How the World Made the American Revolution, with Sarah Pearsall and Tom Holland

[music] [applause] Hello and welcome everybody. My name is Polly Russell and I'm head of the Eckles Institute for the Americas and Oceanania at the British Library. And it's wonderful to see you all here tonight. I think everyone here should get a medal for making it through uh in this dreadful heat. I'm so glad the aircon is on. We are in for a real treat this evening to hear from historians Tom Holland and Sarah Pcel discussing the American Revolution and Sarah's fabulous new book um freedom around the globe. This is a number of activities the Eckles Institute has led across the year to mark the anniversary of the American Revolution. The Eckles Institute was set up in 1991. Thanks to the generosity of Vic Count David Eckles and Lady Mary Hyde Eckles to promote scholarship and exchange about the Americas through the British Libraries collections. Thanks to this generous gift and the support of others since the Eckles Institute continues to flourish. We support upwards of 35 researchers every year, running a dynamic learning program for schools and students, building collections, and being a major major contributor to the cultural conversation about the Americas and its relation to the world. 250 years after the USA broke free from Britain, the need for deeper understanding about our shared histories has never felt more urgent or arguably precarious. In the context of the rise of populism and threats to democracy around the world, the Eckles Institute and our partner organizations play an important role in preserving history, sharing knowledge, and promoting cross-cultural understanding, discussion, and debate. If you want to find out more about what the Eckles Institute does and our work, just download the QR code on the back of your free bookmark um and find out from our website, speak to any of the members of the Eckles team who will be around afterwards um or pick up some of our leaflets in the foyer. Uh you've also had on your seat a um copy of the Atlantic magazine. We have a wonderful partnership with the American The Atlantic magazine. uh they send over journalists to London uh to use our collections to inspire articles. And last year they sent this sorry earlier last year they sent over two journalists to look at our George II collection and our loyalist um collection to write two articles related to the American Revolution which are in that special edition. Given our remit and this anniversary year, we are incredibly proud and pleased to be welcoming Professor Tom Holland and Sarah PCEL to talk this evening. Sarah Pcel is professor of history at John Hopkins University and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. She's studied and taught at Yale, Harvard, and Cambridge and is the author of numerous awards and publications. But this evening, we're here to hear about her latest book, Freedom Around the Globe: How the World Made the American Revolution, for which the Eckles Institute awarded her a special fellowship award in 2023. As you will hear, the book takes a sweeping world view of the birth of America, traveling from Kolkata to Bangor and beyond. The book has received rave reviews from the New Yorker, Washington Post and was chosen as the editor's choice by the New York Times. It's also been noted as one of the best books of the summer by the FT and as a cracking read by the London Standard. The book and Sarah have been the subject of standalone articles in El Pas and Yamorei Shimon Tokyo, largest circulation papers in Spain and Japan. At Hay Festival earlier this year, Sarah talked about the book with David Olesoga and Sarah Churchwell with an audience of 2,000. And later this year, she'll be at the FT Festival in Washington. In short, we're in the presence of a historical rock star. But not just one because we also have Tom Holland here with us too who almost needs no introduction. Tom is the honorary fellow at Queens College Cambridge as well as being a trustee of the British Library and the British Museum. He's the co-host with Dominic Sambrook of the globally popular podcast the rest is history which has officially made history the coolest subject in the world. He's the author of numerous critically acclaimed books. The most recent Pax war and peace in the Roman world and also there was Dominion the making of the western mind. Uh when we were thinking of this event we could think of no better person than Tom to lead this conversation with Sarah. Tom and Sarah are going to be in conversation for around 50 minutes and then there'll be time for audience questions and then afterwards Tom and Sarah will be signing their books in the foyer. So think of questions and also uh be ready to buy their wonderful books. Um right over to you Tom. Thank you. >> Thank you. THANK [applause] [applause] thank you for that lovely introduction and thank you for everything that you do with the Eckles Institute which has laid on an incredible array of events and exhibitions to um to commemorate um the uh the American War of Independence, the American Revolution, whatever you want to call it. and we may explore the significance of the different ways in which it tends to be called on both sid opposite sides of the Atlantic. Um but today's event we are um looking at this wonderful book by Sarah Freedom Round the Globe, how the world made the American Revolution. Um, and Sarah, obviously the timing is is is perfect and I I wondered how far in advance were you thinking I I should bring it out in this year because everyone will be talking about this topic. >> Well, that's a lovely question. Um, and thank you so much for doing this conversation. Thank you to Paulie and to everyone here at the British Library and Eckles Institute. It's just such a pleasure to be here, not least for the air conditioning, but um but also really for the amazing >> I mean, imagine if America had not broken free, you wouldn't have air conditioning either. >> True. [laughter] Um so it's really a pleasure to be here. Um I have been thinking one way or the other about the American Revolution for a long time. It was um part of the aspect of my first book um which I started as a PhD dissertation in the 1990s. Um and then I started in earnest um kind of revisiting it in 2018. Um, and I did that um, partly because there was so much my students at Cambridge had so many questions coming out of 2016 and two um, really transformative elections in that year about the sort of US [clears throat] nation state about the relationship of sort of federalism and union. Um, and that's prompted me, but because Cambridge moves in sort of glacial ways, it took took a year or so for it to be approved. >> So, in 2018, were you thinking about the the 2020? >> I was not at all thinking about that you and you suddenly thought, "Oh, >> actually, I have to say it was not me. It was a friend of mine, um, Jane Kmenky, who's in fact the head of Montichello, um, and the sort of Jefferson Foundation now. And she said, you know, you might think, I told her about the course that I was teaching, which is was the sort of, you know, this sort of wider perspective on the American Revolution. And she said, you know, there you might think about doing a book of