Forced Founder: Indians, Debtors, Slaves & the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia

In his book Forced Founder: Indians, Debtors, Slaves & the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia historian Woody Holton answers the question of why the Virginia gentry declared independence and challenges the notion that they sought to join the movement for independence from Britain in a confident act of defiance based on their control of the colony’s affairs, leading the common man into the American Revolution.   Holton argues that because the Virginia gentlemen doubted their ability to maintain firm control over the affairs of the colony, it was the actions and the desires of the common man and the dealings with the small farmers, the British merchants, the Indians, and the slaves in the Virginia colony that were influential in pressuring the Virginia gentry towards rebellion.   In fact, the author infers that the steps that Virginia’s founding fathers took that led Virginia into the American Revolution were not majority acts of confidence and optimism, but instead were better characterized as “desperate measures” that were more strongly influenced by social and economic conflict that was taking place in the Virginia colony between the elites (the gentry) and the non-elites (all others to include Indians and slaves).  
Part One of Founding Fathers is titled “Grievances” and includes the first two chapters.   In chapter one the author examines the effect that land grievances had in steering the Virginia gentry towards declaring Independence.   Central to the argument are the reactions of the colonials and the Indians to Proclamation of 1763 and the Quebec Act, which severely limited the access colonials had to lands west of the Appalachian Mountains.   Holton points out that both acts of legislation by Parliament were in the interest of the colonies in that they would serve to protect the colonials from Indian aggression and to shorten the borders of the Virginia colony.   Speculators and the gentry’s major complaint concerning both acts of legislature was...