Forced Founders, by Woody Holton

Book Review by Natalie Martinez

Woody Holton, author of Forced Founders: Indian, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia, argues that Indians, debtors, slaves (etc.) had a bigger influence of America’s declaration of independence than one would first think.
The first section of the book is entitled grievances. He begins by explaining the history between Land Speculators, Indians, and Privy Council. I think this was a very helpful part of the book to include because it showed that the Indians made peace among their nations to try to keep their land. The conclusion of this section showed that the anti-British league that the Indians made in order to keep their land frightened both Britain and the colonists. As a result, the Virginians (colonists) took the land by force ( Dunmore’s War) because Britain was not going to play apart in negotiating land. Because wars generally violate treaties with Britain and the Indians, Virginia needed to declare independence to have the right to do what they pleased. I can see Holton’s opinion of how Indians pushed the Virginians to declare independence because the date of the war 1774 and the date of declaration of independence 1776 are very close.
The second section explains how boycotts from the tobacco growers and small land owners pushed American’s declaration for independence. America was not doing too well economically because Britain would tax everything that America produced and as a result not make much profit at all. This made tobacco growers want to make more profit and the only way they could become independent so that Britain was not in control of their money. However this section doesn’t really result in declaration of independence from Britain, only that they wanted independence and in the end hurt Britain financially by not exporting any tobacco to Europe. As a side note, I did like how the boycott did result in a decreased gap between the classes of small land holders and gentleman. On page 103 it reads, “Although, the recession that began in 1772 had created fissures in the alliance between gentlemen and smallholders, non-importation seemed to close the gap. Farmers apparently appreciated the gentry’s aggressive effort to protect both their civil liberties from parliamentary encroachment and their farms from the auctioneer’s gavel.” It’s amazing how when people work together, classes become less divided.
The third section explains how the issue of slavery contributed to the push for independence. Governor Dunmore threatened the colonists that he would put an end to slavery in America. The colonists didn’t want slavery to end because without slavery they would not progress economically. Britain had already offered freedom to any slaves that would join the military. The colonists wanted to keep the slaves in America. In order to do that, they must become an independent nation. This section again supports his thesis, that slaves want for independence did push the colonists to declare independence.
The last section doesn’t really go into how Indians, debtors, and slaves contributed to the declaration of independence, rather how the idea of independence was accepted and sought after. This section is very detailed with the very complex process of how the American government came to be. The title of this section is called ‘Spirit of the People’ because what the people really wanted was independence.
I appreciated the way Holton was very forward about the not so perfect American history. What I mean by this is how he explains the stingy nature of the colonist and the driven and protective Indians caused America to go into war and try to become independent to do that. I did not feel very proud to see that America wanted slavery while Britain did not. Again this was selfishness so that they could get out of debt by using someone else’s labor for free. Holton was very unbiased in the way he wrote the book. I developed these feeling just from the facts. He did a great job in giving the Indians, debtors, and slaves credit for the push for American independence. I would recommend this book to people who have already taken an American History class because it is a little hard to read if you don’t have background in the terms of those times. I think those people would find it very interesting to connect Indians, debtors, and slaves to important contributors of American history.