The Counter-Revolution of 1776

The Counter-Revolution of 1776 PDF Author: Gerald Horne
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479808725
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 393

Get Book Here

Book Description
Illuminates how the preservation of slavery was a motivating factor for the Revolutionary War The successful 1776 revolt against British rule in North America has been hailed almost universally as a great step forward for humanity. But the Africans then living in the colonies overwhelmingly sided with the British. In this trailblazing book, Gerald Horne shows that in the prelude to 1776, the abolition of slavery seemed all but inevitable in London, delighting Africans as much as it outraged slaveholders, and sparking the colonial revolt. Prior to 1776, anti-slavery sentiments were deepening throughout Britain and in the Caribbean, rebellious Africans were in revolt. For European colonists in America, the major threat to their security was a foreign invasion combined with an insurrection of the enslaved. It was a real and threatening possibility that London would impose abolition throughout the colonies—a possibility the founding fathers feared would bring slave rebellions to their shores. To forestall it, they went to war. The so-called Revolutionary War, Horne writes, was in part a counter-revolution, a conservative movement that the founding fathers fought in order to preserve their right to enslave others. The Counter-Revolution of 1776 brings us to a radical new understanding of the traditional heroic creation myth of the United States.

The Counter-Revolution of 1776

The Counter-Revolution of 1776 PDF Author: Gerald Horne
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479808725
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 393

Get Book Here

Book Description
Illuminates how the preservation of slavery was a motivating factor for the Revolutionary War The successful 1776 revolt against British rule in North America has been hailed almost universally as a great step forward for humanity. But the Africans then living in the colonies overwhelmingly sided with the British. In this trailblazing book, Gerald Horne shows that in the prelude to 1776, the abolition of slavery seemed all but inevitable in London, delighting Africans as much as it outraged slaveholders, and sparking the colonial revolt. Prior to 1776, anti-slavery sentiments were deepening throughout Britain and in the Caribbean, rebellious Africans were in revolt. For European colonists in America, the major threat to their security was a foreign invasion combined with an insurrection of the enslaved. It was a real and threatening possibility that London would impose abolition throughout the colonies—a possibility the founding fathers feared would bring slave rebellions to their shores. To forestall it, they went to war. The so-called Revolutionary War, Horne writes, was in part a counter-revolution, a conservative movement that the founding fathers fought in order to preserve their right to enslave others. The Counter-Revolution of 1776 brings us to a radical new understanding of the traditional heroic creation myth of the United States.

Running from Bondage

Running from Bondage PDF Author: Karen Cook Bell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108831540
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Get Book Here

Book Description
A compelling examination of the ways enslaved women fought for their freedom during and after the Revolutionary War.

Slavery, Propaganda, and the American Revolution

Slavery, Propaganda, and the American Revolution PDF Author: Patricia Bradley
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1496800672
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 214

Get Book Here

Book Description
Under the leadership of Samuel Adams, patriot propagandists deliberately and conscientiously kept the issue of slavery off the agenda as goals for freedom were set for the American Revolution. By comparing coverage in the publications of the patriot press with those of the moderate colonial press, this book finds that the patriots avoided, misinterpreted, or distorted news reports on blacks and slaves, even in the face of a vigorous antislavery movement. The Boston Gazette, the most important newspaper of the Revolution, was chief among the periodicals that dodged or excluded abolition. The author of this study shows that The Gazette misled its readers about the notable Somerset decision that led to abolition in Great Britain. She notes also that The Gazette excluded anti-slavery essays, even from patriots who supported abolition. No petitions written by Boston slaves were published, nor were any writings by the black poet Phillis Wheatley. The Gazette also manipulated the racial identity of Crispus Attucks, the first casualty in the Revolution. When using the word slavery, The Gazette took care to focus it not upon abolition but upon Great Britain's enslavement of its American colonies. Since propaganda on behalf of the Revolution reached a high level of sophistication, and since Boston can be considered the foundry of Revolutionary propaganda, the author writes that the omission of abolition from its agenda cannot be considered as accidental but as intentional. By the time the Revolution began, white attitudes toward blacks were firmly fixed, and these persisted long after American independence had been achieved. In Boston, notions of virtue and vigilance were shown to be negatively embodied in black colonists. These devil's imps were long represented in blackface in Boston's annual Pope Day parade. Although the leaders of the Revolution did not articulate a national vision on abolition, the colonial anti-slavery movement was able to achieve a degree of success, but only in drives through the individual colonies.

