Forced Founders Response Paper
While American education has been teaching high-school students that the American Revolution was led to by events like the Boston Tea Party, the Battle of Concord or the Proclamation of 1763, Woody Holton, a history professor from the University of South Carolina, decided to veer off in a new direction by expounding a revisionist theory through his book Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves & the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia. In Forced Founders, Holton argues that Virginia elites were as important as the Independence movement leaders, but they were also powerfully influenced by other “grassroots” forces such as the British merchants, Indians, farmers and slaves (Holton, 206). He also argues …show more content…
After Indians and slaves, tobacco growers are the next people class that Holton studies. They were angry at the passage of the Navigation Acts, which mandated that tobacco could only be exported to England. Thus the British merchants were able to get the prices down, which then forced tobacco growers into huge debt with the merchants of the mother country. Consequently, the mounting depression of the tobacco market led to protests and rebellions such as the Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676, which was the most prominent uprising in the history of Virginia (48). The tobacco growers, Holton argues, were a powerful force that was united by their debts and their dependency of British merchants. "One thing is clear: although the American Revolution in Virginia was in part the tax revolt… it was also a class conflict pitting Virginia tobacco growers against the British merchants that, with the help of the Royal Navy, monopolized their trade" (60). British government officials also favored British creditors over American debtors, creating a difficult situation for the American debtors (60, 61). Regarding the slave trade, Holton argues that burgesses that tried to abolish the African trade only because they “feared for their livelihoods” after learning about
While American education has been teaching high-school students that the American Revolution was led to by events like the Boston Tea Party, the Battle of Concord or the Proclamation of 1763, Woody Holton, a history professor from the University of South Carolina, decided to veer off in a new direction by expounding a revisionist theory through his book Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves & the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia. In Forced Founders, Holton argues that Virginia elites were as important as the Independence movement leaders, but they were also powerfully influenced by other “grassroots” forces such as the British merchants, Indians, farmers and slaves (Holton, 206). He also argues …show more content…
After Indians and slaves, tobacco growers are the next people class that Holton studies. They were angry at the passage of the Navigation Acts, which mandated that tobacco could only be exported to England. Thus the British merchants were able to get the prices down, which then forced tobacco growers into huge debt with the merchants of the mother country. Consequently, the mounting depression of the tobacco market led to protests and rebellions such as the Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676, which was the most prominent uprising in the history of Virginia (48). The tobacco growers, Holton argues, were a powerful force that was united by their debts and their dependency of British merchants. "One thing is clear: although the American Revolution in Virginia was in part the tax revolt… it was also a class conflict pitting Virginia tobacco growers against the British merchants that, with the help of the Royal Navy, monopolized their trade" (60). British government officials also favored British creditors over American debtors, creating a difficult situation for the American debtors (60, 61). Regarding the slave trade, Holton argues that burgesses that tried to abolish the African trade only because they “feared for their livelihoods” after learning about