this. And that um was not something I'd thought about because it really came out of um the sort of teaching, but that was the point at which it started to be important. >> The immovable deadline. So that that's congratulations. >> Yes, I did. And then I worked hard to get it. >> Um, and so just I mean you are from California, so on the far side from the 13 rebel states. >> Yeah. >> Um, and I >> the best coast or the left coast as you >> wish. Um, yeah. I wonder whether you feel there is a a kind of difference in attitude towards the American Revolution in those states and perhaps particularly those on the West Coast um that did not participate in the tax revolt. >> I mean um I hear what you're saying. I'm picking up what you're putting down, my friend. Um we'll get to that. But um I think there is a difference and partly I think you see um a sort of what I mean I I start the book actually with my somewhat vague and childish recollections of the bicesentennial events of 1976 which were really across the US nation. Um, but even as a kid seemed a little bit manufactured because they were talking about places I'd never been. I'd never been to I don't know. Philadelphia seemed like a weird like what like I don't you know it was a cream cheese so I I didn't really you know I had no immediate sense of connection to it. And I think in fact I think a lot of um work in early American history has come out of people um from the west coast and elsewhere sort of rethinking the terms of what is the sort of important story and rethinking the geography and I think >> which is essentially what this book is doing >> because um it's not about Boston, it's not about Philadelphia, it's not about Valley Forge, it's not about town these I mean the >> they're all in there >> they are all in there but but >> you have desentered them I guess one would say writing an academic review >> um and do you think that growing up in California >> I mean that that facilitated the perspective you're bringing to this which is essentially um I mean in American terms a continental one and but also a global one >> it absolutely did um and in fact. Um I I think it um it it it gave me it made it seem obvious to take a kind of oblique angle. Um to come at it to run at it from a different direction and I have to say also teaching at Cambridge University for many years did too. >> Right. So, so you are therefore aware of the kind of the British perspective which tends to be not massively interested to be honest. I mean, I don't think it it it it's obviously not um >> it's not a focus of obsession in the way that it is for Americans. I think partly because we lost, >> but [laughter] I wonder also whether it it's because from the British perspective, the American War of Independence, which is what tends to be called here, is part of a kind of broader struggle which essentially is about Britain against France. >> So, the Seven Years War with which you, you know, you you open this book with the aftermath of the Seven Years War, >> it it's a war that has raged in Europe. It's raged in America. It has raged in India. And so you're you're you're looking at India as well. And then obviously it the American war of independence precipitates the French Revolution which in turn precipitates the Napoleonic wars. And so for for for for Britain it almost seems like a sideshow compared to the great death struggle with France. And you begin this book by looking essentially not at the American colonists in in on the Atlantic seabboard, but with Britain, with France, and with the indigenous peoples who live um >> to the west of the Appalachian Mountains. >> Yes. I mean, it's an interesting um it's an interesting a little bit of a conundrum. My when I was talking with my son about it who was born in England and feels himself to be English, he said, "Well, of course, we're not interested because we lost." Um, [laughter] but I I I actually think that's not entirely true. And in fact, as a teacher, I've always had students who were keen to know more about the American Revolution. And um and obviously things like Hamilton have been you know tremendous success here and in fact it's it was a wonderful teaching tool to be able to bring my students to Hamilton and have them sort of engage with that. Um but partly I think there is a little bit of a sense that it's a it's a sort of small thing best passed over quickly. Um and it's sort of part of as you say this sort of almost you know like sort of second hundred years war right um kind of quality and of course it does take on those veillances but I think you know obviously there are other aspects um and I don't know if you want to take up the point about the tax revolt your little throwaway comment [laughter] there but I'm happy >> but I'm sure we will come to the topic of taxes so you you begin in I'm going to get the pronunciation of this Wong. >> Yes. And this is the place that the French called Duta. >> Mhm. >> And the English come to call Detroit. >> Indeed. [snorts] >> And this is not a part of the United of what will become the United States when it >> it um >> eventually but not in part of the third >> but at this point it is it is way way to the west. So why are you beginning there? What is this illustrating relative to the way that the American Revolution is normally understood? So I wanted to start there um partly to really foreground indigenous perspectives um and um the ways that obviously this wider um continent is shifting that there are a series of transformative wars of conquest and um that part of the sort of fallout of that is this complicated moment where in what is now the Great Lakes area, there had been a string of French forts in what was by and large recognized as a indigenous dominated space with a kind of a sort of um array of different indigenous nations including the Ojiway, the Podawatami, various other and that um is transformed by the seven years war and by the British conquest of French Canada and then the takeover of all of these French forts and the British are not prepared to um sort of play by the same rules and to recognize indigenous powers in the same way and that leads to a lot of um unhappiness on the part of those nations with that transformation and the effect of that and the sort of what settler what British settlers perceive as a continuation of that war into what is comes to be known as Pontiac's war which is not part of that French and Indian as the colonists war as the f as the colonists British colonist called it um the seven years war as it's known in Europe um that event sort of takes on um this complicated quality of transforming the landscape and that has an effect on how British settlers are thinking about um their relationship to native nations. It leads to a series of massacres in Pennsylvania. Um and it leads to a a sort of sense that the British are holding back these colonists from allowing them to settle >> because yes, because they've essentially the the British are aware of this vast hintterland. They have essentially now got responsibility for maintaining the peace there. They have to learn quite fast what the French had already appreciated that you have to treat the indigenous peoples as a for you know a potent force and respect them rather