The Counter-Revolution of 1776

Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America

By: Gerald Horne

Narrated by: Larry Herron

Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's Summary

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.

©2014 New York University (P)2016 Audible, Inc.

A revelation, a paradigm shift and a new view

After just the prologue and intro, I was already riveted and fascinated by the ideas and interpretations based on extensive research reaching back before 1776 and beyond the borders of the 13 colonies. I’ve been grappling with the question of slavery’s place in the Revolution and development of the US post-independence, and was fascinated to see the sense Horne made of it based on his wide-angle, counter-hegemonic lens.

It was such a revelation--and I thought I was well-educated about slavery and about the American Revolution and the early years of the republic, and how they intertwined. Reading Horne's book, I feel profoundly ignorant. His historical scope reaches back to the Glorious Revolution (1688) in England and the privatization--and consequent proliferation--of the slave trade; the French and Spanish colonies and their relationship to African slaves in the British colonies; the Caribbean Island plantations and the violent uprisings of slaves there and their influence on the mainland; the creation of a category of Whiteness meant to paper over religious, ethnic and class differences and possible only in contradistinction with African blackness; and the active, angry, dangerous and continuous rebellions of the Africans themselves, sometimes in conjunction with the Spanish and/or the French and/or the Indigenous population.

Horne leads the reader through first-hand accounts and the debates and news of the day to show how London's fear of African insurrection led them on a path towards abolition while leading the American colonists to double-down on the lucrative slave trade. But the enslavement of the Africans was a two-edged sword--the more Africans were in the colonies, the more the white colonists feared them. Meanwhile, London's push towards abolition (motivated in great part on the same fear) pushed the North American colonists further towards revolution, or as Horne defines it, vis a vis the Africans, a counter-revolution.

Horne traces the ripples of the revolution and the African role in it through to the current racism in our society, arguing persuasively that you cannot understand it fully until you see it in its full context in the long view of history.

The Counter-Revolution of 1776 is fascinating, well-researched, funny, insightful, accessible and a constant challenge of our frame of reference about the founding of the US.

This audiobook was not edited for accuracy

This is an important and thought-provoking text that made me reevaluate my understanding of the 17th and 18th centuries in the New World European colonies. That is why it is all the more disappointing that the audiobook performance is so packed with verbal flubs and confident mispronunciations (e.g. “recalitrant” for recalcitrant, “epitet” for epithet, “deloozed” for deluged, etc.). I heard errors on almost every page, and thats not counting potential departures from the text that I would’ve been unaware of without a hard copy in hand. The sloppy reading does a lot of injury to the author’s eloquent writing. This audiobook recording does not seem to have been edited for quality and accuracy of the reading. I would suggest that the problem sections be re-recorded, but they are so numerous, I’m not sure if it’s practical. Probably best to just buy the physical book elsewhere.

GROUND-BREAKING

Well-researched insight into what really drove the events of the late 18th century in the British Americas. When considered in light of the historical record, it seems the only plausible conclusion is that the thesis presented is inevitably accurate.

an eye opener

an eye-opener and I think everyone should read it especially if they don't buy what they've been taught in schools. if you ever wondered about the origin of white supremacy and why it's continuing to be a problem around the world this book is a opener and a different perspective on the American Revolution which unlike most accounts this seems to be plausible.

AMERICA'S HIDDEN HISTORY

This book exposes the true story of America and why Americas Fondation is based off the hatred of the African people. The book explains the origins of capitalism, white supremacy, and the magnificent resistance to slavery of the African people.

To get the whole story of America

To get the whole story of America one has to hear what is kept from every day conversations. Those things that may challenge even Disturb what you believe.

Europe creates racism in America

A whole new perspective regarding the motivations and causes for the American experiment. Must read for anyone interested in the reasons for racism in this country. it appears it was unavoidable given the machinations of the European powers of the time.

Hidden History

Mr. Horne makes this critical period interesting to read for African Americans because of the illumination of so many strange & unaddressed aspects slavery created that's been collectively hidden via omission. The way Horne tells it, had the wind blown in another direction during that period in mid 1600's we could be in a very different place. Very uplifting.

"We never knew how close we got" - Steve Cokely

this book is a must-read.

mr. Horn Place a lot of information in this book that I wasn't taught in school and I do believe a lot of people need to read this book for themselves and check the facts to see if he's correct. I do believe the book is factual I do believe that he is correct and I do believe that a lot of people need to read this book.

Great book!!!!

There is a new perspective to the narrative of American history, like the pieces of a puzzle this book explains some of the untold stories of a enslave people fighting for freedom and there right to exist as human beings and the European hegemony over African peoples and culture...Great book

Important & Interesting

The thesis of the author is that one of the main reasons, if not the main reason, for the Independence movement in British colonial America was concern about slavery. That the American settlers were afraid that their colonial masters would improve the lot of the slaves & put them on a path towards greater equality or at least prosperity. Its a poweful reading of history & one can see why it has not been put forward by traditional, establishment historians. How much nicer is the story about Tax & Tea & those beastly Redcoats!

Its not that the British cared about the welfare of the African slaves. They didnt even care about the colonial settlers. It was Britain's wars with France & Spain that concerned the British state. One tactic used by the French & Spanish to attack the British colonies was to promote rebellion amongst the enslaved Africans & offer them a better life if they defected to Spanish or French colonies. Also the free & enslaved Africans were prized as enlisted soldiers by all sides in these imperial European wars. Whereas the last thing colonists wanted was to arm their slaves or give them a taste of freedom. So it was these concerns that opened or widened the breach between Britain & the American colonists regarding slavery & was likewise a major factor in the subsequent American rebellion, the War of Independence.

This is an important lesson told by a distinguished American historian who brings much scholarly research to his narrative. His style of writing however is a bit long winded, repetitive & overly literary to my mind. Who uses words like "surcease"? Or even know what they mean. Why say "independency" instead of "independence"? Maybe the author has been infected by the literary style of all the old documents he has studied! The result is a good book, well read by the narrator, but it is rather slow moving & repetitive. I recommend the book none the less, as it is full of interesting historical information & the overall historical interpretation is all important.

National Insecurity

This is a stand-out collection of some fascinating footnotes to history that were probably intended to be buried. The whole assortment of these makes a compelling narrative which shows the scale of real and imagined unrest among colonial Americans at the idea that their brutalised slaves might gain freedom and avenge the wrongs perpetrated against them.

It highlights the pressure of slave revolts on those who were locked into a bind of racialisation and subjugation and concocted ‘whiteness’ to consolidate allies and justify their behaviour.

It also highlights the grave moral and political frictions between London and its colonies over slavehood.

Although the narrative is disjointed, by virtue of the scope of the study, and it sometimes seems like a barrage of facts rather than a cohesive narrative, there were many aspects of this which I am compelled to understand more. And the final analysis - that the ’War of Independence’ was a struggle for slavery and a fear of a black continent - is elucidated in many ways.

Should be part of the school curriculum, but the last thing moral crusaders want to teach is that violence can be a virtue, or that freedom can mean slavery.