Download or read book The Will of the People written by T. H. Breen and published by Belknap Press. This book was released on 2019-09-17 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Important and lucidly written...The American Revolution involved not simply the wisdom of a few great men but the passions, fears, and religiosity of ordinary people.” —Gordon S. Wood In this boldly innovative work, T. H. Breen spotlights a crucial missing piece in the stories we tell about the American Revolution. From New Hampshire to Georgia, it was ordinary people who became the face of resistance. Without them the Revolution would have failed. They sustained the commitment to independence when victory seemed in doubt and chose law over vengeance when their communities teetered on the brink of anarchy. The Will of the People offers a vivid account of how, across the thirteen colonies, men and women negotiated the revolutionary experience, accepting huge personal sacrifice, setting up daring experiments in self-government, and going to extraordinary lengths to preserve the rule of law. After the war they avoided the violence and extremism that have compromised so many other revolutions since. A masterful storyteller, Breen recovers the forgotten history of our nation’s true founders. “The American Revolution was made not just on the battlefields or in the minds of intellectuals, Breen argues in this elegant and persuasive work. Communities of ordinary men and women—farmers, workers, and artisans who kept the revolutionary faith until victory was achieved—were essential to the effort.” —Annette Gordon-Reed “Breen traces the many ways in which exercising authority made local committees pragmatic...acting as a brake on the kind of violent excess into which revolutions so easily devolve.” —Wall Street Journal

Download or read book Rebellion in the Mohawk Valley written by Gavin K. Watt and published by Dundurn. This book was released on 2002-05 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the American Revolution, a massive (and ultimately failed) campaign led by Brigadier Barry St. Leger was launched from Canada into New York State.

Download or read book Documents of the American Revolution 1770 1783 Transcripts 1770 written by Great Britain. Colonial Office and published by . This book was released on 1972 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Professor K.G. Davies spent over a decade researching through Colonial Office records relating to North America, including Canada, from 1770 to 1783, consisting of 570 manuscript volumes and bundles of records, each of them averaging 200 folios in length. He gives here a summary of every document which has survived, whether originating in Whitehall or in the colonies, arranged in chronological sequence. There are seven volumes of these Calendars summarizing 27,410 items. Documents of outstanding interest are printed in extenso, and these appear in fourteen volumes of Transcripts. Broadly a document was chosen for transcription if it describes an important event, illuminates an issue of principle, reveals something which someone wishes to keep dark, is the work of a famous person, or opens a subject which in the editor's view has been underestimated or misunderstood. Each volume is prefaced by short introductory statements by the editor.

Download or read book Documents of the American Revolution 1770 1783 Transcripts 1771 written by Great Britain. Colonial Office and published by . This book was released on 1972 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Professor K.G. Davies spent over a decade researching through Colonial Office records relating to North America, including Canada, from 1770 to 1783, consisting of 570 manuscript volumes and bundles of records, each of them averaging 200 folios in length. He gives here a summary of every document which has survived, whether originating in Whitehall or in the colonies, arranged in chronological sequence. There are seven volumes of these Calendars summarizing 27,410 items. Documents of outstanding interest are printed in extenso, and these appear in fourteen volumes of Transcripts. Broadly a document was chosen for transcription if it describes an important event, illuminates an issue of principle, reveals something which someone wishes to keep dark, is the work of a famous person, or opens a subject which in the editor's view has been underestimated or misunderstood. Each volume is prefaced by short introductory statements by the editor.

Download or read book As If an Enemy s Country written by Richard Archer and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-03-08 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the dramatic period leading to the American Revolution, no event did more to foment patriotic sentiment among colonists than the armed occupation of Boston by British soldiers. As If an Enemy's Country is Richard Archer's gripping narrative of those critical months between October 1, 1768 and the winter of 1770 when Boston was an occupied town. Bringing colonial Boston to life, Archer moves between the governor's mansion and cobble-stoned back-alleys as he traces the origins of the colonists' conflict with Britain. He reveals the maneuvering of colonial political leaders such as Governor Francis Bernard, Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson, and James Otis Jr. as they responded to London's new policies, and he evokes the outrage many Bostonians felt toward Parliament and its local representatives. Equally important, Archer captures the popular mobilization under the leadership of John Hancock and Samuel Adams that met the oppressive imperial measures--most notably the Sugar Act and the Stamp Act--with demonstrations, Liberty Trees, violence, and non-importation agreements. When the British government responded with the decision to garrison Boston with troops, it was a deeply felt affront to the local population. Almost immediately, tempers flared and violent conflicts broke out. Archer's tale culminates in the swirling tragedy of the Boston Massacre and its aftermath, including the trial of the British troops involved--and sets the stage for what was to follow.