than just hanging them. And you open with a kind of the hanging of a woman. M >> um and to the colonists this is unacceptable >> because they are stopping people like George Washington who is in financial straits from crossing the Appalachians and expanding there. >> Yes. >> Um and >> makes us look rather better than >> Yes. I mean I think there are actually a number of moments. I mean I don't know that the British come off especially they come out of it tremendously well >> moment of Pontiac war but I will say that there are many moments where in fact it is true that the British are actually much more willing to ally and to take seriously indigenous nations. They're also much more willing to ally and take seriously um in enslaved and formerly enslaved people as allies. And I think that that is to Britain's credit. >> Yeah. So, so and you were always exploring the the these paradoxes that the fine sounding words that are in the Declaration of Independence. And you each chapter is structured around a word that is drawn from this. >> That actually by the very nature of the fact that the the the the colonists in um the Atlantic Americas are are engaged in the world as it is. There are compromises, there are hypocrisies, there are cruelties. And the fact that you can be proclaiming liberty while one of the reasons why you're launching a rebellion against your anointed king is that you are uh wanting to go and conquer land from other people further west is one obvious ambivalence, >> right? And another ambivalence is the point that was made by Samuel Johnson, >> the greatest Englishman of all time. Um, [laughter] who who asked how is it how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the driver of negroes? >> And this also is a kind of enduring theme throughout your book. And you move from the great plains and the the great lakes to the Caribbean >> where which are British colonies in the same way as the 13 colonies of of the rise and rebellion are >> right >> and so what are you doing there by looking at the Caribbean colonies >> so I want to say thank you for that question I want to say two things about that first of all um that there is this wider issue about freedom and what it means means and the title of the book which may seem off-puttingly American exceptionalist about freedom freedom around the globe >> is really pulled from it's pulled from Tom Payne saying freedom hath been hunted around the globe in common sense in 1776 and this idea of freedom as both something that's being extinguished and something that's being sought for is really important and I look at how freedom has these complex veillances of both um you know what we might see as a sort of positive rights um human rights sort of freedoms ability to you know do what one wishes in various ways but also the freedom to do terrible things to to you know move across the 1763 proclamation line and settle or you know really conquer and take steal land that belongs to other people um or to enslave people and that that idea of freedom is a very complex one and it's a complex one in all kinds of places in this era. So that's important and that's what I I tried with using these kind of key words of the declaration of independence in all of the chapters to sort of think about those complicated veances. Um, and partly the second issue is about in sort of moving the Caribbean, I really want readers and listeners and others to be aware that there were not merely 13 colonies. Um, and there were at least 26 British colonies in North America alone in 1775. And that fact is something that I think um is very often forgotten. And the importance of places in the Caribbean, in Canada, in the east and west Florida, those are all also having an effect on this event. Effects on its origins, effects on its progress, effects on the shape of what we come to know as the United States. and that there is no such thing in people's minds in 1775 as the 13 colonies. And part of what I'm trying to look at is to explain how it emerges and the Caribbean is one way to do that. And it's a reminder of the fact that um that that that it's the war is not just about Britain against the 13 colonies that there are >> right >> there the >> so we I I mentioned Samuel Johnson. I mean he he would raise a toast to the next slave rebellion in in in in the indies and in America likewise. There are, you know, there are plenty of people, particularly in New England, who are well aware of the moral complexities that having slavery in the South will bring an independent United States founded on principles of liberty, just as there are massive commercial interests in London and in the Caribbean who cannot tolerate the prospect of freeing their slaves. And the same is true of people like Washington and Jefferson, right, in in the in the United States. So there is that kind of crossatlantic ambivalence towards the ideas of slavery and liberty, aren't there? >> Absolutely there is that. Um and there's even more one might say um I think coming out of um the acceleration of slavery actually and a sense of many people in many parts of the world in the Caribbean in Canada in India of the fact that they're being treated like slaves or that they may become slaves and I think that is partly what's driving people to argue for to call upon to articulate ideals about liberty. It's because slavery is ever more palpable to people in the British Empire. >> And you've mentioned India and this is your third chapter. Yes. >> And so >> we are going well away from the Atlantic and now we're in Kolkata. >> Yes. And Kolkata is has lately been the scene of wars between the French and the British and the British between the various princely powers in India. >> Um and it I mean this does not show Britain necessarily in the best light does it. It doesn't. Although there are some British observers who are saying this is terrible >> who are articulating >> famine and oppression and >> there are te there's a terrible event and it is connected with the East India Company um which is this famine in Bengal in 1770. There's a drought in 1769 which begins this terrible catastrophe but it's exacerbated by the policies of the EIC who are sort of newly in charge of running >> East India Company >> Bengal the East India Company and that company people at the time see as culpable for the disaster this horrible famine that kills estimates range from 1 million to 10 million people in Bengal. It's absolutely devastating. And they sort of refuse to sell rice across regions and other things that might have alleviated this. And there's also a smallox epidemic and other kinds of problems that arise. And this leads to a sense that something's very wrong. And it actually was in that moment um that's where I started to see this book emerge actually. um was in realizing that American colonists are reading about what's going on in South Asia and are extremely articulate in 1773 about how the East India Company is going to move its attention from India to America and will corrupt and oppress Americans as they have Indians. And that was quite a revelation because I hadn't seen much discussion of that in many of the treatments of things like the so-called Boston Tea Party um and how that emerged from this really um