A rising-star historian offers a significant new global perspective on
the Revolutionary War with the story of the conflict as seen through the
eyes of the outsiders of colonial society
Winner of the Journal of the American Revolution Book of the Year
Award - Winner of the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of New
Jersey History Prize - Finalist for the George Washington Book Prize
Over the last decade, award-winning historian Kathleen DuVal has
revitalized the study of early America's marginalized voices. Now, in
Independence Lost, she recounts an untold story as rich and
significant as that of the Founding Fathers: the history of the
Revolutionary Era as experienced by slaves, American Indians, women, and
British loyalists living on Florida's Gulf Coast.
While citizens of the thirteen rebelling colonies came to blows with the
British Empire over tariffs and parliamentary representation, the
situation on the rest of the continent was even more fraught. In the
Gulf of Mexico, Spanish forces clashed with Britain's strained army to
carve up the Gulf Coast, as both sides competed for allegiances with the
powerful Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Creek nations who inhabited the region.
Meanwhile, African American slaves had little control over their own
lives, but some individuals found opportunities to expand their freedoms
during the war.
Independence Lost reveals that individual motives counted as much as
the ideals of liberty and freedom the Founders espoused: Independence
had a personal as well as national meaning, and the choices made by
people living outside the colonies were of critical importance to the
war's outcome. DuVal introduces us to the Mobile slave Petit Jean, who
organized militias to fight the British at sea; the Chickasaw diplomat
Payamataha, who worked to keep his people out of war; New Orleans
merchant Oliver Pollock and his wife, Margaret O'Brien Pollock, who
risked their own wealth to organize funds and garner Spanish support for
the American Revolution; the half-Scottish-Creek leader Alexander
McGillivray, who fought to protect indigenous interests from European
imperial encroachment; the Cajun refugee Amand Broussard, who spent a
lifetime in conflict with the British; and Scottish loyalists James and
Isabella Bruce, whose work on behalf of the British Empire placed them
in grave danger. Their lives illuminate the fateful events that took
place along the Gulf of Mexico and, in the process, changed the history
of North America itself.
Adding new depth and moral complexity, Kathleen DuVal reinvigorates the
story of the American Revolution. Independence Lost is a bold work
that fully establishes the reputation of a historian who is already
regarded as one of her generation's best.
Praise for Independence Lost
"[An] astonishing story . . . Independence Lost will knock your
socks off. To read [this book] is to see that the task of recovering
the entire American Revolution has barely begun."--The New York Times
Book Review
"A richly documented and compelling account."--The Wall Street
Journal
"A remarkable, necessary--and entirely new--book about the American
Revolution."--The Daily Beast
"A completely new take on the American Revolution, rife with pathos,
double-dealing, and intrigue."--Elizabeth A. Fenn, Pulitzer
Prize-winning author of Encounters at the Heart of the World