Download or read book The Hanging of Thomas Jeremiah written by J. William Harris and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2009-11-17 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The tragic untold story of how a nation struggling for its freedom denied it to one of its own: a free Black man "A searing portrayal of the central paradox of the American Revolution—the centrality of slavery to the struggle for political liberty."—Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Harvard University "An insightful reflection and commentary on the vexed relationships among liberty, slavery, and the British Empire in the era of the Declaration of Independence."—Richard D. Brown, The Journal of Law and History Review In 1775, Thomas Jeremiah was one of fewer than five hundred “Free Negros” in South Carolina and, with an estimated worth of £1,000 (about $200,000 in today’s dollars), possibly the richest person of African descent in British North America. A slaveowner himself, Jeremiah was falsely accused by whites—who resented his success as a Charleston harbor pilot—of sowing insurrection among slaves at the behest of the British. Chief among the accusers was Henry Laurens, Charleston’s leading patriot, a slaveowner and former slave trader, who would later become the president of the Continental Congress. On the other side was Lord William Campbell, royal governor of the colony, who passionately believed that the accusation was unjust and tried to save Jeremiah’s life but failed. Though a free man, Jeremiah was tried in a slave court and sentenced to death. In August 1775, he was hanged and his body burned. J. William Harris tells Jeremiah’s story in full for the first time, illuminating the contradiction between a nation that would be born in a struggle for freedom and yet deny it—often violently—to others.

Download or read book Documents of the American Revolution 1770 1783 Transcripts 1782 1783 written by Great Britain. Colonial Office and published by Irish Academic Press. This book was released on 1972 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Professor K.G. Davies spent over a decade researching through Colonial Office records relating to North America, including Canada, from 1770 to 1783, consisting of 570 manuscript volumes and bundles of records, each of them averaging 200 folios in length. He gives here a summary of every document which has survived, whether originating in Whitehall or in the colonies, arranged in chronological sequence. There are seven volumes of these Calendars summarizing 27,410 items. Documents of outstanding interest are printed in extenso, and these appear in fourteen volumes of Transcripts. Broadly a document was chosen for transcription if it describes an important event, illuminates an issue of principle, reveals something which someone wishes to keep dark, is the work of a famous person, or opens a subject which in the editor's view has been underestimated or misunderstood. Each volume is prefaced by short introductory statements by the editor.

Download or read book The Counter Revolution of 1776 written by Gerald Horne and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2016-09 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book First Martyr of Liberty written by Mitch Kachun and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-06-20 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Martyr of Liberty explores how Crispus Attucks's death in the 1770 Boston Massacre led to his achieving mythic significance in African Americans' struggle to incorporate their experiences and heroes into the mainstream of the American historical narrative. While the other victims of the Massacre have been largely ignored, Attucks is widely celebrated as the first to die in the cause of freedom during the era of the American Revolution. He became a symbolic embodiment of black patriotism and citizenship. This book traces Attucks's career through both history and myth to understand how his public memory has been constructed through commemorations and monuments; institutions and organizations bearing his name; juvenile biographies; works of poetry, drama, and visual arts; popular and academic histories; and school textbooks. There will likely never be a definitive biography of Crispus Attucks since so little evidence exists about the man's actual life. While what can and cannot be known about Attucks is addressed here, the focus is on how he has been remembered--variously as either a hero or a villain--and why at times he has been forgotten by different groups and individuals from the eighteenth century to the present day.

Download or read book Nothing But Blood and Slaughter the Revolutionary War in the Carolinas 1771 1779 written by Patrick O'Kelley and published by Booklocker.com. This book was released on 2003-12 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first of three volumes that describes every single military action of the Revolutionary War, no matter how small, in the Carolinas. Using primary sources, many which have never been published before, the truth can finally be told.

Download or read book The Road to Yorktown Jefferson Lafayette and the British Invasion of Virginia written by John R. Maass and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2015-07-27 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1781, Virginia was invaded by formidable British forces that sought to subdue the Old Dominion. Lieutenant General Charles, Lord Cornwallis, led thousands of enemy troops from Norfolk to Charlottesville, burning and pillaging. Many of Virginia's famed Patriots--including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and Nathanael Greene'struggled to defend the commonwealth. Only by concentrating a small band of troops under energetic French general the Marquis de Lafayette were American forces able to resist British operations. With strained support from Governor Jefferson's administration, Lafayette fought a campaign against the veteran soldiers of Lord Cornwallis that eventually led to the famed showdown at Yorktown. Historian John R. Maass traces this often overlooked Revolutionary struggle for Virginia and details each step on the road to Yorktown.

Download or read book The American Northern Theater Army in 1776 written by Douglas R. Cubbison and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2010-03-08 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American War for Independence was under way before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, but the Continental Army didn't have the force to back up the words. This history explores the army's early failures in Canada, with desertion and disease common among the ranks, and how new leadership disciplined and reorganized the army and set the stage for a key victory at Saratoga in 1777.