visceral sense that the tea of the East India Company was toxic and that emerged out of this South Asian situation. Yeah. So I suppose a difference between India and the 13 colonies >> in America is that the the the colonists there until um the the Declaration of Independence see themselves as British, see themselves as part of a kind of British Atlantic community. And so therefore they speak the same literally the same language. um and the the kind of the the the the principles and the philosophies and the ideals that will underpin the revolution in America are have come from Europe and and and specifically from from Britain preeminently >> and so you move from from India >> where there isn't this commonality of language that there are all kinds of ways in which um Indian writers and Indian politicians frame and express their opposition to what is happening with the British conquest, >> but it's not in terms that are readily accessible, >> drawing on a kind of British tradition. >> So, so, so, so in chapter four, we go, we go from Kolkata to Edinburgh, >> which is the home of the Scottish Enlightenment at this time, home of the enlightenment >> and um a place where Benjamin Franklin went in um Britain and went to stay with David Hume. And David Hume on one hand is this I mean iconic figure of the enlightenment skeptical about the pretensions of of monarchy and of um not well not of the church and so on but at the same time I mean is more than capable of being incredibly racist himself >> of course >> um and so absolutely >> again in in in the kind of the salons of the enlightenment there are these tensions that you've been exploring elsewhere in the globe. >> Absolutely. Um, and it's um it it was interesting for me to think about um those tensions and I partly wanted to think about um those tensions which already emerge and are in sort of my discussion of um this American reaction to events in Bengal because at that moment there are there is at some level solidarity with South Asians. Um, but there's also differences being drawn because people like John Dickinson, who's famous in um the American context for his letters from a Pennsylvania farmer in the 1760s, um, writes his two letters on the TAX and says, you know, thank God we are not SE poison or maratas, but British subjects who know liberty well, right? And that is a kind of moment where the solidarity is undercut by these kind of exclusive, you know, racial, cultural, superiority kinds of tensions. And I think um that that continues to play out in a lot of different contexts. Um and Edinburgh was a way partly to get at those tensions and the sort of complications in that chapter around happiness. um but also to sort of think about um how looking in a comparative perspective helps us to see that what we take as an American move is not merely American. So yeah, you you say this chapter is called happiness. Yes. And happiness is probably the most single most famous word that is deployed in the Declaration of Independence because um >> I think you know >> what does it mean watching your team win the World Cup? Um >> having a great time at the beach. I mean surely this is happiness but that's not quite uh what >> Jefferson was looking at, was it? >> It's not quite. I mean and I think partly um you know in the 19th century it's kind of called a glittering generality that it's just you know vacuous and I think it's often people lose a sense of the importance of happiness as a kind of ideal and how that's changing in this period I think is partly about um thinking about both private happiness and sort of public happiness >> public happiness >> sort of social happiness that it allows and I defer to your classical knowledge um mine is limited but you know the idea of kind of human flourishing that's partly coming out of um this idea that people together in community can kind of build a social good that people have a sense of benevolence to different circles of their acquaintance that moves out from the domestic into a kind of general or global sense the idea of kind of being a citizen of the world rather than simply of a kind of location and that that's connected with this pursuit of happiness. Um but there is also that private aspect and I think that that's also um important and one of the ways that I try to sort of get at that is by thinking about um the sort of um making co-educational or sort of integrating women into um an Edinburgh debating society um which happens in 1775 and women don't debate but they do vote on the debates and their votes are recorded. And that's quite interesting kind of moment to think about that. >> And and you also introduced Phyllis Wheatley who I think is in the exhibition. >> She is in which is a beautiful thing to see. >> So just tell us about her because she's a fascinating figure. >> She is a fascinating figure. So Phyllis Wheatley is um uh she is taken in slavery from the West African coast. She is brought to Massachusetts on a ship called the Phyllis, which is why she ends up becoming called Phyllis Wheatley. She's bought by the Wheatley family and she ends up joining their kind of evangelical Christian circles and she is literate and she is a poet and she is a remarkable poet in that she is able actually to publish her poems partly with the help of the Wheatley's and sort of others. They ultimately manummit her. Um her poems are a transatlantic sensation and you can see in the exhibition here the frontest piece of that book and that beautiful book itself >> and it says it says that um that it was uh it was on board the ship where the tea gets chucked in the harbor. I mean that's that's a wonderful >> right kind of which is an amazing stance isn't it? >> Right. and um her sort of thoughtfulness about happiness of about her own ability to find and celebrate happiness um and freedom when she has so clearly experienced the opposite of those things um is really a remarkable feature and um it's something that I talk about in that chapter and I talk about her in in at other points too. Um, >> and so she was brought as a slave from West Africa >> to um >> to Massachusetts >> to Massachusetts, >> right? >> And the next chapter takes us to the kind of the dark heart of this Atlantic world which is the economies are powered by human enslaved labor. >> Absolutely. >> So you take us to a castle in Anomabu. Mhm. >> Um, so what is this castle in Anamabu? Why is it such a terrible place to be? >> It's a [clears throat] it's a trading castle, a British castle. A castle's bigger than a fort. Um, and actually they have, um, the maps here, the drawings um, here at the British Library of those different forts and castles in this mid- 18th century period. And omabo is actually um the sort of biggest um entropo for British slave trading out of West Africa in this period. It's being rebuilt in the same period. And I um I focus on a particular individual whom we know was there. He was brought to Newport, Rhode Island. Um, and like Phyllis Wheatley, whose name comes from her ship, his name, he's called Newport because he was brought to Newport, Rhode Island. Um, he is someone who lives in the household of a minister named Ezra Styles, who later becomes the president of Yale University. Um, who is um who buys him for