Woody Holton Forced Founders Summary
Holton - Forced Founders Edit 0 3…
Woody Holton. Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors and Slaves in the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia. 1999: University of North Carolina Press. (231 pages)
Columbia Commentary
From Videri:
Holton observes that relations between two classes are often deeply influenced by a third class. Scholars have traditionally conceived of the American Revolution as a conflict between white American colonists (usually embodied in elites like Thomas Jefferson or George Washington) and the British government. Holton sees our founders as having been "forced" into seeking Independence by lower-class whites and racial subalterns whose contrary interests provided an opening for the British to undermine antagonistic elites in places like Virginia.
Virginia's large population of debtors joined the Indians and merchants in straining crown-colony relations and pushing Virginia toward Independence. The export and import boycotts of the early 1770s had unintended consequences, Holton argues. …show more content…
It was held primarily by their British merchant counterparts who bought their tobacco, sold them supplies and lent them money. The Virginians' debt was even more overwhelming because it landed on their balance sheets during one of the worst recessions of the colonial era. Virginian Arthur Lee wrote in 1764 that American colonists owed British merchants ₤6 million and British mercantilist policies drained an additional ₤500,000 a year from the tobacco colonies. Virginia's small landholders and business people - and no doubt, their counterparts in other colonies - realized British commercial, monetary and immigration policies favored the mercantilist-creditors back in London. Thus it was that debtors in Virginia became unrelenting critics of British policy, making them a persistent political force in favor of
Woody Holton. Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors and Slaves in the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia. 1999: University of North Carolina Press. (231 pages)
Columbia Commentary
From Videri:
Holton observes that relations between two classes are often deeply influenced by a third class. Scholars have traditionally conceived of the American Revolution as a conflict between white American colonists (usually embodied in elites like Thomas Jefferson or George Washington) and the British government. Holton sees our founders as having been "forced" into seeking Independence by lower-class whites and racial subalterns whose contrary interests provided an opening for the British to undermine antagonistic elites in places like Virginia.
Virginia's large population of debtors joined the Indians and merchants in straining crown-colony relations and pushing Virginia toward Independence. The export and import boycotts of the early 1770s had unintended consequences, Holton argues. …show more content…
It was held primarily by their British merchant counterparts who bought their tobacco, sold them supplies and lent them money. The Virginians' debt was even more overwhelming because it landed on their balance sheets during one of the worst recessions of the colonial era. Virginian Arthur Lee wrote in 1764 that American colonists owed British merchants ₤6 million and British mercantilist policies drained an additional ₤500,000 a year from the tobacco colonies. Virginia's small landholders and business people - and no doubt, their counterparts in other colonies - realized British commercial, monetary and immigration policies favored the mercantilist-creditors back in London. Thus it was that debtors in Virginia became unrelenting critics of British policy, making them a persistent political force in favor of