Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia Audiobook (Free)

In this provocative reinterpretation of one from the best-known events in American history, Woody Holton demonstrates 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 Uk merchants and by a coalition of Indian nations. In 1774, elite about Compelled Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, as well as the Making from the American Revolution in Virginia Virginians suspended trade with Britain to be able to pressure Parliament and, at the same time, to save restive Virginia debtors from a terrible downturn. The boycott and the growing imperial conflict led to rebellions by enslaved Virginians, Indians, and cigarette farmers. By the springtime of 1776 the gentry thought the only path to regain control of the common people was to consider Virginia out of the British Empire.

Forced Founders uses the new social history to reveal a classic politics query: why did the owners of huge plantations, seen by a lot of their contemporaries as aristocrats, take up a revolution? As Holton’s fast-paced narrative unfolds, the previous story of patriot versus loyalist becomes decidedly more complex.