a barrel of rum in the 1750s. and this kind of moment of um the stark reality of this really palpable and vicious slave system that is powering this economy so much. Um this is a moment where I I think about liberty and slavery >> because you are describing a number of of um slaves from Africa who've been taken then freed and who then become great [snorts] uh procilitizers for the abolition of slavery in London and Britain as well as in the United States. >> Yes. In in America. >> Yes. And partly I use Newport's story to sort of think about the complications. He experiences the American Revolution coming to New England living in the household as an enslaved young man. He also like Phyllis Wheatley becomes a Christian that's very important to him. But he also eventually persuades Ezra Styles to free him and he takes the name Freeman as his surname. Um, and this is a moment where, you know, the usual story is that the American Revolution sort of allow, you know, gives enslaved people a language and a way of sort of calling upon liberty and these other ideals of the revolution. But in fact, I try to sort of track some of those back to a West African um understanding to try to think about different ways what freedom meant or might have meant to people in sort of different ways >> and that feeds into the discourse in Britain which will ultimately lead to the kind of >> Yes. the growth of abolitionism. >> Yes. >> So it's >> in both. Yeah. It's it's it's important to the abolitionist movement as it starts to grow >> that >> people with experience of what the slave trade means, >> right, >> are around to to be explicit about it, >> right? And this transatlantic circle of abolition um is actually arguably in some ways delayed by the American Revolution because in fact people like Phyllis Wheatley her poems are you know celebrated in London. she has connections with others and in fact um there are is an argument to be made that in fact the revolution sort of fractures that world at least temporarily and makes it actually harder um for that sort of transatlantic abolitionist movement to take off though obviously it does eventually. >> So this is all very grim but then in chapter six a tremendous good news story which is the failure of Canada to rebel. Yeah. Yeah. This is great. It's a very cheering story. >> So, we're in Quebec. Pretty great. >> So, so, so tell us all about why Canada stayed. >> So, right now we we're all experiencing the terrible heat wave. Um, kind of the reverse in Canada in December of 1775. Um, and um, so if you could really use your imagination to be in that cold cold place. Um George Washington and others are aware that the terms of his soldiers expires at the end of the year. So choosing to besiege Quebec City in December of 1775 is not the wisest course of action, but is a sort of desperate act. um and the soldiers of the new Continental Army because fighting has begun in April of 1775, more than a year before the Declaration of Independence that we marked this year. Um this is a moment where we really um see the sort of um really um attempt to first persuade Canadians and then to conquer Canadians into really joining this rebellion. Um and it is a disaster. Um and the general Richard Montgomery is killed and um so are many other soldiers. a number taken as prisoners of war and it shows that really um the Continental Army needs help that they need supplies and that the best way to do it partly is to um declare independence and to really work very hard to getting an alliance with the French which obviously eventually they do succeed in doing. Um, but partly this sort of terrible catastrophe in Canada in December of 177 drives that >> is that Quebec is French-speaking. I mean, it's it it it has no obvious loyalty to the British crown whatsoever. But Britain has kind of played quite a smart game with with them. You've given them >> freedom to practice Catholicism and and all of that. And this to the kind of the hotter Protestants in New England is is offensive indeed. >> So adds to the >> Yes. So the Quebec Act of 1774 had done, you know, was a British policy to allow French Catholics to continue to practice Catholicism and to have some of their own laws kind of integrated into Canadian law. And that um is a process that these fierce Protestants but to people in 177475 it's much more seems much more likely the French Canadians will join this lower colonies rebellion. >> You would think so wouldn't you but >> and not at all that the French would join. So there's partly Canada's really important to sort of understanding a transformation that takes place in this period. >> Yeah. And it's a reminder again that this is not just about Britain and and the revolutionaries. It this is a proper world war. >> It is. >> And the next chapters you look at various parts of um Europe and um America where the um the the war of independence has a kind of reverberates. So you have um a village in Hessen Castle and >> this is uh you're talking about the famous Hessen mercenaries who are always the villains in uh >> Right. Right. And I try to sort of think about those um soldiers and their experience. Um I focus on one soldier in particular who wrote letters and happened to survive um pretty much the entire he fought through I think from 76 to 84 um and sent a lot of letters home. So we have a a sense of his trajectory. Um but I try to think about um this wider landscape of this global war and um the various participants who are sort of dragged into it often um many of whom these Hessian mercenaries as they're called in the colonies um are now states um they are you know um considered villains of this piece. But in fact, >> many of them are conscripted and some of them are even boys. Um, and I think if we think about that, it sort of changes our sense >> and lots of them settle in in um the many of them set off once the war is over. >> Yes. >> So now we come to the chief villains uh and we go to a hall in Versailles. >> Yeah. >> I mean, >> yes. Um, >> what are the French up to? >> Well, what's Benjamin Franklin? You have to know about Franklin >> with his ludicrous fur hat [laughter] >> in his little >> Yes. Um >> but it's so important, isn't it? Because you make the basically this point that what Franklin is doing there isn't just kind of getting the financial aid and the military aid >> that will enable um Britain to be defeated, but but the recognition that his presence there and his kind of being honored as an ambassador and then securing France's entry into the war. It's it's recognizing the American republic. >> And of course, Versailles is the home of European monarchical absolutism, >> right? So, it's a crazy thing. I mean, it's a it's a completely counterintuitive alliance. And I think, you know, it's very easy because subsequent events and, you know, the Statue of Liberty and all that, >> but also I remember going to Liberty Hall in Philadelphia >> and they've got pictures of um Louis V 16th and Marian Twinette. I see what >> I know, right? It's >> because you know in in the shrine to a Republican revolution, >> you don't expect to see Marian Twinette there. >> No, you do not. Um so I think you know partly explaining that alliance is quite important and um the sort of real