On 1619 and Woody Holton’s Account of Slavery and the Independence Movement: Six Historians Respond
by Carol Berkin, Richard D. Brown, Jane E. Calvert, Joseph J. Ellis, Jack N. Rakove, Gordon S. Wood
In July 2021, Professor Woody Holton claimed in the Washington Post that until 1775, most White Americans had shown little interest in independence. He went on to argue that the break from Britain was strongly motivated by the November 1775 proclamation of Lord Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia, which called on Blacks enslaved by patriot colonists to flee and join the Crown and fight for their freedom. Roughly 300 out of 300,000 slaves in Virginia joined Dunmore’s “Ethiopian Regiment.” Professor Holton says that “Whites’ fury at the British for casting their lot with enslaved people drove many to the fateful step of endorsing independence.”
Holton and the 1619 Project
With this account Professor Holton supports the argument of the 1619 Project of the New York Times. This project aims “to reframe American history by considering what it would mean to regard 1619 as our nation’s birth year.” Doing so, the Times said, would commence a revision that, in fact, Black and White historians have been pursuing for decades, putting “slavery and the contribution of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are as a country.” The Times presents a very particular version of that history, which it has offered to schools throughout the nation.
A central claim in the 1619 Project’s attempted reframing is that the colonists (subsequently altered to “some of the colonists”) sought to declare independence because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery. Professor Holton’s essay seeks to bolster that unusual claim. Although Dunmore certainly infuriated some planters and emboldened some enslaved persons, his proclamation emphatically did not convince Virginia to break from the British Empire. By November 1775 Virginia, like most of the other colonies, had already radically moved toward virtual independence from British authority. Dunmore issued his proclamation motivated by military desperation, not abolitionist ideals. By November 1775 his authority, like that of nearly all royal governors, had been usurped by local patriot revolutionary committees.
By November 1775 Virginia, like most of the other colonies, had already radically moved toward virtual independence from British authority. Dunmore issued his proclamation motivated by military desperation, not abolitionist ideals.
In 1774, the colonists had already become effectively independent of British authority, as former American Historical Association president Mary Beth Norton exhaustively demonstrates in her recent book on that fateful year. It was Parliament’s extraordinary series of Coercive Acts punishing the colony of Massachusetts for the December 1773 Boston Tea Party that clinched the case for eventual independence. This repressive legislation, which the colonists regarded as “intolerable,” closed the port of Boston and took several dramatic steps to expand royal power in the colony.
The Colonies Move toward Independence
The reaction of Virginia leaders was instantaneous and uniform in support of Massachusetts. In effect, they said, if Britain can punish Massachusetts this way, it can do the same to any colony. From that moment in 1774, Virginia and virtually every other mainland colony joined in rebellion, heading swiftly toward formal independence.
In April 1775, actual warfare between the colonists and the British military broke out at Lexington and Concord. In response, the Second Continental Congress appointed George Washington commander-in-chief of the patriot army and authorized an invasion of Canada. In August 1775, the king declared the colonists in open rebellion. Dunmore’s Proclamation three months later launched nothing; rather it sought to crush a movement already well underway.
The Somerset Decision
Professor Holton also mentions the Somerset decision of 1772 as an event that frightened planters, although he doesn’t develop the point. Nor should he have tried, because the Somerset decision by Lord Mansfield freed only a single slave who had been brought to England from America, on the grounds that no English law supported slavery. Mansfield’s narrowly framed decision did not apply to any of Britain’s colonies. Although British planters in the West Indies were alarmed, even writing pamphlets about the decision, mainland planters largely ignored it, as Holton’s evidence actually affirms. A Virginia newspaper did take note, but only to mock the ruling.
None of Virginia’s leaders cited Somerset in a diary or correspondence — not Washington, not Jefferson, nor any of the others. One group of North Americans did pay close attention: free and enslaved Blacks in Massachusetts, who used Somerset effectively to advance their antislavery efforts.
In the absence of the Somerset decision or Dunmore’s proclamation, the colonists still would have declared their independence on July 4, 1776. Indeed, by claiming in 1774, as they did relentlessly, that they were independent of Parliament, the patriot Americans were already in rebellion. According to British officials, the colonists’ defiance of Parliament was in itself revolutionary.
The Revolution Was a Complicated Event
The Revolution was a complicated event, subject to different interpretations; but the idea that the colonists — or even, in the Times’s amended version, “some of the colonists” — revolted in order to protect slavery is beyond farfetched.
Why should all these long-ago facts matter today? Historians forcefully emphasize the fundamental importance of slavery to American history and the Revolution, including the compliance with slavery at the Federal Convention in 1787. Yet the Revolution also became a major event in the history of antislavery in the Western world. Not only did the first society with antislavery aims in modern history originate in Revolutionary Philadelphia in 1775, but during the war some northern states became the first slave-holding political entities in world history to abolish slavery by law. Blacks, enslaved and free, were crucial leaders and actors in these antislavery movements. But no one then believed the colonists precipitated the Revolution out of fear that Britain was going to free the slaves in its empire; and no one should believe it now.
Blacks, enslaved and free, were crucial leaders and actors in these antislavery movements. But no one then believed the colonists precipitated the Revolution out of fear that Britain was going to free the slaves in its empire; and no one should believe it now.
We share the concerns that motivated Professor Holton’s essay and the 1619 Project of the New York Times that he seeks to support. All Americans should know about the forced arrival in Virginia of twenty Africans in 1619. Yet that fact, although profoundly significant for later developments, does not make 1619 the birth year of the nation.
Like Professor Holton and the New York Times, we believe in social justice, but not at the expense of historical truth. Distorting history in the hope of achieving justice cannot bring justice, but it can harm every American, Black and White.
We believe in social justice, but not at the expense of historical truth. Distorting history in the hope of achieving justice cannot bring justice, but it can harm every American, Black and White.
The nation’s founding, beginning in 1776, has a special significance for all Americans. As Abraham Lincoln recognized and Frederick Douglass came to appreciate fully, the founding and its documents, especially the Declaration of Independence, are among the most vital adhesives that hold the diverse American people together, amid the continuing struggles to redeem the principles those documents express. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. knew that, too. An accurate understanding of the history of the founding must be our goal.
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Carol Berkin, Baruch Presidential Professor of History, City University of New York
Richard D. Brown, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of History, Emeritus, University of Connecticut
Jane E. Calvert, Associate Professor of History, University of Kentucky, and Director/Editor, the John Dickinson Writings Project
Joseph J. Ellis, Professor of History, Emeritus, Mount Holyoke College
Jack N. Rakove, William Robertson Coe Professor of History and American Studies and Professor of Political Science, Emeritus, Stanford University
Gordon S. Wood, Alva O. Way University Professor and Professor of History, Emeritus, Brown University
