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The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America Paperback – September 1, 2016

by Gerald Horne (Author)
4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 477 ratings
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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.

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  1. Print length
    363 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    NYU Press
  4. Publication date
    September 1, 2016
  5. Dimensions
    6 x 1.25 x 9.25 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1479806897
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1479806898
  8. See all details
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4.7 out of 5 stars
477 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book fascinating and well-documented. They describe it as a ground-breaking read with good information. However, opinions differ on the language quality - some find it brilliant and thoughtful, while others consider it wordy and repetitive.

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34 customers mention "Reading quality"31 positive3 negative

Customers find the book interesting and well-documented. They describe it as a ground-breaking read that should be in college curriculums. The book provides good information on colonial era slavery and the slave revolts leading up to the founding of America. It will improve your vocabulary.

"...in the American colonies and the U.S., and this book complements their information well, fleshing out massive gaps in my knowledge and understanding..." Read more

"This is a fantastic book...." Read more

"...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..." Read more

"This work, far from the American myth of my school days, is informative, instructive and a view most different from the myth...." Read more

4 customers mention "Author quality"4 positive0 negative

Customers praise the author's work. They say he is one of the greatest intellectuals of our time, and the book is excellent.

"...He is one of the greatest intellectuals of our time, telling a story not only from the Black point of view, but one with global perspectives that..." Read more

"...He is absolutely excellent!" Read more

"Great author" Read more

"An excellent work. Very highly recommended. Most interesting..." Read more

13 customers mention "Language quality"4 positive9 negative

Customers have different views on the book's language quality. Some find the style and quoted content brilliant and thoughtful, while others find the language wordy, repetitive, and difficult to read. The author's writing style is also criticized as not engaging.

"...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..." Read more

"...But throughout the book slaves are portrayed as the intelligent, thoughtful and resourceful people they clearly were...." Read more

"...to me that he is enamored with his academic credentials and uses complex language which takes away from the reading and gives a negative impression..." Read more

"...It used unusual words I wasn't used to and used expressions that made it less clear...." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • cnote
    5.0 out of 5 stars A fantastic read
    Reviewed in the United States on September 16, 2024
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    Horne helps unpack the granular elements of street-level politics and pivotal ruminations leading to a fresh exploration of America's great sin.
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  • J. Gordon
    5.0 out of 5 stars 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.
    51 people found this helpful
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  • Buddhagem
    5.0 out of 5 stars 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.
    88 people found this helpful
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  • Genedide
    5.0 out of 5 stars FUNDAMENTALLY changes how what the memory of the American Revolution
    Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    Most US citizens are taught that the "American Revolution" was fought for the right to democracy and against taxation without representation. The Black history perspective of the US is finally being heard by larger audiences, and shows that the "democracy and taxes" paradigm is a colonialist myth, and that the fear of the US slave-owning classes were fearful that Britain was going to abolish slavery upon the Somerset Case of 1772 on top of the British willing to take advantage of the African slave's rightful rage.
    7 people found this helpful
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  • N.P.
    4.0 out of 5 stars Definitely one for the library
    Reviewed in the United States on March 4, 2023
    Verified Purchase
    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
    8 people found this helpful
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  • Robert I. Williams
    5.0 out of 5 stars Very good information and a must read
    Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    Have not read the entire book as yet, but the premise confirms what I have believed and taught for a long time. Freedom from Great Britain was not the over riding concern of those who had attained a level of wealth and power based on their involvement with slavery and the slave trade. They were afraid that the Crown would prohibit slavery in the colonies and they wanted at all cost to continue the practice for as long as possible.

    I believe Mr. Horne could have done a much better job of communicating his thoughts had he chosen to simplify the wording. It appears to me that he is enamored with his academic credentials and uses complex language which takes away from the reading and gives a negative impression of him as a writer.
    17 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • lawrence paul glover
    5.0 out of 5 stars 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.
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  • Alan Torok
    5.0 out of 5 stars 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..."
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  • 別府有光
    5.0 out of 5 stars 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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  • Vitaleye
    5.0 out of 5 stars The hidden layers of American black history.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 2, 2014
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    1st class book! The title speaks for itself.
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