With his new book, Woody Holton shows the US at its founding much as it is today. Then, as now, it was stratified by class and riven by race, religion and gender.
Travels with George review: Washington, America’s original sin … and its divided present
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Marshaling a prodigious amount of scholarship, the University of North Carolina professor and Bancroft prize winner challenges much of what we once imagined we knew.
A privileged few conceived and advanced the break with Britain. But because both sides promised freedom and land to Black people and Native Americans willing to fight on their behalf, the marginalized came to see revolt as a golden opportunity too.
Pursuing the promises implicit in the declaration of independence and Bill of Rights, even some women, unmentioned in either document, joined the poor, slaves and Native Americans in alliance with disgruntled white colonists. With much to gain, they resolved to forge a new nation that would put an end to indignities and abuses long endured.