efforts that Americans put into it but also how unnatural that's a word that's frequently used it it seems to many people um and I think you know sort of recapturing that sense of things is important. So um so so vers from Versailles >> this you know the the the greatest palatial complex um of any Atlantic power >> you then go to a cornfield >> um beyond the Appalachian mountains again >> and this is kind of tying in with what's been happening in India where starvation has become a kind of tool of policy >> and this time it's the Americans who are practicing it because what whose cornfield is it and why does it matter? So it's what is called the six nations confederacy, the Hodeni people of that area who are among the most powerful native nations um in the 17th and 18th century and um they are um the they become um targets for a a war of um real decimation and a decision to really um burn down the houses and fields of these people in 1779 under George Washington. And um I focus on a woman who's left or I believe chooses to stay behind to meet these incoming um Continental Army when the rest of the Hodeni have fled um north to Canada and elsewhere um to avoid the this Continental Army surge. Um and that does lead to the decimation and really the starvation of um a lot of people. Um and I I try to think about the effects of that um moment on um this larger event and the ways that this long war of settler conquest um connects with this American Revolutionary War. And again, it's not an obvious story of liberty or progress. It's a much darker story. >> Yeah. And and I mean, it's you told Six Nations. >> Um this isn't rugby. This is not rugby. This is um not rugby. This is this is this is a kind of union. >> But it's it's it's a kind of Native American union, >> but it is a kind of counterpoint to the union that is being forged on the Atlantic seabboard. And then um moving towards the end now, but you then move in on the power, the Atlantic power who is so often left out of this story and that is Spain >> because of course Spain enters the war uh with France against Britain. >> And Spain is a massive American power. It's got all these kind of colonies that are the legacy of the the the concistadors. And you you look at Gibraltar, >> which I'm delighted to say holds out against the Spanish attempt to seize it back. It does. And it's a kind of amazing illustration, extraordinary story of British resilience that they they are able to hold out. >> It's the longest siege in British history. >> Kind of incredible story >> and the largest action of the whole Revolutionary War. >> Yeah. Which is so often forgotten. >> Absolutely. Who thinks about Jibralar with the when you think about the American Revolution? >> Well, I do. Um, I mean, maybe you do. Maybe you do. And actually, um, one of the things that helped me see it more clearly was actually, um, an amazing multi-olume diary of a soldier who was stationed in Jibralter that's held here at the British Library. Um, but partly I I came to realize just what an extraordinary an extraordinarily important place it was to this event. Um and you know the British had actually been offered by the Spanish. The Spanish offered um neutrality earlier if the British would give back Gibralar which they would not do. And that is partly why the Spanish joined this alliance. Yeah. And with devastating consequences because they managed to conquer Pensacola in Florida's in the Florida. And um they are absolute lynchpins to um what ends up being the surrender of Cornwall Cornwallis in not Cornwall Cornwallis um at Yorktown in Virginia in 1781 which is effectively when the 13 colonies are lost. The Spanish are very important to that story. >> Yeah. And and so you you you you we moved from Gibral to Savannah, >> Cuba, which is still very much a Spanish possession. >> And it's a reminder that um >> of I suppose of of of those >> countries that in due course are going to follow the American example and rebel against the imperial European power. >> Um and I suppose you don't really touch on it in the in the book, but it's implicit. To what extent is the American Revolution exceptional and to what extent is it establishing a template that countries in Central America and South America will follow? Yes, I mean certainly, you know, there are these connections to be drawn, but I also think it's important to flag that um there are a lot of um people part of the Borbin reforms of the Spanish Empire who are very energetic, organiz organized, um really working hard to shore up Spanish power in in complicated and interesting ways and actually doing a very good job. Well, I mean, you know, it's the British who losing their American colonies, not not the Spanish. >> So, and that is obviously a key point. >> Yeah. [laughter] >> Right. >> And so, then finally, you have you have two chapters which kind of try to put this >> in context looking back, but also looking forward. So, you have a mansion in Guanggha, I hope I've pronounced that right, which is Canton. >> Yeah. Um and Canton is >> linked to America by all the kind of trade networks that the British in particular but not just the British are starting to establish and this is the tea and other such influence have been coming. >> Um and then you you you end with um a place that is quite prominent in the display in the um in the treasures gallery which is Sierra Leone. Mhm. Yes. Um and those are two places that um are after the event of the American Revolutionary War but become very important in that 1780s period. um which is partly to think about um this sort of desire for Americans to make these global connections themselves and that partly to shore up their own economy to be able to trade with places like China >> at war with the the the the barbar states don't they >> right they do not in the 70 but but yes in due course yes they do and that's partly coming out of this >> com really commercial des you know desire for global trade and the fact that the Americans feel un you know they're they're liberated from having to work under the eegis of the British Empire and that leads to these moments like the first American voyage to Guanjo in 1784 that is so important and Sierra Leon is a way to think about equality and its limitations and constraints um even in this new exciting moment um of new places like the United States, of new places like the Sierra Leone settlement that are um both, you know, seeking something better, seeking equality, but also very constrained by the worlds of slavery and the power of enslavers even as they push back against it. and just say one final thing that really struck me >> um >> that you didn't touch on >> but but it immediately came into my mind was Australia. I did I was originally going to include that >> because that I mean that's the furthest point imaginable but the whole process of you know the first fleet going to botney bay the convict colony >> but also the the the British desire to avoid a repeat of what had happened in America which makes Australia in the long run kind of a bit like America but also very different >> right um and but there's also a really um important set of connections And actually the material for them is here at the British Library too. Um which is that actually