wood radicalism of the american revolution

They don’t know their future any more than we know our future, and so many of them thought that slavery would die away, and at first there was considerable evidence that that was indeed the case.Īt the time of the Revolution, the Virginians had more slaves than they knew what to do with, so they were eager to end the international slave trade. We know how the story turned out, and we somehow assume they should know what we know, but they don’t, of course. One of the big lessons of history is to realize how the past doesn’t know its future. But they lived with illusions and were so wrong about so many things. Now we know they couldn’t have been more wrong. You can find quotation after quotation from people seriously thinking that slavery was going to wither away in several decades. One of the things that I have emphasized in my writing is how many southerners and northerners in 1776 thought slavery was on its last legs and that it would naturally die away.

Can you discuss the relationship between the American Revolution and the institution of slavery?Ī. I read the Jim McPherson interview and he was just as surprised as I was. None of the leading scholars of the whole period from the Revolution to the Civil War, as far I know, have been consulted. Yet you are certainly one of the foremost authorities on the American Revolution, which the 1619 Project trains much of its fire on.Ī. I want to return to the question of slavery and the American Revolution, but first I wanted to follow up, because you said you were not approached. I was surprised, as many other people were, by the scope of this thing, especially since it’s going to become the basis for high school education and has the authority of the New York Times behind it, and yet it is so wrong in so many ways.

This made the American Revolution out to be like the Civil War, where the South seceded to save and protect slavery, and that the Americans 70 years earlier revolted to protect their institution of slavery.

She claims the British were on the warpath against the slave trade and slavery and that rebellion was the only hope for American slavery. I read the first essay by Nikole Hannah-Jones, which alleges that the Revolution occurred primarily because of the Americans’ desire to save their slaves.

Well, I was surprised when I opened my Sunday New York Times in August and found the magazine containing the project. Let me begin by asking you your initial reaction to the 1619 Project. Historian Gordan Wood speaks with WSWS about American Revolution and the NYT 1619 Project

Wood radicalism of the american revolution