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The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America by [Gerald Horne]

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Gerald Horne

The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America Kindle Edition

by Gerald Horne (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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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.

Print length

364 pages
Language

English
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On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

NYU Press
Publication date

April 18, 2014
File size

2921 KB
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Gerald Horne is Moores Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston, and has published three dozen books including, The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the USA and Race War! White Supremacy and the Japanese Attack on the British Empire. --This text refers to the hardcover edition.

Review

"The Counter-Revolution of 1776 shows the centrality of slavery in colonial American life, north as well as south. It demonstrates how enslaved peoples struggles merged with international and imperial politics as the British empire frayed. Gerald Horne finds among white American revolutionaries people who wanted to defend slavery against real threats. He addresses how in the United States, alone among the new western hemisphere republics, slavery thrived rather than waned, until its cataclysmic destruction during the Civil War." ― Edward Countryman, Southern Methodist University

"Nearly everything about Gerald Homes lively The Counter-Revolution of 1776, from the questions asked to the comparisons drawn, is provocative. And if Professor Home is right, nearly everything American historians thought we knew about the birth of the nation is wrong." ― Woody Holton, author of Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in

"This utterly original book argues that story of the American Revolution has been told without a major piece of the puzzle in place. The rise of slavery and the British empire created a pattern of imperial war, slave resistance, and arming of slaves that led to instability and, ultimately, an embrace of independence. Horne integrates the British West Indies, Florida, and the entire colonial period with recent work on the Carolinas and Virginia; the result is a larger synthesis that puts slave-based profits and slave restiveness front and center. The Americans re-emerge not just as anti-colonial free traders but as particularly devoted to an emerging color line and to their control over the future of a slavery based economy. A remarkable and important contribution to our understanding of the creation of the United States." ― David Waldstreicher, Temple University

"The Counter-Revolution of 1776 asks us to rethink the fundamental narrative of American history and to interrogate nationalist myths. Horne demands that historians consider slavery not as the exception to the republican promise of the American Revolution but rather as the norm insofar as protecting slavery was a fundamental cause of colonial revolt." ― The New England Quarterly

"History books have painted a narrative of the U.S. founding that any student can recite: Colonists, straining against the tyranny of the British crown, revolted in the name of freedom, liberty and justice for all. But in recent years, historians have revisited that conventional story, examining the important role slaves played for Britain in its quest to quell colonists. Now, in a new book, historian Gerald Horne argues it was the desire to maintain slavery that was the prime motivator of the uprising . . . . Horne revisit[s] the period leading up to 1776 to find out how slavery in North America and the British colonies influenced the revolution." ― The Kojo Nnamdi Show, DC Public Radio

"In a refreshing take on the independence movement, Horne places slavery and its expansion in North American during the early eighteenth century at the center if the conflict between London and its increasingly nervous and truculent colonies across the Atlantic . . . . This is an important book for both its novelty in a crowded field and its implications . . . . Eminently readable, this is a book that should be on any undergraduate reading list and deserves to be taken very seriously in the ongoing discussion as to the American republic's origins." ― The American Historical Review

"Horne, Moores Professor of history and African-American studies at the University of Houston, confidently and convincingly reconstructs the origin myth of the United States grounded in the context of slavery . . . . Horne's study is rich, not dry; his research is meticulous, thorough, fascinating, and thought-provoking. Horne emphasizes the importance of considering this alternate telling of our American origin myth and how such a founding still affects our nation today." ― STARRED Publishers Weekly

"In The Counter Revolution of 1776, Horne marshals considerable research to paint a picture of a U.S. that wasn't founded on liberty, with slavery as an uncomfortable and aberrant remnant of a pre-Enlightenment past, but rather was founded on slavery as a defense of slavery with the language of liberty and equality used as window dressing. If hes right, in other words, then the traditional narrative of the creation of the U.S. is almost completely wrong." ― Salon.com

"[I]t is Horne's book that has the most to teach about the complex intersections of race, class, religion, and ethnicity." ― Cambridge Humanities Review

