Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in VirginiaUNC Press Books, 20.01.2011 - 256 Seiten In this provocative reinterpretation of one of the best-known events in American history, Woody Holton shows that when Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and other elite Virginians joined their peers from other colonies in declaring independence from Britain, they acted partly in response to grassroots rebellions against their own rule. The Virginia gentry's efforts to shape London's imperial policy were thwarted by British merchants and by a coalition of Indian nations. In 1774, elite Virginians suspended trade with Britain in order to pressure Parliament and, at the same time, to save restive Virginia debtors from a terrible recession. The boycott and the growing imperial conflict led to rebellions by enslaved Virginians, Indians, and tobacco farmers. By the spring of 1776 the gentry believed the only way to regain control of the common people was to take Virginia out of the British Empire. Forced Founders uses the new social history to shed light on a classic political question: why did the owners of vast plantations, viewed by many of their contemporaries as aristocrats, start a revolution? As Holton's fast-paced narrative unfolds, the old story of patriot versus loyalist becomes decidedly more complex. |
Inhalt
PART II BOYCOTTS 17691774 | 75 |
PART III UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES 17751776 | 131 |
PART IV INDEPENDENCE 1776 | 189 |
Epilogue | 206 |
221 | |
Andere Ausgaben - Alle anzeigen
Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American ... Woody Holton Keine Leseprobe verfügbar - 1999 |
Häufige Begriffe und Wortgruppen
Abbot Allason American Revolution April Arthur Lee boycott Britain British merchants Chapel Hill Charles Charlottesville Cherokees Chesapeake colonists Congress courts creditors Croghan Cuninghame and Company debt debtors declared Delegates Dixon Dixon’s VG Dunmore Dunmore’s Edmund Pendleton enslaved Francis Fauquier Francis Lightfoot Lee free Virginians Gage gentlemen gentry gentry’s George Mason George Washington governor Hoffman House of Burgesses Independence Indians James July June Landon Carter Lee Family Papers Lee’s Letterbook Letters Leven Powell Loudoun Maryland Navigation Acts Negroes nonexportation nonimportation Papers of George Papers of Je√erson Papers of Washington Parliament Patrick Henry patriot Planters Politics Proclamation of 1763 Purdie and Dixon’s reported Revolution in Virginia Revolutionary Virginia Revolutionary War Series Richard Henry Lee Richmond Rind’s VG Robert Robison Scottish Firm Shawnee smallholders tenants Thomas Jefferson tion tobacco told Upper Ohio Virginia Gazette Virginia land VMHB white Virginians William Johnson Williamsburg York