had always had God on their side. This contrasted with the Americans, for example a Benjamin Franklin or John Adams, who advocated a more uncompromising approach. The American rebels also sought no reconciliation with the enemy, unlike the Swiss Confederates, claimed Zubly.

**The “Swiss Confederates, the chosen people” always had right on their side according to John Zubly. Including at the battle of Morgarten shown above.** Swiss National Museum

Zubly’s history of Switzerland was meant to be a tool of instruction for the British government, not motivation for the rebels. Ultimately, the Law of Liberty sermon plus annex was for the attention of the Secretary of State for the Colonies. Zubly wanted to criticise the British government, not delegitimise the king. However, the complexity of Zubly’s reasoning was not sufficiently recognised at the time, which is why the minister was not entirely accepted by the rebels or loyalists. The latter found him too rebellious, whereas the former saw him as too loyal to the crown. He was neither one nor the other. When he died in 1781, he was alone and broken in body and spirit. He didn’t live to see the successful outcome of the revolution – the uprising he had considered as condemned to fail.

More of: Modern Age Religion Politics Literature

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