A Rich Man’s Revolution, A Poor Man’s Fight for Independence

Abstract

Michael McDonnell's new history of American Revolution in Virginia is primarily a history of wartime mobilization, or more precisely, of often futile efforts of a political elite to motivate middling and lower classes to take up arms against Great Britain. In his Virginia, class, contrary to some earlier accounts, is as important as race. In a deeply hierarchal society, wealthy planters, hoping to maintain white solidarity in defense of slavery, tended to minimize dissent, but in reality, slavery, rather than unifying whites, worked to reinforce divisions. way patriot leaders organized for war and reacted to demands of those they expected to fight it, McDonnell writes, depicts a conservative, anxious, sometimes fearful group clinging to traditional notions of hierarchy, deference, and public virtue (p. 6). By eve of Revolution, self-serving polices of a planter elite had alienated colony's lower classes. During French and Indian War, for example, House of Burgesses had exempted voters from military conscription, effectively limiting draft to landless poor. Many gentlemen hoped imperial crisis of 1770s might galvanize popular support for embattled ruling class (p. 33). But, in McDonnell's words, the gamble went horribly awry (p. 43). The confrontation with Great Britain only intensified divisions.