Slavery and the American Revolution
The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America

http://www.solidarity-us.org/site/node/4502
Date Written:  2015-09-01
Publisher:  Against the Current
Year Published:  2015
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX21286

Book review of Gerald Horne's The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

The British responded to the Spanish and French attacks without using armed Africans by developing the construct of "whiteness." The state of Georgia was created to be a "white" buffer between South Carolina, with its Black majority, and Spanish Florida. The category of white­ness was expanded to include Eastern Europeans, Italians, French, Germans, etc.

Horne argues that this policy effectively created the first apartheid state, as white settlers received land stolen from the indigenous people and worked by enslaved Africans, while enjoying civil and political rights that were denied to all those outside the category of white. The legacy of this policy is still felt heavily throughout U.S. society.