it's Australia comes into view as a convict colony because of a loyalist refugee who writes to the British government and says that he thinks it would be a great place for a loyalist colony. And that's where the idea of sort of setting it up as a colony comes from. Of course, the government then decides to move the convicts, which had been going to the North American colonies, 50,000 of them in the 18th century, >> moving it to Australia. So, there's a lot of important connections. That's what I also >> absolutely wonderful to know that that the British Library is the place where it some of these connections can be made. So, thank you um so much Sarah. Um could we have questions? We've got I think 20 minutes, 15 minutes. How long have we got? >> Uh let's have a look. Uh there's a gentleman here [clears throat] >> and stick your hands up if >> Yeah, please. >> And then lady there. >> So gentleman here and then the lady there. Great. >> Uh firstly, I'd like to say thank you so much for a wonderful talk. But my question is if it's an American revolution, why was it in British America and not Spanish America or French America or even Portuguese America? Why was it that these values and these thoughts came about in British America and not anywhere else? That's such a and good and difficult question to answer. Um I think that partly there is this um deep tradition on which um American rebels are drawing that is about the support of liberty in one way or another. that comes out of a kind of wigish um a sort of deep well of a a kind of wigish defense of liberty and a concern about oppression, tyranny, um all kinds of um ways in which that liberty is being constrained and I think that that is probably most welldeveloped >> do you think >> in the British tradition? I mean, it's sometimes said that that the um the American War of Independence is another stage in the Civil Wars of the 17th century that raged in >> Great Britain and Ireland. Do you think there's a kind of measure of truth in that that >> I think there is I mean I think there is a way in which th those exactly those kinds of debates of the 17th century that partly do lead to you know this sort of wig um idea of um the dangers of standing armies. the sort of concerns about that come out of that sort of broader set of revolutions, transformations including 1688 a kind of you know that's coming out of that 17th century tradition um that I think are probably most well-developed most articulated in the British tradition and I think that's one of the reasons um I think there's also a question about um the rising kind of prosperity and demographic strength of the British American colonies. That is a counterpoint especially to things like the French colonies which are are much um smaller, much um more challenged in a way to develop and that I think Yeah. Can I can I just in terms of the the the the British population >> of British America is larger >> than say the Spanish population when you think look at all the >> that I don't actually know for sure. >> You get that sense though, don't you? But there certainly was I mean certainly the British American colonies are growing quickly and everybody realizes that including Benjamin Franklin and that is a point of anxiety for the British that their colonies are thriving and they feel they are stagnating. They're not actually that's not a worry now. >> No, it's good that we're all Yeah, we can all not worry about that. I think >> and any who else would like to ask a question? >> Okay. Yes, a gentleman back there. [snorts] >> Thank you. Thanks for a lovely talk and I'm really excited to read the book. The connection you're making sound amazing. I actually wrote a play. I'm really happy that Phyllis is included. >> I wrote a play about her books being on board the Dartmouth during the Boston Tea Party. I was on in um the old south meeting house in um Boston and during that research I realized there were so many loyalists on the British side as well including the um I think the pastor of old north >> who was under house arrest so there are lots of interesting >> figures who weren't probially embraced by the British Americans not at all >> but I'm more interested as well in the idea of I think Gerald Horn the historian talked about 1776 six as you've intimated as a counterrevolution, >> you know, not in terms of it being >> um a real emancipatory moment. He says the 4th of July is the far of UI. What are your thoughts about it as a counterrevolution? I mean I think um it's a really interesting question and I think that partly um the you know the sort of notion that you know that Frederick Douglas also picks up in his amazing beautiful speech um on the 5th of July in 1852 really picks up those themes about you know what to the slave is the 4th of July um and I think you know that's part of the tension the contradictions that we've talked about um but I also think um I mean I actually came to be persuaded in writing this book that although I do think there's a a sort of larger story about a transatlantic and in that includes absolutely the West African kind of context um context for abolitionism that in some ways is fractured by the revolution I also feel that the revolution does start to help at least some people. Um, it sort of offers a slightly open door that they can push further on. And I think the fact that although it takes decades for full emancipation in New England to actually come to fruition, that it has its roots in this moment and in people like Newport Freeman and Phyllis Wheatley who really are pushing to say this is unacceptable. And I think that that is um something to be taken seriously and to see. But I think that the causality isn't that they see white patriots doing this thing and they say, "Hey, what about us?" I think it's that there's been a longstanding push um amongst enslaved people that, you know, comes to fruition in kind of new ways in this transformative [clears throat] moment. >> So, gentlemen in the back. >> Thanks. Um I just want to say first of all, thanks um so much Tom Sarah for this. It's been fantastic. And I've got to say Tom, big fan of the podcast. >> Bless you. Um a question I wanted to ask kind of in the light of like international global influence on like the um American Revolution in the light of also of course talking about the significance of Britain is we know that you know the original you know bill of rights came in 1688 1689 sorry and I wanted to kind of ask the impact that you think say that revolution um in the late 17th century and you know the James II and you know the kind of checks on, you know, the monarchy taking place in Britain in the late 17th century. How that kind of then influenced the um, you know, ideology and like underpinnings of the American Revolution. >> Um, that's a great question and I also am a fan of this podcast. Um, and I feel like it was it was really great because he was like, "How can I top interviewing Paul McCartney?" And he was like, "I know. I'll have Sarah Pawall come and talk." Um, so I I'm very flattered and delighted to be here. Um, I think, you know, partly going back to the other question that was asked about that sort of deep wig tradition and um, the sense that there there does need to be a bill of