Download or read book The Other New York written by Joseph S. Tiedemann and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Other New York provides the first comprehensive look at New York State's rural areas during the American Revolution. This county-by-county survey of the regions outside of New York City describes the social and cultural conditions on the eve of the Revolution and details the events leading up to the conflict, the battles and campaigns fought within the state, the hardships civilians experienced while creating new local governments and supplying the war effort, and postwar reconstruction efforts. It also chronicles the impact that the war had on the European Americans, Native Americans, and African Americans. These groups endured years of strife yet went on to create New York State.

Download or read book Essays in the Economic History of the Atlantic World written by John McCusker and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2005-08-15 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by one of the leading authorities on trade and finance in the early modern Atlantic world, these fourteen essays, revised and integrated for this volume, share as their common theme the development of the Atlantic economy, especially British America and the Caribbean. Topics treated range from early attempts in medieval England to measure the carrying capacity of ships, through the advent in Renaissance Italy and England of business newspapers that reported on the traffic of ships, cargoes and market prices, to the state of the economy of France over the two hundred years before the French Revolution and of the British West Indies between 1760 and 1790. Included is the story of Thomas Irving who challenged and thwarted the likes of John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

Download or read book The American Revolution written by David K. Allison and published by Smithsonian Institution. This book was released on 2018-11-06 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An illustrated collection of essays that explores the international dimensions of the American Revolution and its legacies in both America and around the world The American Revolution: A World War argues that contrary to popular opinion, the American Revolution was not just a simple battle for independence in which the American colonists waged a "David versus Goliath" fight to overthrow their British rulers. Instead, the essays in the book illustrate how the American Revolution was a much more complicated and interesting conflict. It was an extension of larger skirmishes among the global superpowers in Europe, chiefly Britain, Spain, France, and the Dutch Republic. Amid these ongoing conflicts, Britain's focus was often pulled away from the war in America as it fought to preserve its more lucrative colonial interests in the Caribbean and India. The book, the illustrated companion volume to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History exhibition of the same name, touches on this and other topics including overseas empires, economic rivalries, supremacy of the seas, European diplomacy, and more. Together the book's incisive text, full-color images, and topical sidebars underscore that America's fight for independence is most clearly comprehended as one of the first global struggles for power.

Download or read book The Common Cause written by Robert G. Parkinson and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2016-05-18 with total page 769 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the Revolutionary War began, the odds of a united, continental effort to resist the British seemed nearly impossible. Few on either side of the Atlantic expected thirteen colonies to stick together in a war against their cultural cousins. In this pathbreaking book, Robert Parkinson argues that to unify the patriot side, political and communications leaders linked British tyranny to colonial prejudices, stereotypes, and fears about insurrectionary slaves and violent Indians. Manipulating newspaper networks, Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, and their fellow agitators broadcast stories of British agents inciting African Americans and Indians to take up arms against the American rebellion. Using rhetoric like "domestic insurrectionists" and "merciless savages," the founding fathers rallied the people around a common enemy and made racial prejudice a cornerstone of the new Republic. In a fresh reading of the founding moment, Parkinson demonstrates the dual projection of the "common cause." Patriots through both an ideological appeal to popular rights and a wartime movement against a host of British-recruited slaves and Indians forged a racialized, exclusionary model of American citizenship.

Download or read book The World That Fear Made written by Jason T. Sharples and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2020-07-17 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thought-provoking history of slaveholders' fear of the people they enslaved and its consequences From the Stono Rebellion in 1739 to the Haitian Revolution of 1791 to Nat Turner's Rebellion in 1831, slave insurrections have been understood as emblematic rejections of enslavement, the most powerful and, perhaps, the only way for slaves to successfully challenge the brutal system they endured. In The World That Fear Made, Jason T. Sharples orients the mirror to those in power who were preoccupied with their exposure to insurrection. Because enslavers in British North America and the Caribbean methodically terrorized slaves and anticipated just vengeance, colonial officials consolidated their regime around the dread of rebellion. As Sharples shows through a comprehensive data set, colonial officials launched investigations into dubious rumors of planned revolts twice as often as actual slave uprisings occurred. In most of these cases, magistrates believed they had discovered plans for insurrection, coordinated by a network of enslaved men, just in time to avert the uprising. Their crackdowns, known as conspiracy scares, could last for weeks and involve hundreds of suspects. They sometimes brought the execution or banishment of dozens of slaves at a time, and loss and heartbreak many times over. Mining archival records, Sharples shows how colonists from New York to Barbados tortured slaves to solicit confessions of baroque plots that were strikingly consistent across places and periods. Informants claimed that conspirators took direction from foreign agents; timed alleged rebellions for a holiday such as Easter; planned to set fires that would make it easier to ambush white people in the confusion; and coordinated the uprising with European or Native American invasion forces. Yet, as Sharples demonstrates, these scripted accounts rarely resembled what enslaved rebels actually did when they took up arms. Ultimately, he argues, conspiracy scares locked colonists and slaves into a cycle of terror that bound American society together through shared racial fear.