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 is a doctoral candidate in Intellectual History at the University of Oxford.
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 In his 1766 sermon Stamp-Act Repealed, he railed against the Stamp Act measure, which the British government had imposed on the Americans the year before.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
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.
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?
From prophet to sinner
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.
Identical, yet different
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.