rights, that there does need to be limitations on monarchy. I think those are ideological inheritances that are supremely important and become even more important in this moment and in these various moments of um of sort of transformation. And I think as the British Empire is becoming um a more powerful um entity, especially after the Treaty of Paris in 1763, the end of the Seven Years War, that that really does um that really does amplify this sort of um sense of concerns about oppression and tyranny and um that that deep well of sort of traditions coming out of those 17th century moments are partly being uh you know kind of coming to fruition in this other late 18th century moment. So thank you good question. >> Um another gentleman there >> hi there. Thank you very much for the fantastic talk. Love the podcast. I was curious um what about the other Canadian colonies, the Atlantic colonies, PEI, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, etc. why don't they join the American Revolution and the like basically >> well that's a great question and partly that was something I was also interested in um trying to understand there are a lot of New England sort of um immigrants who were in Nova Scotia there are a lot of connections obviously the fisheries and so on um and partly what I came to realize was that sort of Canadian um aspect um is is partly down really to um I mean I would have to say American hubris and American um just fumbling um in that 177576 moment um because despite the fact of these overtures to French Canadians they they translate you know documents and they have them sent out in 1775 five Continental Congress does, they just don't succeed. And the attempted conquest of Quebec and the behavior of these malnourished, really kind of desperate Continental Army soldiers who are not behaving particularly well. Um, all of this leads to a real disaection with the sort of um idea of sort of allying with these more southern colonies, the Boston as they're called, right? They're all called Bostononians basically. Um, and that is a a kind of moment where I think there is really an interesting pivot and actually surprisingly understudied moment I would say. >> Let's have two more questions. Uh, it's gentleman up there. >> There was >> anyone on this side. Sorry. Just anyone on this side who wants to ask a question. Gentleman there. So this gentleman and this this gentleman >> what if is my question not uh not what if British Parliament had been more intelligent um uh and had withdrawn the Stamp Act again and just behaved more sensibly because that's probably too ridiculous. Um uh but what if the British had won? >> What would be the consequence then? I mean, um, [laughter] that's a great question. um and not one that we tend to you know get too deep down that rabbit hole but um partly I think that it is um possible to look at the other places that obviously didn't rebel um which would include Canada which would include the Caribbean um and you can see that what in fact developed ultimately was um were sovereign nations But it was a much slower process to get there. Um and of course um with a sort of different set of principles behind it. Um not a sort of set of principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Though some of those are also in play. Um but a less um sort of pounding about that idea of freedom. And I think, you know, we can sort of see other places where there's a different kind of um settlement that takes place. So I reckon that would be it would be a little closer to that, but it's a difficult one to disentangle from what did happen, right? Um >> I mean could I do you think there was any prospect that the British could win? I mean >> Oh, absolutely. It seems was in balance for a long time. They can capture they can capture the towns. >> And let me say in some ways they did because the most important the most lucrative colony was Jamaica and they successfully defended Jamaica from being invaded and from being conquered throughout this process. And that includes, you know, battles still going on in 1782 after Yorktown that are very important. They do succeed in keeping Quebec. They do succeed in keeping those Caribbean colonies. They do succeed in holding on to many places in India and West Africa. So in fact, it's a much more complicated story. You can feel pretty good. >> This is this is an explan which to this um >> there you go. >> This so gentleman here the last question. Great. Thanks. Um, so to what extent do you think the kind of typical understanding of the causes of the American Revolution influence American politics and how could today I mean and how could a more nuanced understanding more global understanding as you put forward in your book influence that understanding and politics today? Well, you know, part of the driver of um really wanting to um write this history of the American Revolution, and thank you for letting me answer this question, this good question. Um was to to re-energize this story. Um, a story that for many Americans became a kind of tired or kind of child childish one that they learn in school of these great heroic founding fathers that's now under all this other pressure of you know these very flawed founders. Um, and I think this global perspectives allows us to step a little bit away from that hero villain kind of way of thinking about it and to think about a much um wider set of ideals that is um undergoing change and that people are pushing in different ways. And I think, you know, I would like to hope that that would have an effect, but part of what I have really come to realize in talking about this book with both Americans and non US people is that um you know, we're we are in a moment of crisis about this American past and um and this American present and that that sense of our relations with the wider world are really vitally important and um and that you know to be a citizen of the world is absolutely an enduring and important value and one that I fear is not respected as it ought to be in my US. >> Well Sarah, thank you so much. So you can stop feeling as like a smug winner and feel depressed about the global order. [applause] Thank you so much. I knew it would be good. Uh but it was actually even better. Thank you so much, Tom and Sarah. Tom, I think you started off saying that the American Revolution is not really a focus of obsession for many British British people. I think it might be now for everybody in this room. And I have two solutions to that obsession. One is that all of you should come back to the British Library and visit the most wonderful treasures exhibition on the American Revolution which spans 250 years of history telling the story with manuscripts and maps and ephemera and amazing interpretive film. Uh it is free and fabulous and open until January, but it's not open tonight. So you can't solve your obsession tonight, but you can buy Sarah's book uh and read it this evening. And you can also satisfy your obsession for history by buying some of Tom's books. So this evening will end very well. Tom, thank you for steering a beautiful discussion. Sarah, thank you for your [applause] book. Thank you for being a wonderful Thank you. 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