Slave Nation

Slave Nation PDF Author: Alfred W Blumrosen
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
ISBN: 140222611X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 356

Get Book Here

Book Description
A book all Americans should read, Slave Nation reveals the key role racism played in the American Revolutionary War, so we can see our past more clearly and build a better future. In 1772, the High Court in London freed a slave from Virginia named Somerset, setting a precedent that would end slavery in England. In America, racist fury over this momentous decision united the Northern and Southern colonies and convinced them to fight for independence. Meticulously researched and accessible, Slave Nation provides a little-known view of the birth of our nation and its earliest steps toward self-governance. Slave Nation is a fascinating account of the role slavery played in the American Revolution and in the framing of the Constitution, offering a fresh examination of the "fight for freedom" that embedded racism into our national identity, led to the Civil War, and reverberates through Black Lives Matter protests today. "A radical, well-informed, and highly original reinterpretation of the place of slavery in the American War of Independence."—David Brion Davis, Yale University

Epic Journeys of Freedom

Epic Journeys of Freedom PDF Author: Cassandra Pybus
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807055182
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 344

Get Book Here

Book Description
Cassandra Pybus adds greatly to the work of [previous] scholars by insisting that slaves stand at the center of their own history . . . Her 'biographies' of flight expose the dangers that escape entailed and the courage it took to risk all for freedom. Only by measuring those dangers can the exhilaration of success be comprehended and the unspeakable misery of failure be appreciated.--Ira Berlin, from the Foreword During the American Revolution, thousands of slaves fled their masters to find freedom with the British. Epic Journeys of Freedom is the astounding story of these runaways and the lives they made on four continents. Having emancipated themselves, with the rhetoric about the inalienable rights of free men ringing in their ears, these men and women struggled tenaciously to make liberty a reality in their own lives. This alternative narrative of freedom fought for and won is uniquely compelling; historian Cassandra Pybus's groundbreaking research has uncovered individual stories of runaways who left America to forge difficult new lives in far-flung corners of the British Empire. Harry, for example, one of George Washington's slaves, escaped from Mount Vernon in 1776, was evacuated to Nova Scotia in 1783, and eventually relocated to Sierra Leone in West Africa with his wife and three children. Ralph Henry, who ran away from the Virginia firebrand Patrick Henry in 1776, took a similar path to precarious freedom in Sierra Leone, while others, such as John Moseley and John Randall, were evacuated with the British forces to England. Stranded in England without skills or patronage during a period of high unemployment, they were among thousands of newly freed poor blacks who struggled just to survive. While some were relocated to Sierra Leone, others, like Moseley and Randall, found themselves transported to the distant penal colony of Botany Bay, in Australia. Epic Journeys of Freedom, written in the best tradition of history from the bottom up, is a fascinating insight into the meaning of liberty; it will change forever the way we think about the American Revolution.

Black Patriots and Loyalists

Black Patriots and Loyalists PDF Author: Alan Gilbert
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226293076
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 386

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this thought-provoking history, Gilbert illuminates how the fight for abolition and equality - not just for the independence of the few but for the freedom and self-government of the many - has been central to the American story from its inception."--Pub. desc.

