I have just finished The Counter-Revolution Of 1776, New York University Press, 2014. It is a fire hose of facts. Horne, as most of us, could use an editor. There is occasional awkwardness and redundancy. But the facts. Nearly a quarter of the book is notes.
I have seen some criticism to the effect that there was an abolitionist in Massachusetts or some such. There are dismissals of slave owners reports as hysteria, which Horne acknowledges by the way. Just put your head in this fire hose of facts.
In the US of
Usn’s we are taught history starting from our “revolution”. Nothing comes from
nowhere. In England they at least know there was the Seven Years War. The Seven Years war was nine years. The
English don’t want to acknowledge that it was the colonial tail wagging the
empire dog.
I had
attributed English opposition to slavery to their experience with Barbary
pirates. Horne mentions this on page 39 as part of a larger argument and it
doesn’t merit an index entry.
Some of my
favorite themes are the unsaid obvious and common knowledge lost to posterity. Why
do police keep records? Because it is usually the criminals who commit the
crimes. Slavery was not an aberration. It was the point. The colonies would
have failed without slavery. Slave owners and colonizers are scum. They are
scum in every direction.
I did not
know the English bought slaves to staff their army. I wasn’t aware that Britain
conquered Cuba. I had thought of the Seven Year war as mostly a German and
naval adventure. Horne shows how slavery and the Caribbean colonies were
central to the conflict, and how the English experience with slave uprising
changed their policy. Fredrich was just
an English patsy.
Just as
Washington establishing Fort Necessity after his murder of Jumonville demonstrated his obsession with land, the
resolution of the Seven Years War showed the various national ambitions.
England stopped the fleeing of slaves to Florida. England wanted Spain,
Portugal, and Holland as major colonial powers to hold off the French. The
French sacrificed the fur trade for sugar.
Napoleon can
be understood as following imperial ambitions. World War I can easily be
accommodated to this larger history.
It is
difficult for us to appreciate how few people there were. Their motivations were
different. The French were truly horrified by the murder of Jumonville. You
don’t kill gentlemen. Washington had to sign a confession. The European concern
with territory had more to do with honor. In America the conflicts justified the
slaughter of indigenous people; in Europe the peasants.
We need more
research on indentured servants. Horne discusses the Irish and Scots. There is
reason they deserve mention in the third stanza. Towards the end of your
indenture, you become dangerous. You will be free. Someone may take you
seriously. Reputation is essential to business. Perhaps this charming young
person should help with the thresher or roof repair. A lot of indentured
servants died.
Horne exults
that the slaves repeatedly revolted. This gives me reassurance as well. We need
to study why slave revolts failed. Somehow the hype worked.