"With The Counter-Revolution of 1776, Gerald Horne refigures the origins of the American & revolution to offer a challenging and potentially explosive critique of foundational myths of liberty and rebellion." ― American Historical Review

"Gerald Horne's Counter Revolution of 1776 is a critical contribution in the struggle for clarity around one of the most misconceived periods of history. Horne's work provides the vast historical narrative that proves how this premise is false. He centers his analysis on the inherently counter-revolutionary nature of what led to the colonists desire for succession." ― Black Agenda Report

"Horne returns with insights about the American Revolution that fracture even more some comforting myths about the Founding Fathers.The author does not tiptoe through history's grassy fields; he swings a scythe . . . . Clear and sometimes-passionate prose shows us the persistent nastiness underlying our founding narrative." ― Kirkus Reviews

"The Counter Revolution of 1776 drives us to a radical new understanding of the traditional heroic creation myth of the United States." ― Philadelphia Tribune

"The underlying truth of the 'so-called' American Revolution is finally now out of the bag, and told in its fullest glory for the first time here. And what Professor Horne has discovered through meticulous research is nothing short of revolutionary in itself." ― OpEdNews

"Every personcommitted to the struggle for racial justice, liberation, and equality, and who struggles every day with the difficulties of forging unity between Black and white, needs to read this book." ― Portside.org --This text refers to the hardcover edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00J8DOMIG
Publisher ‏ : ‎ NYU Press; Reprint edition (April 18, 2014)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 18, 2014
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2921 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 364 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #366,705 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #147 in Black & African American History (Kindle Store)
- #226 in US Revolution & Founding History (Kindle Store)
- #289 in Discrimination & Racism Studies

Customer Reviews:
4.7 440 ratings

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4.7 out of 5

440 global ratings

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Cain

Love it

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 24, 2023

Fantastic book

Definitely one for the library

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 4, 2023

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Keep this book as a reference. If you are studying anything pertaining to the 18th century and early 19th century revolutions in the Americas, France, etc. this is definitely for you.

In my studies, this gave me a better understanding of what was going on offshore of the United States between the 1790’s-1800’s and learned more about the disenfranchised living in the Caribbean islands and Haiti

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 25, 2022

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I have always believed that pre revolutionary occupied America was rather peaceful after the indigenous population of a given area was thoroughly annihilated. This book suggests otherwise. I will need to reread it, perhaps several times.

One person found this helpful

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Buddhagem

A bold rethinking of the Revolution of 1776

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 15, 2018

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This is a fantastic book. Gerald Horne has gone a long way toward undermining the supposed avant guard and progressive nature of the Revolution of 1776; pointing out, in extreme detail, that the real flaw of the founding fathers was that “they objected to a government that sought to protect peaceful Indians from the theft of their land and feared a court system that had started to have some grave doubts about enforcing slavery.”

One of the things I particularly enjoyed was the way in which Horne illustrates how instrumental the enslaved were in instigating all of this. Of particular note was the rebellious slaves throughout the Caribbean that forced London to focus more on the mainland. But throughout the book slaves are portrayed as the intelligent, thoughtful and resourceful people they clearly were.

Despite all the praise of our supposed glorious and progressive Revolution of 1776, Horne correctly points out that the victors “went on from there to crush indigenous polities, then moved overseas to do something similar in Hawaii, Cuba, and the Philippines, then unleashed its counter-revolutionary force in 20th-century Guatemala, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, Angola, South Africa, Iran, Grenada, Nicaragua, and other tortured sites too numerous to mention.” As James Madison so perfectly pointed out during the Constitutional Convention, “The primary aim of this government is to protect the minority of the opulent from the majority.” That guiding principle is still with us.

It’s not hard to heap scorn on the Founding Fathers hypocrisy in yammering on about freedom and liberty as they actively denied these things to their slaves; but Horne goes further than that. He shows, for instance, that that same counter revolutionary spirit was alive and well during the Civil War and that those fighting to uphold slavery believed they were upholding the spirit of the Founding Fathers. In fact, it’s that deranged obsessive need to loot, plunder and exploit the world that has been a hallmark of our elite from the beginning.

64 people found this helpful

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William W Epps

Very informative

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 4, 2022

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A most interesting and informative piece of American history.