Standing in Their Own Light

Standing in Their Own Light PDF Author: Judith L. Van Buskirk
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806158905
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Revolutionary War encompassed at least two struggles: one for freedom from British rule, and another, quieter but no less significant fight for the liberty of African Americans, thousands of whom fought in the Continental Army. Because these veterans left few letters or diaries, their story has remained largely untold, and the significance of their service largely unappreciated. Standing in Their Own Light restores these African American patriots to their rightful place in the historical struggle for independence and the end of racial oppression. Revolutionary era African Americans began their lives in a world that hardly questioned slavery; they finished their days in a world that increasingly contested the existence of the institution. Judith L. Van Buskirk traces this shift to the wartime experiences of African Americans. Mining firsthand sources that include black veterans’ pension files, Van Buskirk examines how the struggle for independence moved from the battlefield to the courthouse—and how personal conflicts contributed to the larger struggle against slavery and legal inequality. Black veterans claimed an American identity based on their willing sacrifice on behalf of American independence. And abolitionists, citing the contributions of black soldiers, adopted the tactics and rhetoric of revolution, personal autonomy, and freedom. Van Buskirk deftly places her findings in the changing context of the time. She notes the varied conditions of slavery before the war, the different degrees of racial integration across the Continental Army, and the war’s divergent effects on both northern and southern states. Her efforts retrieve black patriots’ experiences from historical obscurity and reveal their importance in the fight for equal rights—even though it would take another war to end slavery in the United States.

Slavery During the Revolutionary War

Slavery During the Revolutionary War PDF Author: Esther Pavao
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0988811901
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 47

Get Book Here

Book Description
How extensive was slavery during the Revolutionary War and the founding of our country? Did the founding fathers own slaves? How did the colonists justify fighting for their own freedom while denying the freedom of African and Indian slaves? Slavery During the Revolutionary War answers these questions from contemporary sources, newspaper ads, and the founding fathers own letters.

Common Bondage

Common Bondage PDF Author: Peter A. Dorsey
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
ISBN: 1572336714
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 298

Get Book Here

Book Description
“This is a brilliant book that I believe will make a very valuable and original contribution to the way scholars understand the use of language in the era of the American Revolution and the origin and limited nature of Revolutionary era anti-slavery sentiment.” —Robert Olwell, author of Master, Slaves, and Subjects: The Culture of Power in the South Carolina Low Country, 1740–1790 In the American revolutionary era, the antislavery rhetoric of certain founding fathers often took on a life of its own. The distinctions they drew between the British imperial order and the bright dawn of liberty in a new American republic seemed, at times, to compel the freedom of the slaves as well as the freedom of white colonists. But Peter A. Dorsey shows that this rhetoric was often more strategic than principled, and he argues that understanding this ploy helps to explain why an early antislavery movement failed to achieve its goals once the American Revolution was over. In Common Bondage, Dorsey examines how patriots and those who opposed them understood slavery within a broader tradition of revolutionary thought. Especially prominent in the rhetoric and reality of the eighteenth century, this fluid concept was applied to a wide variety of events and values and was constantly being redefined. Dorsey explains the classical meaning of rhetoric as “to persuade” but notes that it can also mean “to mask” or “to mislead.” He shows how these different senses of the word merged, as revolutionary rhetoric was used to achieve limited ends. By examining the figurative extension of slavery in revolutionary rhetoric, Dorsey recaptures the transforming energy of the ideas it promoted and points toward a better understanding of the regressive aftermath. The resulting composite psychology of the slave-holding culture that existed during the country's formative years allows us to better trace the development of American racism. Peter A. Dorsey is the chair of the English Department at Mt. Saint Mary's University in Emmitsburg, Maryland. He is the author of Sacred Estrangement: The Rhetoric of Conversion in Modern American Autobiography.

Death Or Liberty

Death Or Liberty PDF Author: Douglas R. Egerton
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199782253
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Get Book Here

Book Description
Here, the author offers a sweeping chronicle of African American history stretching from Britain's 1763 victory in the Seven Years' War to the election of slaveholder Thomas Jefferson as president in 1800.