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The Not-So-Ideological Origins of the American Revolution in Virginia

In the title and the text of Forced Founders, Woody Holton assumes a consensus among his readers about the meaning of "founders" and about the secondary role of non-elites in American history. Despite the title intimating that Indians, slaves, and poor whites will be portrayed as "founders" of the American nation, the book actually presents prominent and wealthy Virginians as the key actors whose formal declaration of independence--"the most important decision white Americans ever made" (p. 38)-constituted the real "founding." Holton's principal focus is not the ordinary people who "forced" elites to declare independence, but rather the Virginia gentry themselves, whose private correspondence formed the study's base of evidence. In Holton's view, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and other elites resorted to independence out of desperation to preserve their place at the top of Virginia's hierarchy. More illuminating as a title, perhaps, is that of the dissertation from which the book was drawn: "The Revolt of the Ruling Class."