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J. Gordon

A sweeping thorough picture of the chaos, anarchy, hypocrisy and cruelty of the US founding

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 27, 2019

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All Americans should read this book.

But I almost gave this book 4 stars for unnecessary use of latin phrases, e.g., inter alia, and numerous instances of using big words when common words would do. This flaw hits hard in the Preface and ebbs and flows to the end. But overlooking that pays off.

The breadth of the research and cogent observations are thoroughly convincing.

I read a book on the Somerset case and another on slave breeding in the American colonies and the U.S., and this book complements their information well, fleshing out massive gaps in my knowledge and understanding of American and English history.

My favorite points:

- The Author’s observation about the Glorious Revolution in 1688 is breathtakingly brilliant. Wow!

- Slaves didn’t just sheepishly go along with their enslavement but fought, poisoned and fled regularly and became a sword of damocles to settlers.

- The Caribbean was the main source of British colonial plunder for a long time before the mainland colonies.

- Georgia‘s noble experiment wasn’t noble at all! Yuck!

- Chaos and drunken greed drove the slave trade even as it increased danger.

- The author’s clever use of “London” instead of “England” or “Britain” focuses blame and somewhat spares the conquered (Scotland and Ireland) participants.

- Greed can push some people to do the cruelist, craziest, riskiest things! Geeeeeeez!

From reading the Somerset book, I’d already accepted the idea that the revolution of 1776 occurred to preserve slavery, and this book heaps mountains of evidence supporting that.

I can’t imagine not reading this book.

36 people found this helpful

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shantinik

Such an Important Book!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 2, 2022

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You will never look at the American Revolution the same way again.

2 people found this helpful

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winston johnson

History

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 19, 2022

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Very good read. An important part of history.

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lawrence paul glover

Slave resistance - a new vision

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 22, 2021

Verified Purchase

Halfway through Mr Horne's book, I looked again at a fairly recent book by Hugh Thomas, the right-wing author of 'Slavery'. Looking at the index for 'slave revolts' one finds almost nothing. An 800 page study of Slavery which makes only a passing nod at slave resistance! One of the many merits of Mr Horne's study is the mass of information about slave revolts in the Caribbean and on the American mainland. Whatever one makes of Mr Horne's central thesis about the germination of the American Revolution, his examination of the constant ferment that agitated the Americas during the slave era is enlightening. The history of America since 1776 tends to confirm the view that the institution of slavery was a primary motivating force, not just a pitiful background noise. It is tempting to see the terrorist raid on the Capitol of January 6th, 2021, as yet another spasm in the never-ending failure of white Americans to face up to the legacy of slavery. White supremacists are aghast at the changing demographics of US society, which threatens their exclusivist vision of the USA. It is ironic that throughout the 18th century, many settlements on the Eastern shores of the modern USA and in the Caribbean actually had majority black populations. Horne is great on the desperate attempts by the American ruling class to encourage white immigration to 're-balance' the racial demographics. African Americans were shafted by slavery, then by the false promise of freedom in 1865, then by the ugly white reaction after 1890.
I am sure that American schoolchildren are taught in school that slavery is evil. It is time that they were told of the re-evaluation of this phenomenon which Gerald Horne and others are presently undertaking. It would be great if the fascists who have been identified in the January 6th outrage could spend their jail time reading this book instead of poring over the internet for racist drivel.

2 people found this helpful

Alan Torok

A view from outside the cage...

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on September 7, 2017

Verified Purchase

...filled with original thinking based on a fresh theses about America's founding myths. Has awesomely detailed documentation. An extremely timely book in the time of Trump/Obama/Bush and its whining exceptionalism: "...America is the greatest, richest, freest, most just, bla, bla, bla..."

別府有光

ベトナム

Reviewed in Japan 🇯🇵 on June 4, 2015

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私が子供の頃日本の学校教育とマスコミはアメリカを民主主義の本家だと教えた。一方でアメリカはベトナム戦争でベトナム人を虐殺していた。私の心は二つに引き裂かれた。ここにアメリカの真の歴史がある。

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